Roasted Green Beans, Onions, and Garlic with Balsamic Vinegar

This roasted green bean recipe is one of my family's all time favorites. It's wicked easy to toss together and tastes amazing. It's a great side dish; I love to pair it with roasted potatoes and a veggie burger. And it's also a great dish to bring to parties because you can really eat it with anything.

And what is really awesome about it, is you don't need your green beans to be absolutely perfectly fresh. Often when using green beans, whether steaming, blanching, eating fresh, or whatever else you might like to do with them, you probably want to use them within a day or two of buying them. Seriously, they really don't keep all that well. But, because with this recipe, because they get baked for half an hour, you can use green beans you've had sitting around for a few days (just remove any icky ends).

Hopefully I'll get a picture posted soon, because they come out real pretty (another reason to bring them to a potluck). I just need to find some time to get to the grocery store.

FYI: I serve them hot, but they're also awesome room temperature and cold. On the rare occasion that there are leftovers, I don't bother to heat them up.

Roasted Green Beans, Onions, and Garlic with Balsamic Vinegar
1 lb green beans - washed, trim off any icky or dry ends, and dry off excess water
1 onion - sliced into half rings
4 - 6 cloves garlic - pealed and sliced
3 T olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

1 - 2 T balsamic vinegar
generous grinding of black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400 bake.
2. Clean the green beans, peal and slice the onions and garlic.
3. Put green beans, onions, garlic, salt, and oil on a baking tray, and mix them around, coating everything in the oil.
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes, mixing around occasionally. Taste to see if you like the balance of soft and crunchy
5. When you like what you've got, transfer them to a bowl and toss with vinegar and pepper.