Friday, May 7, 2010

Canning Dry Beans


Since the girls and I have been canning dry beans this week I thought I would post a step by step tutorial for anyone who would like to give it a go.


  1. Buy 1 pound bags of these 5 dry beans: great northern, navy, black, pinto and black eyed peas.
  2. Cover beans with water and soak overnight.
  3. Next morning rinse beans under running water.
  4. Put 2-2.25 cups beans in each quart jar (this recipe makes 10 quarts).
  5. Add salt or not, I don't FWIW.
  6. Fill jar with hot water leaving 1" head space.
  7. Pressure can for 90 minutes at 10 lbs pressure.

Voila'! If I want baked beans I open a jar, rinse, add 1 cup ketchup and 1 cup brown sugar, salt & pepper and there you go, homemade baked beans! If I want bean soup I open a jar but don't rinse them and add the rest of my soup ingredients. If I want Minestrone or Vegetable soup..... this is probably the #1 best thing I can for versatility. Most recipes have you cook the beans before canning but that makes for mushy beans and I don't care for that.

We also canned some with the barbeque sauce and bacon in the jar. To do that you put your beans in the jar with 1.5 cups of sauce and fill the rest of the way with water. Can the same time and pressure as above.

We have beefy mushroom soup going now for the last canner load of the week, we're taking this weekend off, I think. I'm t-i-r-e-d!

5 comments :

  1. I assume the 90 min in the canner cooks the beans? That's a brilliant idea. I love using beans cooked myself, but it just takes so long! I usually make a big pot then freeze in ziplocks.

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  2. Jenny, yes that's right, they cook and can at the same time. You could certainly can them in pints instead but I would still process them 90 minutes. Pints usually process for less time but if you shorten it by much then your beans would be pretty hard.

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  3. I got these beans last week and I'm going to try canning them this morning! Can't wait to see how they do. :)

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  4. I was wondering how to do this. We buy in bulk, but sometimes I just forget to soak the beans. This would help out a lot.
    Cricket

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  5. Oh, it's things like that that make me REALLY wish I could stay home. I so miss canning and having that wonderful feeling that goes with it.

    It is great that you are teaching your girls to do these things.

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