Green Beans in Creamy Parmesan Sauce - with bacon!

1. Lower fat alternatives - evaporated milk or light cream. If sauce is too thin for your taste at the end, then dissolve 1 teaspoon cornflour/cornstarch in 2 tsp water and stir that in.

2. Bacon into cold pan - bacon fat renders out better (ie melts) if you start with a cold pan because the fat starts to melt as the skillet heats up. This means you don't need any extra fat to cook the bacon. In contrast, if you use a preheated skillet, you will need a bit of fat so the bacon doesn't stick when you first add it (bacon fat does get released, it just works better starting with cold pan).

3. Pan lid - pictured lid in video isn't made for the skillet used. Just use any lid around the size of the skillet, doesn't matter if some steam escapes. More suggestions: baking tray, foil.

4. Sauce thickness- it gets thicker once it cools a bit. I like the sauce to be syrupy so it doesn't stick to the beans thickly which I find a bit too rich for my taste. But if you want the sauce to coat the beans thoroughly, just simmer the cream sauce for another 1 - 2 minutes. You can make it so thick that the beans are literally completely covered in the sauce.

5. Nutrition per serving, assuming 5 servings and no bacon fat is discarded. If you use turkey bacon and low fat cream, it reduces to 232 calories per serving.