How to Can Green Beans in a Pressure Canner

We grow a ton of green beans in our garden. I mean, there are 10 of us so we kind of need a lot of food. I really like to can our green beans so that our family can enjoy the bounty of out harvest throughout the year.

As the garden season winds down, I always find myself picking and canning lots of green beans. We like to plant extra rounds of beans kind of late to get one more harvest in before the first frost. This seems to be working out well for our pantry shelves.  

On my best year, I canned a total of 110 quarts and I’m hoping to top that by a long shot this year! It makes my heart happy to see all of those jars full of yummy beans that will help feed my family through the winter and into spring.

Beans on the plant

How to Pressure Can Green Beans

Green beans have to be pressure canned because they are not a high acid food. Be sure to always follow the method in a canning book that complies with the safety standard. After picking and washing, you need to snap your beans.

Now, I know a lot of you probably have fond memories of snapping beans with your grandma or your momma. That just sounds so sweet and picturesque, doesn’t it? But I digress… Back to business.

Once you are done with that, you are ready to can green beans. We grow like to grow Blue Lake Bush Beans because they are stringless. We also like to try different types of beans like Dragon Tongue and Pole Beans.

Snapping beans can be a chore but as they say, many hands make light work so I get the farm kids to have a bean snapping party with me. I enjoy spending this time with them. We all like to can green beans together. The reward of having yummy beans all year is well worth the drag of snapping the beans from time to time.

Clean beans ready to can

Once the beans are all snapped I wash them again to be sure they are dirt and debris free. Next, I use a canning funnel and pack the beans into the sterilized jars. We always use quart size jars because we cook a large quantity at one time. You can use pint size jars if you won’t need to cook as much at once. After the jars are packed with the beans we put one teaspoon of flake sea salt in with them for flavoring.

In the jars with salt

While I am working on packing the beans into jars I have a large pot of water heating on the stove for filling the jars. I also place my canning lids in a pot of water to sterilize them (I just read recently that the new BPA free lids are not supposed to be heated this way).

Once all of the jars are ready I fill them with the hot water leaving one inch of head space. Check the rims of the jars to make sure they are clean so nothing inhibits them from sealing. Put the rings on and only tighten them “finger tight”. Now I load them up into the canner. Be sure to have a rack in the bottom of the canner (most canners come with one). This keeps the direct heat off of the jars which would cause them to break.

In the canner

We add enough water to the canner to come up about two inches or so on the jars. Place the lid on the canner and make sure it is tight. Green beans have to be processed at 10 pounds for twenty-five minutes for quarts and twenty minutes for pints, set your timer accordingly.

After the time is up remove the canner from the heat. Do not try to remove the lid or release the pressure. The canner will decompress on its own as it cools. Trying to remove the lid too soon could cause injury or cause the jars to break.

Canner

Once the canner has cooled and decompressed you can remove the lid and take the jars out with a handy dandy jar grabber. They are hot, don’t get burned! Be careful not to shake or tip the jars until they are completely cool. The jars need to set out for twelve to twenty-four hours undisturbed. This is where you listen for the glorious “ping” sound that jar lids make when they seal.

Once they are ready for the pantry check the lids to be sure they are sealed. I like to remove the rings because the jars no longer need them and I can use them for another round of canning. It is really pretty simple and safe to pressure can as long as you follow the “rules”. To be honest, I was quite intimidated by the pressure canner at first but now I am not. I really love having my shelves full of yummy food for our family.

Shelves full and happy

That’s how easy it is to can green beans. I hope I have inspired you to start canning your own produce. It is really fun and so rewarding to preserve your own food.

Here are some other great canning and preserving posts from a few of my fellow bloggers. Please stop by and check out their recipes and how-to articles.

Janet from One Acre Farm- 6 Tips for drying tomatoes Seedless Elderberry Apple Jam

Tessa from The Homestead Lady Ways to preserve cherries How to make your own fruit leather

Janet from Timber Creek Farm Canning and Preserving the Harvest

Leah from The Fabulous Farm Girl How to freeze eggs Freezing herbs

Kathie at Homespun Seasonal Living Food Preservation

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