String beans are one of my favorite vegetables around. My idea of a perfect easy summer meal is a tangle of lightly steamed string beans, dressed with a bit of butter and salt, along side some scrambled eggs and a sliced tomato. A couple of summers ago, I ate that for dinner three or four times a week for at least a month. Of course, that was before I had to think of Scott’s likes and dislikes when making dinner and sadly, he is a string bean hater. So my perfect little meal has been relegated to a once-in-a-while, solo experience (however, it’s a trade-off I happily make for love).
Thing is, I still find myself buying string beans like they’re a four times a week vegetable, which becomes a problem when trying to keep the refrigerator eco-system balanced. That is where the dilly bean comes in. It’s a gentle, zippy little pickle that preserves my green beans for months to come (well, if they last that long) and maintains the dinnertime peace.
One thing to note about string beans. They are perfectly safe to can in a boiling water bath when you’re making pickles out of them. They are NOT safe to can without the brine unless you’re using a pressure canner. One of the few documented cases of botulism that occurred last year was because a family ate some poorly preserved green beans. So if you want to preserve your beans but you don’t want to pickle them, either get yourself a pressure canner or blanch and freeze them.
Enough safety warnings, on to the recipe…
Pickled Green Beans (aka Dilly Beans)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds green beans trimmed to fit your jars
- 2 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar 5%
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 2 tablespoons pickling or fine sea salt
- 4 teaspoons dill seed
- 2 teaspoons black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon red chili flake
- 4 cloves garlic
Instructions
- Prepare a boiling water bath canner and 4 pint jars. Place 4 lids in a small pot of water and bring to a bare simmer.
- Wash and trim your beans so that they fit in your jar and leave about an inch of headspace. If you have particularly long beans, your best bet is to cut them in half, although by doing so, you do lose the visual appeal of having all the beans standing at attending.
- Combine vinegar, water, and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Divide the dill seed, peppercorns, red chili flake, and garlic cloves evenly between the four jars.
- Pack the beans into the jars over the spices.
- Pour the boiling brine over the beans, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
- Gently tap the jars on the counter to loosen any trapped air bubbles. For stubborn air pockets, use a chopstick to wiggle them free.
- Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
- When time is up, remove jars from canner and place them on a folded kitchen towel to cool.
- Once jars are cool enough to handle, remove rings and test seals.
- Sealed jars can be stored on the pantry shelf for up to one year. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and eaten promptly.
- These beans want to hang out for a least two weeks before eating, to thoroughly develop their flavor.
I don’t have the equipment for the hot water part, so I was just going to put them in the fridge. I see your advice is to blanch the beans first for 30 seconds if I’m going to just refrigerate them. Is there any taste/texture difference between the two methods?
The unprocessed beans will be a bit crisper than the ones that you run through a boiling water bath.
how long should beans sit after being canned before they are tried
You should give these at least a couple weeks.
My green bean vines were quite prolific this year. I wanted to find something different to do with them besides eating fresh, or blanching/freezing them. I decided to give these a try. They are great! (I am not a fan of cucumber dill pickles, but I like these!) I have canned many batches of these now with your recipe. Thanks!
Can I substitute white vinegar for the apple cider vinegar?
Yes.
I see people commenting on Bloody Mary’s. I did 2 jar of celery using this dilly bean recipe just for this purpose. I Used quart jars for longer stalks and it came out wonderful! I will use this recipe again probably using store bought celery because my 2 trial jars are going fast. Thanks
Love these dilly beans so much. Just made them for the second time yesterday. I need to make another (maybe even 2 or 3 more) batch before the holidays, I love giving this kind of stuff out for gifts!
I notice in the photo in this post, it looks like fresh dill in the jars, but the recipe uses seed. Can I use fresh dill (since it’s what I have on hand)? If so- how much should I put in each jar? One bean-sized sprig per jar?
This is the only way I would eat green beans as a child! I’m making some this weekend & hope my little guy likes them, although they’ll get eaten even if he doesn’t 🙂 I’m new to your site & have been inspired to (safely) channel my grandma & start canning 🙂
What do you do if you can’t find dill seed?
Have you ever made Refridgerated Dilly beans? I saw a recipe on the internet and it requires no canning or water baths. I’m wondering if it is safe to just boil the brine, pour over the beans in a regular jar and refridgerate.?? I have never canned anything, but just LOVE dilly beans! Your recipe came recommended to me but i’m afraid to do something wrong with the whole canning process and make my family sick!
You can certainly make refrigerator dilly beans, but you’d need to blanch the beans in some boiling water for 30 seconds before pickling. However, it is impossible to make anyone sick with high acid foods like pickles.
