Summer Bounty: Dilly Beans

Ah, early summer. Your tomatoes plants are showing small green bulbs. The zucchini and yellow squash have tons of flowers, and a green or yellow fingerling previews the bounty they have yet to provide. The spinach has all been eaten or gone to seed. The eggplant are starting to blossom. But the green beans are just coming.

There are many ways to put up green beans. You can freeze them or pressure can them. Or you can pickle them. Yes, pickle them. Usually green beans should be pressure canned to prevent deadly botulism. Unless you pickle them. Then you can use a boiling water bath.

One of our family favorites are Dilly Beans, aka Dilled Green Beans. In our house, the whole point of planting green beans is to get enough beans to make our annual haul of Dilly Beans. Dilly Beans are easy to make and great to eat. You can make them hotter or milder. You can eat them plain on the side of your plate, in your favorite sandwich or dagwood, or rolled up in a piece of roast beef.. You need white vinegar, water, pickling salt, fresh dill, garlic cloves, and a bit of crushed red pepper. A few canning jars. Some lids. They also look swell in the tall pint jelly jars.

The Prep

Wash and sterilize the jars. Rinse off about 2 pounds of fresh green beans for 4 pints of Dilly Beans. Snap off the ends. If they are a string variety, you need to pull off the strings, too. Rinse off the fresh dill and separate the heads, one for each pint. Put your canning kettle on the stove with two or three inches of hot water and get it started. Fill your tea kettle and put the heat under it to get it boiling. You'll need enough water to cover those jars. If you don't have an official canning kettle, you can just use a deep pot like a small stock pot as long as the water can come up over the jars by an inch or two.

Put your canning lids in a small bowl and cover with hot water. In large non-reactive pot, place 2 ½ cups water, 2 ½ cups white vinegar, and a quarter cup of kosher canning salt. Non-iodized salt, that is. Give it a couple of stirs and while it comes to a boil assemble the jars.

The Assembly

In each of your hot jars, place a head of dill, one peeled, slightly bruised clove of garlic, a ¼ teaspoon of crushed red pepper. If you like it hotter, you can add more crushed red pepper. Once, I accidentally added a teaspoon to each jar because I mis-read my recipe. But it worked out nice, because they were great on sandwiches, especially those big dagwoods. Usually, the ¼ teaspoon is plenty. Pack the beans lengthwise into the jars. Pour the now boiling hot liquid over the beans to about a quarter inch of head space. Wipe the jar off with a clean cloth, place the lid on the jar, and lightly tighten the band over it. Now the jars are very, very hot so use a jar lifter move the jars into the kettle.

The Processing

To process, place the jars carefully into your canning kettle. If it's a big kettle, and not enough to fill, but some jars with hot water in there to fill it and help keep the Dilly Beans jars in place. Then process in a 10 minute boiling water bath. In other words, pour in enough hot water to cover the jars by two inches. Cover and bring to a boil. Ten minutes later, turn off the heat. Remove the jars and place on a clean towel on the counter or table to cool.

The Big Finish

As the jars cool, you will hear the snap, snap, snap as each jar seals. When they are fully cool, wipe them well, remove the rings (wash them well for storage), and mark the date on the lid. Double-check that each jar has fully sealed. Just plunk them on the top and the ones that sound different just go into the fridge. The center of the lid should be fully depressed.

I like to leave the beans for a couple weeks to fully mellow, but at least hold off the family for a couple days for the flavor to meld together.

The Recipe

Dilly Beans
2 pounds green beans, trimmed and washed.
4 heads fresh dill
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 ½ cups white vinegar
2 ½ cups water
1/4 cup canning salt

To each of four pint jars add 1 head dill, 1 garlic clove, slightly bruised, and ¼ teaspoons crushed red pepper. Pack beans lengthwise into the jars.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large pot. Bring to boil. Pour hot liquid over beans, leaving 1/4" head space. Remove air bubbles, adjust caps, and process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Special thanks to anthropologist Ken Kensinger, who first told me about Dilly Beans and let me me borrow his canning kettle for my first batch.