These pickled green beans are flavored with garlic, dill, and chili peppers for a savory, spicy kick. If you’ve got more fresh green beans on hand than you know what to do with, making dilly beans is the best way to preserve them!
Pickling Green Beans Is a Great Way to Use Them Up
There’s this thing I inherited from my mother. Besides her blue eyes, our inability to remember names of acquaintances in the grocery store, and our shared aptitude for back-seat driving, I inherited her love of pickles.
Specifically my mom’s BFF’s dilly bean recipe (AKA pickled green beans). This recipe is a love child of Marissa’s and Pick Your Own’s. I added an extra garlic clove to each bottle and scavenged a few Thai chiles from my neighbor to make these pickled green beans extra punchy and delicious.
Enjoy them as tasty snacks with crudités, cheese, and charcuterie, or serve them alongside your favorite sandwich.
Enjoy!
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
The full recipe, with amounts, can be found in the recipe card below.
- Green beans — Always pickle fresh green beans, never frozen!
- Fresh dill — If you don’t have fresh, you can always use dried, but reduce the amount to 1 tablespoon total, because dried herbs are more intense in flavor than fresh. (You can always add more, but you can’t take it away!)
- Garlic — To infuse the pickled green beans with a punch of flavor.
- Cayenne peppers — Feel free to omit if you don’t want any heat, or use Thai chilies like I did if you like your pickled green beans spicy.
- Distilled white vinegar — This is my favorite vinegar for pickling green beans, but I’ve also tested this recipe with apple cider vinegar and it works great too (the brine is just slightly sweeter).
- Canning or pickling salt — To help preserve your pickled green beans, making them last longer.
How to Pickle Green Beans (+ Tips!)
Dilly Beans aren’t rocket science, but canning is. So I went to the definitive canning source for reference, Food In Jars, and gleaned some intel from Marissa who certainly deserves a throne and something sparkly for her canning highness-ness. Per Marissa’s helpful guidance, the pickling process was pretty simple.
- Prep your jars. When canning anything, you must properly sterilize your jars and lids.
- Clean and trim the green beans. If you’re using pint jars as suggested, you should be fine to trim just the ends so the green beans can stand up straight in the jar. If using smaller jars, you’ll need to cut the green beans into smaller pieces.
- Fill the jars with the aromatics. I added 1 to 2 dill blooms and 2 cloves of garlic to each jar, plus 1 whole cayenne pepper.
- Pack in the green beans. You should be able to squeeze in ½ pound of trimmed green beans per pint jar.
- Bring the brining solution to a boil. Combine the water and vinegar in a saucepan and heat until simmering, then add the sugar and salt (I always add the salt after the water comes to a boil so my pans don’t become pitted.)
- Pour the brine over the green beans, leaving ½ inch head space. Wipe the edges of the mouth clean and place a sterilized lid and then a ring on the jar.
- Process and be patient! Process the jars in a canner for 5 minutes if under 1,000 FT or 10 minutes from 1,000 -6,000 FT. Remove and allow to cool, making sure the jars are sealed by pressing on the lid.
Heidi’s Tip: If the lid pops up at any point after canning, that means it didn’t properly seal and the dilly beans must be thrown away!
Ways to Eat Pickled Green Beans
- In pimento cheese
- As a topping for pulled pork sandwiches, bacon cheeseburgers, or BLTs
- As a garnish for Bloody Marys or martinis
- On cheese boards
- In deviled eggs
- In egg salad, tuna salad, potato salad, or dill pickle chicken salad
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on this recipe below and leave a comment, take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.
Pickled Green Beans Recipe (aka Dilly Beans)
Equipment
- Pint-Size Canning Jars
- Pressure Canner
Ingredients
- 4 pounds fresh green beans
- 8 to 16 heads fresh dill seed blooms
- 16 cloves garlic , peeled and smashed
- 8 whole cayenne peppers , smashed (or use Thai chilis for extra spice)
- 4 cups water
- 4 cups distilled white vinegar
- ½ cup canning or pickling salt
Instructions
- Sterilize your jars and lids. Clean and trim beans to fit in tall Mason Jars (about ½ pound of beans fills one pint).
- For each jar, put 1-2 dill blooms and 2 cloves of garlic into each jar. Pack the jars firmly with whole green beans and cayenne pepper, leaving a ½-inch space from the top of the jar.
- Bring the water and white vinegar to a boil. Add the salt and stir to dissolve. (I add the salt after the water comes to a boil so my pans don’t become pitted.) If you run out of vinegar mixture, just mix up another half batch.
- Ladle the vinegar mixture into the jars leaving ½ inch space from the top. Wipe the edges of the mouth clean and place a sterilized lid and then a ring on the jar.