Great..thank you so much 🙂
I love that you used apple cider vinegar as part of your brine. Haven’t seen that done by anyone else. The proportions worked out great- the green beans, brine and spices all fit into the jars with the half-inch head space called for. The next two weeks are going to be a killer wait. Thanks for the easy recipe!
Is dill seed the same thing as dill weed?
Nope. Dill seed has a more distinct dill flavor and doesn’t break down into sludge in the jar the way dried dill weed can.
Thank god i asked LOL. Thank you.
Glad to help!
Hi there, I made these and they look great but all my beans aren’t quite submerged. I have almost an inch of brine free space, is this ok? Thank you!
I received a jar as a present for xmas..they were amazing. i ate them all. Now Im craving more, so I bought fresh green beans and added them to the jar (which has been in the fridge). Will these be ok to eat in a week? I read someones comment about Botulism, and was wondering if the beans have to be cooked in order to be safe to eat. Thanks 🙂
Cooking doesn’t impact botulism (it’s a matter of acid content, the presence of oxygen, and storage temperature). It’s not unsafe to simply add some beans to your leftover brine, but you’re not going to get the same flavor or texture as the original batch.
Thank you Marisa 🙂
While the beans are hanging out to develop their flavor should I put them on the shelf or in the refrigerator?
If you processed them in a boiling water bath canner and the seals are good, then they are shelf stable.
Sorry if you have answered this question already, but I made too many jars of dilly beans for the amount of brine I had. So, I made a half portion more of brine to fill the jars. Still ran out of brine and used all of my vinegar. I topped my jars with water…now I am worried that it could be harmful without the proper ratio of vinegar. I processed the beans and they all sealed. Are they ok to eat? Every jar also came out with air bubbles stuck to the beans. Thanks for your advice
This year I planted a small garden and am now enjoying the fruits/veggies of my labour.
I just picked enough green beans to make a batch of dilly beans! I have your book and loving it. Just a little confused on the water bath time though. In your book it states 5 minutes and on your website it is 10 minutes.
Hope you can help this newbie out.
Either processing time is allowed. However, if you go for the shorter time, you should start with sterilized jars.
I found that the quantities of pickling solution and green beans did not quite add up to four pints when using standard mouth pint jars. Having extra beans, I adjusted the ratios to 2-1/4 # green beans, 2-1/2 cups each of water and vinegar, 3 tbs. salt, and sufficient spices to accommodate five pints. This worked out better for the style jars I prefer.
Also, I add 1/2 tsp. of coriander seed to each jar as I like the flavor (and, I have heaps of seed from the cilantro patch). Does anyone else add 1/4 tsp. Ball Pickle Crisp to each jar? Seems to be more important with cukes since beans are pretty crisp after picking anyway.
Great recipe!
I just canned some pints of dilly beans. I left the prescribed air at the top, and properly finger tightened the rings. Air bubbles did escape the jars while boiling, and the lids sealed very well. When cool, the lids did concave a bit, indicating a vacuum. I still, however, have some air left int he jars. Is this a problem?
Nope, not a problem. You occasionally loose some liquid during processing, which leaves some empty space behind.
My beans came out-wrinlked, why ??
In using the water bath do you start to time when the jars go in or when it starts to boil ??
Thanks
The wrinkling is normal. Over the next week or too, they should rehydrate and loose the wrinkled look. And you start the time for the water bath when the water returns to a boil, not when the jars first go in.
Can I use Kosher salt instead of pickling salt?
Only if it’s a kosher salt without iodine or anti-clumping agents. Here’s how to substitute: https://foodinjars.com/2010/08/canning-101-on-substituting-salt-in-pickling/
Hey, I was wondering if you know how I would go about pressure canning these? Will they come out soggy if they are pressure canned? I am SO new to this and I don’t have a water bath pot. I do not know the weight or time that would properly preserve these. I am about 2000 feet. Thank you!
They will not be good done in a pressure canner. You can always use your pressure canner as a water bath canner.
The best website to learn about canning is the USDA canning guidelines. http://extension.usu.edu/utah/htm/fcs/food-preservation-canning/usda_home_canning
You need to pressure cook green beans at 11 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes so the temperature will get hot enough to kill the bacteria. Making pickle beans is different because you only need to cook the bottles of beans in a water bath. The vinegar in pickled beans help to kill the bacteria.
