Last summer I decided to dry a few of my Kentucky Pole Bean vines. I did this mainly so I didn’t have to shell out any money this spring for bean seeds {I’m thrifty like that}. If you have never done this before you’d be AMAZED out how many seeds you can get from just a handful of bean pods. {About 5-6 beans per pod actually}.
Plus, most varieties of beans enrich your soil with nitrogen when you grow them, so you are doing your belly AND your dirt a big fat favor by adding them to your garden. The same general principal applies to drying them for eating later too. I have done this many times over the years and have always had really good success.
Beans are such a great source of protein and a fraction of the cost of animal proteins. Plus, did you know they have more fiber than most whole grains? They are super low in fat. AND, if all that weren’t enough, the carbs in beans are reported to help stabilize blood sugars. The beans, beans the magical fruit problem is the only problematic side-effect, and even that can be reduced pretty significantly if you soak your beans overnight before cooking them.
So, let’s just get right to HOW you dry beans. Dry Beans are ready to harvest when the skin is paper thin, and you can shake the pod and hear a rattling sound. You will have to remove the beans from the pod, which you can do by splitting them open and removing them by hand, or you can turn the whole plant upside down in a bucket and bang it against the side, causing the beans to spill out into the bottom of the bucket. {You can throw the skin right back into your compost pile.}
After you get all of the beans out of the pod, the beans need to be cleaned and sorted. If the beans are split open, they need to be weeded out of the “store for winter” pile. You CAN cook those ones right away and store them that way, though. Before you store them, freeze the beans overnight to kill any tiny bugs that might be trying to hitch a ride into your pantry.
To store dried beans, just place them in an airtight container {I think canning jars with a latch lid work awesome} and keep them in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. From here, you can cook them or re-plant them in the garden next spring. Oh, and if you only want to re-plant them next spring, you can store them in the freezer all winter long, just make sure they are in an airtight container and allow them to come completely to room temperature before opening the container next spring {that way no moisture gets in}.
Do you store DRY beans for the winter? What do you use them for?
~Mavis
P.S. If you are looking for a seriously good baked bean recipe, check out Saturday Night Beans – New England Style. They’re wicked good. 😉
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Carolina Cooper says
Love it that you have picked up the New England lingo—“wicked good.” When I first moved here from Philadelphia 30 years ago, I thought that was the strangest saying ever!!!!
Jennifer says
I have dried and stored beans only once or twice, though most years I do grow beans. One year I stored them I think there was the tiniest bit of moisture left in the beans even though they seemed super dry and the pods were brittle. So they germinated these teensy hairlike projections from many of the beans, and weren’t viable as seeds. They were fine to eat.
Summary: make sure the pods are drier than dry when you store them.
Interesting that yiu can store them all winter in the freezer and the seeds stay viable! That’s a great tip!
Linda says
I started growing Lazy Housewife pole beans several years ago. A few plants provide all the canned green beans I want plus plenty of dried for the winter. I bake the dried beans at a low oven temperature to kill any unwanted little critters before storing. I can several quarts of the dried beans for soups or baked beans and love that I ‘m able to just open a quart of beans to add to a recipe.quart
Thank you for always encouraging your readers.
Jen says
Linda, do you ever find that your canned green beans are mushy? My recipes for pressure canned beans make such mushy green beans that I won’t even can them at all now.
Susan H. says
Growing up in rural WW 50+ years ago, one of the memories I have is our family sitting on the front porch cleaning bushels of beans for canning. We would also ‘string’ beans by running a needle through the center of the bean and hanging long strings of beans to dry. We called them fodder beans. We would also plant beans with our corn and let them dry on the corn stalks thus the name fodder beans. Oh I miss front porches!
Judy says
Hi Mavis, I enjoyed your info on beans today. The pictures of the dried beans outside remind me of Fall, my favorite season. Could I please have your recipe for rice and beans.
Thank you.
Sue says
Okay, my ignorance is going to show now–if I let my green bean seeds dry, they will turn into beans I can use for soups/etc? I guess I thought that kind of dried bean was a plant specifically grown for dried beans. Help me understand this?? 🙂
Jen says
Sue—yup, same plant. When you eat green beans, you’re eating the not-completely-ripe fruit of the bean plant. If you don’t pick the green beans, eventually the plant and all the green beans will die and dry up. And then you can pop open the green beans (the pods) and remove the individual beans (the seeds). These are your standard pinto beans and black beans and great northern beans, etc.
Deborah says
Some varieties are grown for their pods, snap beans (green, yellow, purple). Some for the mature seeds inside the pod (canellini, pinto, black.ect). But most can be eaten at either stage and before the pod is dry but the seed is formed we call those shelly beans. A great variety to grow for every stage of harvest is “Dragon’s tongue”, it’s a yellow bean with purple streaks and a mottled cranberry type seed.
Robin Martin says
I planted rattlesnakes (bush) and yellow wax (pole) this year. We have picked and froze beans by the ton, now I have let the rest sit so they can be dry beans 🙂
This is my first time trying drying out beans.
Hanna McCown says
I do this too. I love how free the food is when you save and dry for eating and planting. I do soak them for a long time changing the water a couple of times before cooking. It makes them more digestible.