A recipe and tutorial for home-canned pickled beans flavored with mustard seeds, garlic, and red pepper flakes. A perfect balance of spice, salt, and sweet for salads, antipasto plates, appetizers and snacking.
Before I started growing vegetables, including green beans, I’d never thought to buy pickled green beans (do they even sell them?), and I’m not even sure I’d ever eaten them!
I only knew I needed to find something to do with all the beans I was harvesting and I only knew how to use a water-bath canner, so if I wanted to can beans, they’d have to be pickled. (To can beans with water safely, you need a pressure canner.)
For those wondering why I “had” to find a way to can the beans, at that time I didn’t care for frozen green beans. I know they’re better for you than canned, more vitamins, yada, yada. It’s a texture issue, I’m afraid, and there’s no getting around it.
Update: We now eat frozen beans after discovering this way to easily freeze green beans with less “texture issues.” Though I still make pickled beans, too!
Anyway, I found out our whole family loved pickled beans! I did have to search for the perfect recipe with a nice balance between spicy and sweet.
In the end, I combined a couple of recipes (always with the same trusted liquid measurements from the Ball Blue Book) that resulted in our favorite pickled beans ever (with no dill in sight, thank you very much).
How do you use pickled beans?
Lots of ways! We eat them from a vegetable plate next to the carrots and celery, on a platter of antipasto with olives, meats, and cheeses, and as a super easy, super tasty appetizer. They’re also wonderful chopped up to top a salad.
At the holidays, we have the bowl of olives, the bowl of cranberry sauce, and the pickled beans. I’ve even turned my extended family into fans of pickled beans.
And I’m not sure they’d ever eaten them before, either.
Would you like to try them, too?
They’re as easy as the other pickled vegetable we like, asparagus, and the most time-consuming thing about making pickled beans is cutting them to fit the jars. In fact, when it comes to the canning part, it takes literally minutes.
How to Make Canned Pickled Beans
1. Start by washing a lot of green beans. I’ve usually don’t weigh them, I just start cutting and fitting into jars.
But for you, I did. For a canner load of 7 pint or 12-oz jars, I use about 2 gallon-size baggies full of beans (or half a 5-gallon bucket). Each gallon bag holds about 2 pounds beans, so a batch of these beans would need between 4 and 5 pounds of green beans.
2. Cut the beans and fit to the jars. Cut both ends off of washed beans: lay 5-7 beans on a cutting board and slice through all (with this many beans, I cannot be bothered with “snapping” the ends off).
Oh, and I’ve seen beautiful food photos of beans with the curly little ends left on. Have you tried eating these? Serious texture problems…it’s a hard little pokey thing. Off with its end, I say.
But each to their own – leave them on if you want!
Tip for cutting the green beans to fit the jars
- Take one bean, put it in one of your jars (which has been cleaned and waiting in the sink filled with hot water, like outlined in this canning tutorial) and cut it to length, making sure it is 1/2″ from the top of the jar rim which is the headspace required for this recipe.
- Then use that bean as a measure to cut all the remaining beans.
- To know how many cut beans will fit in each jar, take one of the jars, empty it of water and fill it with some cut beans. I can imagine your thoughts now, “Why the heck is she doing that?” Bear with me.
- Then remove the beans from the jar and lay them in a little pile (refilling the jar with hot water). Now I have a picture of how many beans I need for each jar.
- Make 7 little piles all roughly the same size, and throw in a few extra, just to make sure you’ll have enough when the time comes to fill them and cover with the brine.
This helps to have all your beans ready, without having too much or too little, because the actual canning goes pretty quickly.
3. Make the brine and cook according to the recipe and heat the water in the canner.
4. Fill the jars. Start with the garlic and pepper flakes and then pack the beans into each jar as tightly as possible. Add the brine to each jar, leaving 1/2″ headspace, seal and add to the canner. Repeat with all the jars.
5. Process in the water-bath canner for 10 minutes. Click here for a complete Water Bath Canning Tutorial.
Wait for about a month for the flavors to infuse the beans before enjoying your pickled beans!
Click the arrow for the full Pickled Green Beans printable recipe!
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alysia says
August 27 at 11:44 amI have made picked beans recently and the recipe I used you had to bring beans to a boil in water, simmer 5 minutes and then same process with brine. And water bath for 40 minutes. Do you do that with these or are they completly raw when going into the jars? And only 10 minutes, don’t want to risk botulism (sp). What makes this no risk for that being in a water bath? Thanks
Jami says
August 29 at 3:12 pmOh gosh, Aliysa, that would result in pretty limp beans in my experience (that is a crazy long time for processing pickles, btw – I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before)!
Cooking the produce first doesn’t have anything to do with the safety in recipes like this (pickled with a vinegar brine) – it’s more for texture. You don’t have to worry about botulism with high acid pickling recipes (or other easy things like jams, etc.). Botulism is mainly an issue with low acid foods like green beans, beans, corn, stews, etc. that aren’t pressure canned properly. And even then is super rare.
