This is my recipe for Gigantes, aka Greek Giant Beans. I added some vegan sausage for extra protein. This is a perfect vegetarian dish and is so easy to make.
Today we’ll be making Greek gigandas. And these are giant beans. So we’ll need to start off by soaking them in some water overnight. And what you want to do is completely submerge them in water. So don’t be afraid to use a ton of it because these beans are going to soak it all up. Wait till you see how much they grow overnight. So, now that these beans have been soaking in water all night, you can see how much they’ve grown. Look at that. That’s a big size bean, isn’t it? So, now we’re going to preheat our oven to 300° F. So, go ahead and get that started. Now, we’re going to strain the water out from the beans, and we’re going to add them right into our Dutch oven. Now, we’re going to add some vegetable stock to the beans. And we want to completely submerge them in the liquid. Don’t worry because this will reduce down. Next, you’re going to add one heaping spoonful of tomato paste. So, get that tomato paste in there. And now, you’re going to go ahead and give it a stir so that it’s all nicely incorporated. You don’t want to see any of the paste. Now, of course, we have to season our beans. So, go ahead and add plenty of salt. You’ll probably need more than you think you do because these beans are going to soak it all up. You’re also going to go ahead and add some dried parsley, but you can choose another herb if you wish. We just like parsley. And we’ll do some black pepper as well. Put a lot of it because it will get diluted in the liquid. We’re also going to add some thyme. We’ve got some dried thyme here. That’s going to go in very, very nicely. And it wouldn’t be a Greek dish if we didn’t put lots of oregano. So, go ahead and add your dried oregano right into the Dutch oven. So, now that we have our dried herbs, you’re just going to stir it around. Make sure that they’re submerged in the liquid because you don’t want them to burn in the oven. And now you can go ahead and add some peeled garlic. This will give it some nice flavor. And we’re also going to add some cut up onions. Don’t worry if they’re still stuck together because they will separate once they’re in the oven. Now you’re going to cover your Dutch oven because it’s ready to go in the oven. So grab it and stick it in there. Make sure it’s nice on the middle rack and has plenty of room. So after about an hour in the oven, we’re going to see what it looks like. And as we open it up, we see that it looks like this. So now what we need to do is stir it around. So we’re going to go ahead and give it a nice quick stir. and make sure that these beans are more incorporated. [Music] But before we stick it back in, we’re going to add some olive oil. This will give it a nice richer flavor and make it a little bit more decadent. It’s going to have a nice creamy, silky texture. [Music] So now we’re going to cover it and we’re going to stick it right back in the oven. But in the meantime, I’ve got some vegan sausage here because we’re going to add the sausage at the end. So just go ahead and put it in a small Pyrex. We can add a little bit of olive oil to the top. And now you’ll see what I’m going to do. I am going to massage the olive oil right into the sausage. Make sure you cover it all. This way it will cook nice and evenly in the oven. So once that’s ready, we’re just going to stick our Pyrex into the oven right next to our Dutch oven. And after about 30 or so minutes, your sausage should look like this. And after 3 hours in the oven, the giant beans turned out like this. Look at that. All of that liquid got reduced. Let’s give it a quick stir. There is still some liquid at the bottom, but that’s okay because that is going to get incorporated into the rest of the beans. And you do want to taste it and make sure that it’s fully cooked and not mealy or anything like that. But we are not done yet because this would not be a true Greek dish without lots of feta cheese. So get a really good feta cheese and put it right on top. Now you’re going to want to mix the cheese around. Make sure that it’s in every nook and cranny in all the crevices because you want a nice piece of feta cheese with every bite. And once you’re finished mixing it, this is what it looks like. Look at that. You’ve got your delicious giant beans with the feta cheese and our sauce and these delicious sausages with it. What an excellent healthy meal.
Dining and Cooking