Shelf-Stable Pickled Green “Dilly” Beans
Pickled green beans, or dilly beans, make perfect stirrers for Bloody Marys or the perfect addition to cheese boards and grain salads.
Makes4 pints
Pickled green beans, or dilly beans, make perfect stirrers for Bloody Marys, tuck nicely into a hot dog bun alongside your dog of choice, and are the perfect addition to cheese boards and chopped into grain salads. In fact, if you’re new to pickling, I suggest starting with green beans, not cucumbers!
Before you start prepping your beans for the brine, think through how you want the finished pickle to look. If you’re planning on using them to stir or garnish, you probably want to keep the beans as long and intact as you can. I like to cut one bean to fit my jar and then use that guide bean to help trim down the rest of the beans.
If they’re particularly leggy ones, you might have quite a lot of bean that’s trimmed away. I often save these trimmings and dedicate one jar of my batch to shorter cut pickles. These are particularly great to use in salads. However you slice your dilly beans, they’ll be a welcome pickle in your fridge or pantry.
New to canning? We’ve got a helpful beginner’s guide.
Shelf-Stable Pickled Green Beans
Pickled green beans, or dilly beans, make perfect stirrers for Bloody Marys or the perfect addition to cheese boards and grain salads.
Makes 4 pints
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 2 pounds
green beans, trimmed to fit your jars
- 2 cups
apple cider vinegar
- 2 cups
water
- 2 tablespoons
pickling salt
- 4 teaspoons
dill seeds (not dill weed)
- 2 teaspoons
black peppercorns
- 4 cloves
garlic
Instructions
Arrange 4 empty regular mouth pint jars in a canning pot or a 12-quart stock pot fitted with a round cake cooling rack. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the jars. Place a lid on the pot and bring it to a boil. Wash the lids and rings in warm, soapy water and set aside.
Wash and trim your beans so that they fit in your jar. 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 attention.
Combine the vinegar, water and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. While it's heating up, remove the jars from the boiling water (pouring the water back into the pot as you remove the jars) and set them on a clean towel. Divide the dill seeds, peppercorns, and garlic cloves evenly between the jars. Pack your beans into the jars, making sure that there is 1/2-inch headspace.
Slowly pour the hot brine over the beans, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. After all the jars are full, use a wooden chopstick to work the air bubbles out of the jars. Check the headspace again and add more brine if needed.
Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and lower the filled jars into the canning pot and make sure that they are covered with only about an inch of water. If you need to remove some water from the pot, use a heatproof measuring cup. Once the pot has returned to a rolling boil, start your timer for 10 minutes. This proces sterilizes the jars and contents, and it forces the air out of the jars, creating a situation in which the jars will form a vacuum seal once out of the water.
When 10 minutes is up, pull the pot off the heat and remove the lid. Let the jars cool slowly in the pot for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove jars from the water bath and place them back on the towel-lined countertop to cool. The lids should begin to seal soon after they’ve been removed from the pot. Once the jars have cooled to room temperature, check the seals by removing the rings, grasping the jar by the edge of the lid and gently lifting it an inch or two off the countertop. If the lid holds fast, the seal is good. If your seals are good, you can store your jars in a cool, dark place (with rings off). Did a jar not seal? No problem: It can be refrigerated and used within a few weeks. Let these pickles cure at least two weeks before eating.
Recipe Notes
Storage: Unopened jars can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to a few months. Opened jars can be refrigerated up to a few weeks.
Weeknight Preserving is your beginner’s guide to preserving the best of the season even if you have a small kitchen or a couple hours on a weeknight. We asked Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars for a true beginner’s guide to preserving, from pickles to jams to freezing to fermenting. You (yes you!) can make a pickle or a jam to be proud of this summer. Share your preserving triumphs with us by tagging #kitchn on Instagram.
Wondering what to do with the pickles you’ve made? Check out Marisa’s latest book, The Food in Jars Kitchen. It contains over 100 recipes to help you cook, bake, transform, and share your homemade preserves!
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