Viral TikTok recipe for air fryer green beans is wildly simple and tasty

There is nothing sexy about green beans. I'd argue is pretty weird to call any food sexy, to be honest, but you get my point. Greens beans are not a food the inspires oohs and ahhs. They're there and they're fine.

So that's why I was kind of shocked to see a viral TikTok recipe for air frying greens beans because, well, how would green beans go viral? But there it was, @keto.queen's video with more than 19 million views. Nineteen freaking million! That's VIRAL viral. It seemed like a natural recipe to test on AirFryDay, since so many people were interested in it.

We'll go into further detail below but the TL;DR: It was a delicious and easy method for making green beans.

Ingredients

• Green beans

• Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and honestly whatever spices you prefer

• Grated parmesan cheese

• Oil or nonstick spray

Directions

1. Snap or cut the ends off your green beans.

2. Dump the beans in your air fryer basket.

3. Spray the green beans with oil. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.

4. Air fry at 400 degrees for six minutes.

5. After six minutes, shake the basket to move the green beans around then spray once more with oil.

6. Top the beans generously with grated parmesan.

7. Air fry for five minutes at 400 degrees. Enjoy.

Here's what @keto.queen's process looked like.

Air-fried green beans are pretty delicious. Credit: Screenshots: TikTok / @keto.queen

The details

A confession: I knew I'd like this recipe pretty much from the outset. I once wrote at Mashable that air frying vegetables on high heat is the absolute best way to utilize an air fryer. It's the perfect tool for roasting veggies, so I suspected the green beans would turn out well. I wasn't disappointed.

This recipe is difficult to screw up. I also love that it's all done inside the air fryer basket. That leaves you with the absolute minimum amount of cleanup. Wash your basket and you're done.

Now for a few tips. First, you can season your green beans with whatever you like. I didn't have onion powder on hand, so I used everything in the recipe but that and, guess what, they turned out fine. I think you could mix in any of your favorite spices. Personally, I love heat, so next time I'd likely throw in some cayenne or red pepper flakes.

Also, you probably will not need the full 11 minutes of cook time. My green beans were nicely charred after the first six minutes, right as I went to add the parmesan. They were pretty much done.

My green beans were fully cooked after just six minutes of active cooking time. Credit: Mashable

So, from there, all I did was give the beans a hefty shake of parm and cook them a little more. There's no need to go fancy with the cheese. The video from @keto.queen used the stuff you get out of a plastic shaker bottle. I copied that and it was fine.

Since my beans were pretty cooked after just six minutes, I let them cook for just a minute or two further basically to let the cheese melt and adhere to the beans. Then I shook it up and ate.

The verdict: It was good. The beans get a nice char in the air fryer which, in my opinion, is far more pleasant to eat than a steamed or pan-fried version of the same thing. Green beans are often floppy and wilted, but the crispy, salty, charred final product from @keto.queen's recipe are almost craveable. Here's a picture of the exterior of the beans, which was nice and crunchy.

Crispy beans, in just a few minutes. Credit: Mashable

With the holidays upon us, I could see this being a super easy side dish that saves space in your oven and on your stovetop. In about ten minutes you have a crowd-pleasing, fresh and tasty veggie. It's hard to beat that. I can see why so many people watched the original video.