- Process the jars in a canner for 5 minutes if under 1,000 FT or 10 minutes from 1,000 -6,000 FT. Remove and allow to cool, making sure the jars are sealed by pressing on the lid. If it pops up the lid isn’t sealed and should be thrown away.
- To store: Pickled green beans will be ready to eat within a week and are good for about a year.
Notes
Nutrition
FAQs
Yes and no. You don’t blanch the green beans the typical way (briefly adding them to boiling water), but once you add the boiling brining solution to them, they will essentially blanch in their jars.
When it comes to pickling green beans, distilled white vinegar is your pal. It’s a more mild smelling and flavored vinegar, has an ideal level of acidity, and since it’s clear, it won’t turn your dilly beans a funky color.
More Easy Pickle Recipes to Make
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BonJon
Help me out here, folks. I WANT to love dilly beans, but I actually hate the ones I made. Now, I know for a fact 50% of the problem is the canning salt: I’ve purchased 3 main stream brands, tried them all. Bottom line, it doesn’t matter what food is made with it, no one here will eat it. Took them to 2 potlucks: folks were taking a bite and leaving the rest on their plates. Even though I’m a grandma, I’m just getting back into canning after a 30 year hiatus, and I well remember the rule “only canning salt in the canning.” The salts all have the same very nasty aftertaste.
The other things: despite buying fresh farmers market beans, my dilly beans were limp and the flavor was not pleasing. The recipe I used was same as yours minus the chili, and said I could sub dill seed or dill weed, which I did . (And I’m thinking that farmer wasn’t too correct when he said the beans were picked that morning.) But also, I prefer sweet pickles, like my 3 pickled bean salad recipe – it’s sweeter. And there’s a 3rd issue: what do you do with dilly beans? From the strong flavor, I can’t think of anything they’d go with! Can anyone suggest something to make with them? I’d hate to just toss them!
Mary Ann Neufeld
My Mom loved anything pickled, watermelon was her favourite. Has anyone tried Pickled ripe tomatoes and pickled peppers? These are to die for. Some use the rind as well as the red flesh. I use only the red part
Bhuvana
Pickling brings out great flavours doesn’t it! Thank you for including my lemon pickle!
Kathryn @ anotherfoodieblogger
I make almost the exact same recipe, except the only difference is I use fresh dill fronds instead of the blooms. Lovely photography, too!
I know it! I searched and searched and didn’t find anything that quite fit. Maybe you’ll need to come to my eggless rescue.
Antoinette Ouellette
The secret to good pickled eggs is putting a toothpick in the centre of each egg…the brine goes in faster and even in the centre quickly ..our recipe was so simple …one onion per jar..small and heat a cup of vinegar to each filled quart jar add a half teaspoon of pickling spic to the total of quarts and 1teaspoon of sugar each ..see easy ..
Sylvie @ Gourmande in the Kitchen
I do love a good pickle, that vinegary bite is the best! Thanks for including my carrots and asparagus!
Thank YOU! Gorgeous photo and so tasty looking.
JulieO
Let’s all do the pickle dance! Or the ‘dilly bean’! HA what would that look like?
Reminds me of my grandfather who loved anything pickled including pigs feet! He liked to call me “green bean” or “long drink of water” or “long lean and always hungry” !!
Ok, I’m feeling chatty, apparently. Thanks for the recipes–and reminders!
Ha! That’s a good one! The dilly bean dance, sounds like it has Elaine from Seinfeld’s name written all over it.
YP
I make pickled red onions pretty regularly, but the pickled avocado just blew my mind a little.
Whoa.
I know! Right??
Cookin' Canuck
You went to some serious lengths to bring us this recipes, and I must say that makes me happy. These babies would taste great in my next Caesar Cocktail (like a Bloody Mary)!
I still need to try your Caesar cocktail. The perfect excuse for us to have brunch.
Bev @ Bev Cooks
Doing the dilly is my LIFE.
Sommer @ ASpicyPerspective
Love that dilly bean recipe! Gorgeous, too, with that one red pepper tucked in there!
It’s a Thai chile, we’ll see how spicy it gets!
Stefanie @ Sarcastic Cooking
Oh baby. I have been on a pickled carrot kick lately. I think i need to switch it up, and make something new to snack on. My grandfather made the best homemade pickles and it definitely makes me sad that I never got a recipe for them when he was alive. I think after a few summer’s of trying to mimic his recipe I am finally getting close.
Chung-Ah | Damn Delicious
Love dilly beans! And pickling avocado? How have I never done that before?!
Norma @ Allspice and Nutmeg
Dilly beans! Takes me back to my southern aunt’s kitchen where she cooked up some of the best beans ever.