So, to answer your question – no they are not cooked first and are added raw to the jars. They are processed only 10 minutes – 10 or 15 minutes is pretty standard for any pickling recipe. And it’s the vinegar brine that allows them to be water-bath canned. Are you sure your other recipe was a pickle and not just canning green beans plain?
Hope that helps put your mind at ease and that you give these pickles a chance!
L.Lewis says
August 5 at 7:40 pmWhy make piles, just pack the ready to go jars with as many beans as you can stuff in ??then pour the brine on top assembly line fashion ……it took a couple minutes …….your way I’m sorry is very time consuming and not necessary . You have made more work for yourself .
Jami says
August 6 at 2:08 pmI leave the jars sitting with hot water in them until the last to decrease the chance of the jars breaking when they hit the hot water of the canner. I’m simply cutting the beans to fit in the jars which you need to do however you get them in, and then leaving them on the cutting board until I put them in. It doesn’t really add that much time and worth it to me so I don’t have broken jars and floating beans.
L.Lewis says
August 6 at 3:15 pmHahaha to each their own i guess. But ive canned for 30years ,never have had a jar break. lucky i guess. Jars stay hot as i stuff them full i can eyeball the size of bean,break them in half if they are too big ,i also only snap off stem end .other side dosen’t matter to me, if they dont like it then just dont eat the end …. ,then i add the brine all at once… then i put into the hot water bath. I do like your main recipe though so i have take that to heart but i prefer more streamline .. 🙂 thanks for recipeand response.
Natalia says
August 1 at 9:17 amMy sister just brought me a ton of green beans from her garden and we’d love to pickle them. What is the shelf life for the canned green beans and how would
You store them?
Jami says
August 1 at 8:19 pmWhen they are canned like this, I’ve had them last for 1-1/2 years stored in a cool, dark place.
Billy says
June 20 at 9:55 amThese look delicious Jami! Thank you for sharing your recipe. I have always loved pickled beans but have yet to make them at home – it was just something my mom and grandma always did. I guess its time to do it myself!
Jami says
June 20 at 1:22 pmI hope you enjoy both making and eating them, Billy!
Diane Williams says
August 16 at 3:24 pmYour beans look so good! I used to pressure can beans and water bath Dilly beans. They are similar to your pickled beans. I love beans and I also prefer them canned. Just something about opening a can of green beans…so good!
Shelly says
August 16 at 11:10 amI discovered how to make pickled beans when I had a bumper crop of green beans and hadn’t tried using my mom’s pressure canner yet. They are really good. Now I can most of my green beans since my friend showed me how to use my pressure canner but I try to make at least one batch of pickled beans too.
Marion says
July 20 at 3:29 pmDo you have to add sugar or could I use another type of sweetener? I’m allergic to sucrose & use honey or agave syrup instead so could I use them instead?
Jami says
July 20 at 5:23 pmI’m sure you can, Marion, as the sugar here is just to cut the vinegar flavor a bit. Some pickled beans don’t have sugar, but I’ve always found them to be a bit puckery for us. 🙂 Go with the honey, but add less, since it’s sweeter than sugar and just adjust to your tastes.
Bourgo says
August 31 at 10:10 amCan I cut the recipe in half for less beans? I am only making 2-3 pints.
Jami says
September 1 at 2:40 pmYes – it easily adapts that way (most pickling recipes do)!
kerry says
August 21 at 9:15 pmI made 5 pints of pickled green beans Monday morning – more to do on Friday! You are right, not only are they wonderful, they are addictive, as well. I add dill to each jar, along with garlic and red pepper flakes. Just yummy!! Your mustard – garlic recipe is very tempting. There is something about those little seeds in the bottom of the jar that reek of nostalgia (maybe)? I bought some and have been waiting for the perfect project – I think they will be added to Fridays batch!! Thanks for a great recipe!
Dorothy says
August 21 at 3:16 pmIs 1.5 cups of sugar the new amount, or the old amount?
Jami says
August 21 at 4:49 pmI only use 3/4 c. of sugar now, Dorothy. I left the original amount in case someone wasn’t looking to decrease the sugar in recipes like I am. 🙂
Dorothy says
August 22 at 10:35 amOk, cool. I wasn’t sure if you meant the original amount was 3 cups. 3/4 cup seems like a reasonable amount of sugar, but I’ve never canned beans so I have no idea.
Jami @ An Oregon Cottage says
October 15 at 3:40 amEek! Sorry it took a week to reply- I haven’t checked in in awhile!
You should probably wait at least a month. I good indication is when they plump up again (they look shriveled right after canning).
Good for you!
judyd4kids says
October 7 at 4:43 pmOkay, I’m so excited I finally made these! Now when can we eat them?
Mel says
August 14 at 12:19 amThis made my day. I’ve been looking at my growing pile of green beans and a growing green bean plant with dread. Now I have a plan.