To water bath you just need to boil the jars in a pot that is deep enough you can covering the jars with 1-2 inches of water. (cooking about 5-10 minutes depending on your altitude) The water bath canners come with a metal rack to help you lift the bottles out of the water but if you don’t want to buy a water bath canner you can use any deep pot. The pressure canner will be deep enough for you to put that much water in, but you will not need to close the lid tight and bring the canner up to pressure.
You will start to time the jars when the water is at a full boil.
One addition: I almost always have a little extra space, and I like to shove a few carrot coins in the top or down the sides. They look beautiful in the jar, help keep the. beans from floating too much, and they taste delicious when pickled.
Losing my mind. Thought I used this recipe earlier this summer, but don’t remember the peppercorns, apple cider vinegar or chopstick! Also thought it was cayenne, not flakes. Do you have two dilly recipes?
Hanna, you’re not losing your mind. I tweaked this recipe recently. The previous version used cayenne, but I felt like this was a better incarnation.
Your book and this recipe are wonderful! On my current batch of dilly beans I didn’t pack the garlic cloves into the beans tightly and they are only half submerged in the vinegar at the top of the jar. Although I won’t eat the garlic, would this batch still be safe to store at room temperature? Thank you!
these are so good! i just ate a ton of them, i can see how you could kill a pint in an afternoon for sure.
I’ve just made these Dilly Beans & they did not ping. I think I felt my heart break. As best I can figure out, I may have tightened the jars too much. And the stock pot I’m using is barely deep enough. I have ordered a new pot and will try again.
Does anyone have anything to offer about newbie mistakes? I want to succeed.
Make sure the rim and threads of the jar are clean. The rings and jars can be sterilised in the hot bath water but the lids can not. The lids need to be in less than boiling water or the rubber may deform. When applying the ring to the jar, finger tight only. As the jar is being processed in the water, you will most likely see bubbles indicating air escaping from the jar. This is good as it helps to make a better vacuum which is what a good seal is all about. After the hot bath of boiling water (remembering that the time starts when the water returns to a rolling boil), remove the lid to the pot, turn off the heat, and leave jars in water another five minutes. Then place on towels to cool. After cooled, if you decide to store with rings on, remove and dry ring and threads on jar. Replace ring but don’t over tightened. If you are in hard water country and have scale on your jars, add 1/2 to 1 cup of vinegar to the bath water. Hopes this helps.
These dilly beans are delicious! But a little too salty for my tastes. Is it safe to reduce the salt? Or will this affect the quality of the brine?
Thanks!
You can reduce the salt a little. Don’t eliminate it entirely. It pulls the water out of the beans to make room for the vinegar.
This recipe is so easy and so beautiful! I just made it and referenced it on my blog post “How to Pickle”. http://www.positivelymommy.com/adventures-in-pickling-how-to-pickle/
Hi there,
I am new to reading your blog and so far am really enjoying the recipes. I made these dilly beans today. Following the directions exactly i had a hard time with my beans (which were more hearty and more fully of beans than the ones your pictured). Would you suggest blanching them first? I used a few of the tall jelly jars and I swear there are about 10 beans in each… I didn’t know if blanching would make them more pliable but all just mushy… your thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Cholla, it sounds like your beans were too mature for canning. Once they ripen past a certain point, they aren’t that great for this application.
What a great Blog Marisa! I never realized there were so many others of “us” out their. I’ve been doing my NannyO’s recipes for years as a hobby and finally a couple months ago after MUCH encouragement from many others started selling the goodies.
We made our 1st batch of Spicy Dill Green Beans last night… 14pints and will finish another 14pints tonight!
Stu & Davlyn
Hello! I was wondering if the garlic is necessary for the canning, or if it’s flavor only? I have a friend who is allergic to alliums but loves pickles…
If the dilly beans do end up floating to the top with a little poking above the brine after processing, is it better to just put them in the fridge? Thanks!
That happens a lot. As long as the seals are good and there isn’t more than about an inch of bean sticking above the brine, they are still safe for pantry storage.
Hi Marisa, I recently made your dilly beans and they turned out great. I was wondering if I can use this same recipe for quart jars? I don’t want to trim the beans down and I am not sure if I have to adjust the amount of dill seed or other ingredients. Thank you.
If you can them in quarts, make sure to add five minutes to the processing time. You’ll want to double the spices, since you’re doubling the size of the jars.
Lids didn’t seal on my dilly beans! Do I need to reprocess?
If all the lids didn’t seal, you should try again with new lids.
Have you ever canned these in a hot water bath, or do they get to mushy? Thank you.
Just opened my first jar, good but face puckering sour. I might add a little sugar to the brine to mellow it out a bit.
I’m not crazy about dill – can I use other herbs or seeds?
