I got to can some late season green beans (with our cold summer, everything was late this year!), so I thought it would be the perfect topic for my how-to today 🙂
Let’s get started!
According to standard canning guidelines, all vegetables (except for pickled products and acidified tomatoes) must be processed in a Pressure Canner in order to kill botulism spores. Your boiling water canner cannot reach high enough temperatures to do this, whereas your pressure canner will.
Step 1:
Gather your beans from the garden. Leave the discolored, mushy, or otherwise bad specimens for the compost or the chickens. As my Kerr canning book quotes “If they’re not worth saving for dinner, they’re not worth saving for winter.” A good reminder to keep in the back of your mind.
Step 2:
Thoroughly wash your beans. Scrub off any dirt and clean of any debris.
Step 3:
Trim both ends of beans and either leave whole or cut into approximately 1-inch pieces.
Step 4:
Pack tightly into clean jars. Cover with boiling water, leaving 1-inch headspace. Run a non-metallic utensil down the (inside) sides of your jars to release any trapped air bubbles. Wipe jar rim and threads clean before placing on a hot lid and securing tightly with a band.
Step 5:
Process in pressure canner for 20 minutes.
After canner has been allowed to sit for at least an hour and pressure has been given the chance to go all the way down (see my post HERE for details on how to check to see if your canner’s pressure has gone down and is ready to be opened), remove your jars with a jar grabber and place on cooling racks or a toweled surface.
After 12 hours, check to see if your lids have sealed. If they pop back after being pressed in the center, they have not achieved a proper seal. Either re-process or refrigerate immediately and consume within a few days. Store in a cool, dry, dark place.
If you would like to try out some of your green beans fresh, here is my favorite way to prepare them:
-1 pound fresh green bean (with ends trimmed)
-6 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
-1/2 cup cubed (cooked) ham
-1/4 cup butter
-1/4 cup chicken broth
-1 clove garlic, minced
-1/4 tsp. salt
-1/4 tsp. pepper
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cover and simmer 20 minutes or until beans are tender.
