Fry bodi is a simple breakfast side dish made with asparagus (or long) beans.

It goes well with other Trini breakfast favorites like sada roti, tomato choka, and fry aloo.

Here’s a simple recipe for fry bodi.

What is in this fry bodi recipe

For this recipe, you will need:

bodi (also called asparagus beans, long beans, bora and snake beans)
onion
garlic
Caribbean green seasoning with chadon beni leaves, garlic and pepper
salt
pepper
oil

Optional ingredients can include:

tomato
potato

It is common to find tomatoes in fry bodi but if you are not a fan, you can leave them out. I used them here.

Grow your own ingredients

If you are into gardening, be sure to plant your own bodi, tomatoes, chadon beni, and pepper plants. This will offset your market and grocery bills in these trying times and you’ll have your own homegrown, organic produce.

Bodi needs a place to vine and one plant will produce enough bodi for you, your family, friends, neighbors, birds, lizards, random iguanas and more.

The bodi I’m using here is from my mother-in-law’s plant. I think she’s fed up eating bodi now because the plant provides enough bundles of bodi per week to feed many households.

Tomatoes are a little trickier to grow (at least for me).

They prefer hot, dry weather versus thunderstorms. That’s why they’re cheaper during the dry season and very expensive when it is rainy.

As for chadon beni and pepper, they need very little care to grow.

Chadon beni loves shady areas and will produce huge leaves once watered and fertilized. Be sure to cut the flowering stem off because this prevents the plant from concentrating on the leaves.

As long as you can protect your peppers from the pesky birds, you will have lots of peppers for all your meals. I have chili, cherry and pimento peppers in my garden and use them in my green seasoning.

Oh and peppers are very easy to grow from the seeds. Just plant ripe, red peppers and watch lots of seedlings sprout! So, you don’t even have to purchase plants and you can give some seedlings away to family and friends.

Surely you can try these simple ways to reduce your food cost!

How to make fry bodi

Prep the ingredients

Step 1: Wash and chop the onions and pepper. Grate the garlic and grind your green seasoning. When I made this recipe, I added the garlic and pepper to the seasoning directly but you can use them separately. I used a tomato in this recipe so I washed and diced it.

Step 2: Wash the bodi and remove any discolored sections. Cut off the ends and break the bodi into two inch pieces.

That’s it for prep.

Saute the onions and seasoning

Step 3: Place a small pot on medium heat. Add enough oil to coat the pot. When the oil is nice and hot, add the onions and saute until translucent. This can take about two minutes.

Step 4: Next, add the garlic, chopped pepper and green seasoning. Stir for another minute or so.

Add the main ingredients

Step 5: Mix in the chopped bodi pieces. Add salt and the diced tomatoes. Stir and cover the pot for 5 minutes or so. Make sure the onions and bodi are not sticking to the base of the pot. If they do, add a tablespoon or two of water to prevent that.

Step 6: Stir and cover for another 5 minutes.

Step 7: Remove the cover. Cook the bodi until it has softened – it often turns from a bright green to a more olive green color. This can take about 5 minutes. Sorry the image is a little fuzzy here:

Remove from the heat and serve with sada roti and your favorite sides for breakfast or lunch.

More recipes

baigan choka featured image — Baigan choka

tomato choka featured image — Tomato choka

Fry bodi recipe

Print Recipe