Tiny French Beans with Smoked Sausage

Horrible. I wish I'd read the reviews before I wasted my heirloom flageolets. The sausage was good (I used a beef sausage), but the beans were like little crunchy nuggets and all was burned to the sides of the crockpot. Eight hours is way too much time. Yuck.

I made this a little differently, but it turned out well. I used small red beans, HSF turkey kilbasa, a bit more celery seed and thyme, and Knorr chicken stock tub instead of broth. Took the full cooking time and was pretty good overall. No issues with meat texture, beans where still slightly firm after 7 hours, still some broth left. I am thinking this would be better with a white bean though so next time I will go that direction.

You must use a high quality sausage for this, and you must brown it thoroughly before adding to the crock. Also recommended is home made poultry stock, I've made this with both chicken and turkey and the mouth feel is incredible. I've made this multiple times, and I have also experienced the mushy sausage issue, but I just go with linguica and brown it as much as I can. I use dried herbs for convenience sake and it's still great. I also recommend throwing a generous handful of chopped parsley in at the end, or a chopped head of escarole a few minutes before serving. Kale would also work well too.

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I used a chicken pesto sausage and thought it was delicious. I agree that it's not really a soup - more of a hearty bean dish.

I definitely think calling this "soup" is an big overstatement. It's more like just beans & sausage. I cooked this for about 6 hours which was plenty of time... The sausage itself had no flavor at all.. The beans were alright but sorta mushy. Took some leftovers to work the next day & they were even worse. Will not attempt this recipe again.

Overall pretty blah, bland and boring. I agree with a previous poster that traditional franks and beans would have been better. That being said, I think this recipe has some potential - perhaps a more flavorful sausage, or additional herbs. But this isn't a recipe I'm in a hurry to try again.

I cooked this as directed and thought the flavor and texture were AWFUL. I couldn't even serve it to my family.

Decent, but eight hours in a slow cooker is way too long. Try six hours, if you don't want mushy beans. Other than that, a solid recipe.

my husband LOVES this dish! we're always looking for good slow-cooker recipes for the fall and winter months, and this one is great. the fresh thyme adds a wonderful flavor. we love it with cornbread.