3 Amazing Green Bean Recipes

pickled green beans

It’s green bean season! And I’m sharing my three favorite green bean recipes.

Green Beans with Butter and Garlic

Cook in a small amount of water, and when they’re crisp-tender, drain off the water, and add a couple tablespoons of butter. If you’re a garlic fan, crush a couple cloves or garlic and add to the pan. Salt to taste, and add a healthy dose of freshly ground black pepper.

Asian Sesame Green Beans

For an Asian side dish, I love stir-fried green beans. Put 2 tablespoons unrefined, toasted sesame oil in a wok or large cast iron skillet, then add the green beans. Stir fry about five minutes, then add two or three cloves of freshly crushed garlic, as well as 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper and 2 tablespoons soy sauce or coconut aminos. Salt to taste. This actually tastes great cold, so there’s no need to reheat this if you have left-overs.

Pickled Green Beans

When we have more green beans that we could possibly eat in the next few days, we love to can pickled green beans. Why pickled? Since green beans are naturally low acid, they have to be pressure canned unless you add acid to them. Because my children didn’t like the mushy green beans that result when pressure canning, I had to find another way to preserve the harvest. Pickled green beans use vinegar, so it’s safe to use water bath canning, which takes far less time, so the beans stay crunchy.

pickled green beans

Pickled Green Beans Recipe

You can pickle almost any vegetable. I wonder how pickled cucumbers became known as the generic pickle, because many other vegetables make great pickles, including zucchini, beets, green tomatoes, asparagus, okra, and even cauliflower. I suspect that pickled vegetables might have been the snack food of generations past, and with their almost nonexistent calories and zero fat, they still make a great snack food today.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Course Side Dish
Servings 4 pints

Ingredients
  

  • 2 pounds green beans cut one inch shorter than the jars you plan to use
  • 1/4 cup canning salt
  • 2 1/2 cups vinegar
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne crushed
  • 4 cloves garlic peeled
  • 4 sprigs fresh dill (or 1 teaspoon dried)

Instructions
 

  • Put the water, vinegar, and salt in a pot and boil.
  • Pack the beans into jars,leaving 1/2- inch headspace. They will look more attractive and you will be able to pack more into the jars if they are packed vertically—in other words, standing up in the jar.
  • As you pack each jar, add 1/8 teaspoon of the crushed red pepper. If you have your own dried cayenne, add a piece next to the glass for decoration as well as flavor.
  • Also, add one clove of garlic and a sprig of dill to each jar. If you don’t have any fresh dill in your garden, 1/4 teaspoon of dried dill will work also.
  • Add the hot canning liquid to each jar, leaving 1/2- inch headspace. Push the beans around in the jar a bit with your nonmetal jar tool to release bubbles.
  • Place the lids on and tighten gently.
  • Process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

Notes

This recipe assumes you already have a basic knowledge of canning. For more information, check out the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning.

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8 thoughts on “3 Amazing Green Bean Recipes”

  1. I grew up eating a canned vinegar type bean that my mother made when I was younger but she’s since passed and I’m not sure of the recipe.

    I’m wondering if I omitted the cayenne, dill and maybe the garlic too do you think they’d still have a good taste? And be able to be canned in a water bath? I’m thinking by leaving those items out they’d be more similar to the recipe I’m looking for 🙂 Thanks!!!

    Reply
    • You may have been eating these beans. You don’t really taste the spices that much. I’ve never seen any type of pickled vegetable recipe that used only vinegar, so I don’t know what it would taste like, but I don’t think it would taste that good. The amount of spices in this recipe is quite minimal. You could try different amount of spices in each jar to see which one you like the best. The vinegar is what brings up the acid in the recipe to make it safe for water bath canning.

      Reply
    • They are “ready to eat,” but I’m not sure how they’d taste if you tried them right away. We pickle green beans when we are drowning in fresh ones, so we’re eating tons of fresh green beans at canning time, which means we have no interest in eating the pickled ones then. I would think they would not taste very pickled if you ate them right away. If you try them, let us know how they taste.

      Reply
  2. Hi
    I am dog sitting for my mom (long term) and she wants to add green beans to the dogs diet. He has yeast issues and I want to make it easy for her by making up 4 jars of green beans. Since she is elderly and a bit frail is there a way to preserve them in vinegar without going through the canning process fully? What if I used fresh green beans? Thank you!

    Reply
    • If you can fresh green beans with vinegar as I do in this recipe, they will taste like pickles. Some people call them dilly beans. You do still have to can them, but they are canned in a boiling water canner rather than a pressure canner, so it’s a little less stressful. However, I don’t know how much a dog would like dilly beans. If you just want plain green beans, they have to be canned in a pressure canner.

      Reply

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