Freezing Green Beans

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I had my first picking of green beans (and yellow wax beans) from my garden. Due to various issues this year (which I’ve previously shared) I decided to plant a smaller garden, and I’m thankful for it. So our first picking was not huge (in comparison to years past)….



But it was enough to have to deal with. I used some of them for dinner.. I made garlic roasted green beans.. oh yum!! They were delish and I look forward to the next picking and making this again. As for the rest of the beans… I decided there were not enough to bother canning them. So I decided to freeze them.

Freezing green beans is pretty simple. After the beans had been washed and snapped I put on a pot of water to boil. I put my little basket in the pot. This holds the veggies and makes it easy to pull them out of the boiling water. As soon as the water came to a boil I added the beans (not all of them)..


I boiled them for 3 minutes. While they were boiling I filled my sink with cold water and added ice…


When the 3 minutes was up I dumped them in the ice water.



All veggies contain enzymes that will cause them to be soft if they are not pre cooked. The 3 minutes of boiling will do this for the beans. The ice water will stop the cooking process. They can end up rubbery if the cooking process is not stopped.

After they had cooled I bagged them up in Ziploc quart size bags…



I did 3 batches like this and ended up with about 5 ½ quarts of beans ready for the freezer….



 

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 16, 2013 at 5:07 AM

    They're beautiful! I don't have the freezer space for many frozen veggies so I canned right many this year. Is your hand continuing to improve?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Catherine FullerAugust 16, 2013 at 6:51 AM

    They are very pretty! I love the wax beans sprinkled in with the green, reminds me of my grandmas kitchen. Thanks for the post too. I am running low on jars this year and I have never frozen green beans before; I was wondering if I could pull it off. Looks pretty simple.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownAugust 16, 2013 at 9:12 AM

    I'm so glad you posted this. I have a few green beans to do something with but not enough to can. I'll do this today!
    Blessings,
    Rashel

    ReplyDelete

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