Canning Green Beans

This year we were blessed with a bumper crop of green beans. We typically plant bush beans, but for several years we've struggled to get a good crop. After tender care of our plants and lots of hopeful waiting we ended up swimming in beans!



So, what to do with all of them? I love raw and cooked green beans, but there's only so many you can eat in one summer. We choose to can our green beans. It's a great fresh veggie to have all winter long and it makes for a simple side dish to throw together.



After harvesting your beans, you'll want to snap the ends off. Just the very tip of the end is all you need to pull off. As you can see by the picture, little helpers do tend to remove a little more than necessary. But it's always great for them to help out. And beans provide an excellent way for little ones to stay busy.



Once the ends are removed, wash your beans well. Then snap them into 1" sections. It's not necessary that they be perfectly even. But the more uniform they are the more evenly they will cook. These were snapped by my 2 year old. (I evened them out later!)



Once the beans are all snapped, pack them into jars. We use quart jars, but if you have a small family, pints may work better. You can really pack them in tightly.

After getting your jars filled, add in 1 teaspoon of salt per quart. Use 1/2 teaspoon for pint jars.



Fill the jars with water leaving about 1/2" headspace.



Screw on your lids and rings. Place in a pressure canner and process at 10 pounds pressure for 25 minutes (quarts) or 20 minutes (pints).



Remember: DON'T open your pressure canner until the pressure returns to zero. Otherwise you'll end up with burst jars.

Happy canning!