The beans are in! This is a REALLY happy time of year for us, because it means DILLY BEANS! And we like them spicy. And dilly. It took me about a hour to pick our beautiful bag of beans. We planted two huge rows this year, mostly a bush bean called the provider. They certainly live up to their name as long as you keep picking them.
Green Bean Jungle
Baby Beans!
We also planted a burgundy bean for the first time this year. These are officially my favorite things to photograph right now. Even though there aren’t any burgundy beans in with the dilly beans, I couldn’t resist putting these up. They are about a week behind the providers.
Burgundy String Bean
I’ve always thought bean blossoms were so pretty
The beans will turn purple as they mature. they are supposed to keep their color even after cooked.
Ok, so enough of the garden. It’s time to make some Dilly Beans!
Now, making dilly beans, or any pickle really, is about ratios. We start our recipe based on 2 pounds of prepped beans. When we made them last night, we actually had 3 pounds, so we adjusted for that.
You will need
- quart jars, bands and lids- we prefer wide mouth jars for pickling
- your water bath canner
- A big pot for the pickling mixture
- Jar grabber
For the pickling liquid, based on the two pounds of beans, you’ll have to go go get yourself the following:
- 4 cups white vinegar
- 4 cups water
- 3 tablespoons canning/pickling salt
So this is your pickling mixture. Get your big pot out, and mix these all together. Since we had three pounds of prepped beans we used 6 cups each water and vinegar, and 4.5 tablespoons canning salt.
For packing the jars, you’ll need
- Lots of fresh dill, about 6 good size sprigs per jar
- Garlic cloves, cut in halves, 2 per jar
- Dried hot peppers of your choice, 2 per jar
- 1 tsp of crushed red peppers per jar
- Your beans, ends trimmed off
My bean cutting setup consists of my beans, a bowl for trimmed dilly beans, a bowl for beans to small or irregular for pickling, and my compost bucket.
The larger beans are perfect for pickling, the smaller ones are great for blanching and freezing for winter meals
Beans, ends trimmed and then cut to size. The beans cut into thirds on the other side of the board are for blanching and freezing as regular beans
We trim the stems off our dill, so it takes up less room in the jar.
Everything gathered, prepped and ready to go. We use two types of chili peppers, that’s why they are seperate from eachother. We put one of each in each jar.
Now that you have gathered everything and gotten it all prepped, it’s time to make sure your jars, bands and lids are cleaned and ready to go. Also, it is time to get your vinegar mixture boiling. It really won’t take long, so make sure you have everything else pretty well set up and ready.
Once your pickling mixture is close to a rolling boil, it’s time to start packing your jars. First goes in a pepper, one tsp of crushed red peppers, 4 sprigs of dill, and two pieces of your cut up garlic.
There is something wonderful about a ball jar getting ready to be filled with the fruits of your labor
Now, pack that jar full of your cut green beans. The more beans you can fit, the less liquid you need. You want them packed in there pretty tightly so they don’t float around. Once your beans are in, throw in another chili pepper and another 2 sprigs of dill. After your jar is full of all the goodies, it’s time to fill it with your boiling pickling mixture. Make sure to tap the side of the jar to encourage any air pockets to float up to the top and burst.
Beans packed in, ready to be transformed
Clean the rim of the jar and wipe the rim and the lid dry. Put on the lid, secure with a band and move onto the next jar. Once all your beans are gone, put your jars in your waiting canner and process for 10 minutes. Remove jars from canner and place somewhere undisturbed for 12 hours. Check to see if the lids sealed and if any of them didn’t seal, put the jar in your fridge immediately.
Three pounds of beans equaled out to 8 wide mouth quarts of dilly beans and a nice sized bag of beans for the freezer as well.
So that’s it- our highly coveted dilly bean recipe. We’ve been making these for years, and boy do they go well with a nice cold beer. We let them sit for at least a month before cracking open the jar. You can wait longer, but I wouldn’t open them any sooner.
Now that that’s covered, I will let you know, the next blog is special to my heart. Otherwise, I am leaving it a surprise. But I will hint that you’ll need blueberries again…
Until that time, have a wicked good day.
Gillis Gardens, LLC 