They aren’t dilly beans if you don’t use dill.
You can also use a few carrots to “tighten” up the pack in your jars- so your beans won’t float. And, dilly carrots are, in my opinion, even tastier than dilly beans. My family always eats all the carrots first!
I just did a couple of jars, but the brine changed colour. turned a clear brown, isntead of being clear, any ideas why? is this normal? safe?
thanks for the info.
Did you use apple cider vinegar? Or dill weed instead of dill seed? Either could have helped darken the brine.
dill weed….mystery solved! thanks
Why do they float.. did they shrink? I think so
Yes, when you process the beans, the heat of the canning pot cooked them slightly and they shrink a little. That’s why it’s so important to really pack the jars tightly.
I made these today and the beans don’t look very bright, kind of dull like raw beans. Did I not process them them long enough?
Hi Marisa, I made this recipe, processed the jars in a water bath for 10 min., and got good seals on all. The lids “popped” and depressed in the middle as they should. However, I noticed some dried up brine on the outsides of the jars despite the good seals. Are the beans safe to eat? I’m guessing that perhaps I didn’t leave enough headroom when I poured in the brine. Perhaps the leakage occurred before the seals sealed. I plan on making another batch tomorrow and will allow a bit more headroom.
Lynne, don’t worry about a little liquid loss. It often happens during processing, particularly if there are a still bubbles tucked down under the pickles. As long as the seals are good and your liquid level didn’t drop significantly, it’s really no big deal.
Would you recommend using fresh dill if available? It looks so good in the jars with the cucumber.
You can use fresh dill heads, but fresh dill weed doesn’t hold up well in the canning process.
Hi Marisa,
I’ve learned a lot at your site, thank you. I got your dilly beans recipe from Serious Eats where it said to process for 10 min. I noticed the recipe on your web site calls for 5 min. Does it matter? Which time do you recommend?
I recommend the 10 minute processing time.
These came out wonderful! Almost the same as my Aunt Alice’s recipe. I don’t have access to her recipe so I am trying to recreate it. These were missing a flavor but I have no idea what it is. However, I loved them! I will make them again.
I do need to get better at packing them, they floated a lot! 🙂 I am sure that I will get better at it!!
I made these in December and opened up the jar last night. THEY WERE DELICIOUS!!! They still had some crunch and reminded me of spicy dill pickles. I can’t wait to put them on a sandwich with provolone and some tasty stone ground mustard. THANK YOU!
Thanks for the quick response and time, Marisa!
I am about to make another batch following your recipe and will compare tastes in a month or two.
One last question:
My pot is only 1″ taller than my jars, I was just capping the pot and letting some of the boiling water boil out, but believe than jars were covered the whole time? 10 minutes might have been way to long especially at sea level?
This recipe only needs five minutes of processing time if you are under 1,000 feet in elevation. However, processing the beans for longer won’t do any harm. Sounds like at some point you need to get yourself a taller pot, but for now, you should be okay.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=9S8FtZaByW4
This is the recipe that I had use from youtube.
I just finished my first canning of dilly beans last week. I used a solution of 2 cups water, 2 cups white vinegar, and only 1 tablespoon of kosher salt.
I boiled my brine and then filled one jar completely with raw green beans and spices with garlic. The second jar was only half filled with beans.
I dropped them jars in a boiling bath with jars ratteling on bottom of pan, 10 minutes total time, I live approx. 400 feet above sea level.
Concerned about botulism because not enough kosher salt?
Opinions anyone?
Michael, do not worry about your beans. Botulism is caused by a lack of acid in a product, not salt. You used plenty of vinegar so your pickles are safe.
This is the first year I tried canning. Since I’ve learned to cook, my interest in eating food in season and growing my own herbs has increased, so canning has naturally stemmed from that. Plus I remember my grandmother canning when I was little.
I made these dilly beans and the cherry pickles from your web site as the first pickles I ever put up about three weeks ago. Both were easy to do, and about 4 days ago a friend and I tried them. They were great! The beans were crunchy and dill-y, and there was that hint of spice at the end. But they still tasted like green beans, too. I’m not much of a pickle fan but we polished off the whole jar this weekend! Thank you very much for the recipe.
And everyone: it’s OK if your beans float at the top, you used the leafy dill instead of the seed, your beans got a little wrinkled, or they turned a little olive-green. Mine did and they were fine.
What is the shelf life of these? Can you leave them in the pantry after processing or do they need to be in the fridge?
The reason we can things is so they can be kept on a shelf in the pantry. No refrigeration necessary. They will keep at least a year.