Family Favorites...Home Canned Green Beans

Clockwise, Bottom R: Draining washed beans, 5 gallon buckets of beans,
Canners ready to go, Happy Results!

One of our favorite home canned vegetables is green beans.  They are easy to grow, usually produce abundantly, and don’t require peeling.  We often sit on our back porch to trim and cut our beans.  Be sure to wash them well – I use a plastic dish pan that fits my sink. 
I encourage you to pick and can the same day.  The quality is the best this way.  Picking and canning every day or two during the heavy producing season is easier than big batches.

 Don and Bonnie let us pick beans from their big country garden for these beans that we will enjoy all winter.  This is a simple recipe from Practical Produce , an excellent book on how to use your garden bounty; it is basically the same as the one in the Blue Book.  

I prefer to raw pack beans, although you get more in a jar if you hot pack.  Remember that low acid vegetables like beans must be pressure canned.  Review your equipment and refresh your methods by clicking HERE.

Green Beans

Raw Pack:  Wash and trim.  Cut into 1 or 2” pieces.  Pack tightly.  Add ½ tsp. salt to pints and 1 tsp. for quarts.  If desired, salt may be eliminated.  Cover with boiling water, leaving 1 inch head space.  Remove air bubbles.  Adjust lids.

Hot Pack:  Wash, trim and cut as above.  Cover with boiling water, boil 5 minutes.  Pack hot beans into jar with slotted spoon.  Add salt as above.  Cover with boiling cooking liquid, leaving 1” head space.  Remove air bubbles.  Adjust lids.

Process in a pressure canner; pints 20 minutes and quarts 25 minutes.

Process at 10# pressure for elevations up to 1000 feet above sea level, 15# pressure for elevations above 1000 feet above sea level.  

I use about 4 ½ to 5 pounds of beans for 8 pint jars or about 8# beans for 7 quart jars.

I use about 3 ½ quarts of water for 8 pints and 6 ½ quarts of water for 7 quart jars.