It is a frequent question here but it always seems to end in a tie

Its strictly personal preference. Some don't like frozen ones at all and would only even consider canning them. others take just the opposite position - frozen great, canned yucky. :)

Personally wife and I much prefer canned GB over frozen and the kids and grandkids all refuse to eat frozen ones. Don't like either the texture or the flavor. But many others will disagree.

Add to that the shelf life - much longer for canned than frozen and no concern about power outages. A 3 or 4 year old jar of canned beans are as good as the day they were canned. No way can they be frozen that long.

It is your choice.

Dave

If we're voting, I'll cast mine with Dave's, so no tie yet. Fresh, or canned....never frozen green beans.

Now if you were to ask me about peas, you'd get the reverse response ;)

It's all a matter of taste. What does your family enjoy?

At the risk of starting another very long thread on a repeated subject, I vote for frozen. My family doesn't care for canned green beans, and we eat so many that using them over the winter isn't a problem (I'm hoping this year to have enough to last until next harvest). But if you like store-bought canned beans, why don't you PC a test batch? I'll bet that homegrown will taste better.

We like them frozen. I have about 85 quart bags in the freezer right now and I can not imagine canning all of those. When I take them out of the freezer I just fry them up with garlic, oil and parm. They are still done super fast and I dont have to wash a jar or drain liquid!

We like them frozen. I have about 85 quart bags in the freezer right now and I can not imagine canning all of those. When I take them out of the freezer I just fry them up with garlic, oil and parm. They are still done super fast and I dont have to wash a jar or drain liquid!

I have limited freezer space so I do both. The family prefers them frozen & then fried up like farmgrl does. I tend to use the canned beans in soups.

could you give me some advice? if i cut up green beans to PC, can i mix some bigger, older beans in? i would cut them smaller of course. and how many days would you refrigerate them before you canned? these days i would need 3 days to pick a load. have you put anything in with them for flavor- dried herbs, a splash of balsamic, minced garlic, a slice of onion, etc? same question for peppers. just those 2 in water sounds pretty bland.

I'm in the canned beans camp as well. I don't like frozen green beans, but not enough space in my freezer anyway. I like the idea of doing a test batch of each.

pattypan - I don't think there's a strict rule you can go by. You can try tasting them to see if they're fresh enough. I don't have enough plants to can what I picked in one day, so I always have to store them in the fridge for a few days. I never, ever add anything else to the jars. You can always add that stuff to your recipe after you open the jars, when you go to use them in a recipe.

I did see in the BBB under Special Diets that they added a strip of lemon peel to each jar but that's the only variation I found.

Just add the seasonings when you reheat and drain the beans, it will be less diluted that way anyway.

If it takes 3 days to pick a canner load I'd do the beans that day so the oldest beans are only 2 days old - I don't even like to wait that log to freeze mine but life happens. I did give beans picked Monday to food bank on Thursday (I wouldn't even bring them to market on Wed), I hope people ate them right away.

thanks sheila ! i like the idea of lemon. so about the sizes, how picky do i have to be, especially if i cut them up. my feeling is to just be sensible about it, altho that's very subjective !

I don't know since I've never canned beans except for Dilly Beans. I used larger beans for those since I didn't want them to get mushy. We prefer smaller ones (though not haricot vert) for freezing.

I'd just try to keep them all around the same size (diameter) so that they cook evenly, I don't get that picky about lengths, if you can keep them about the same length too that's best but beans come in different lengths and I certainly wouldn't compost the ends of the longer ones, though it's less waste to cut them into 1-or 2-inch long pieces instead of 4- to 5-inch long and then have a bunch of short pieces left over. But 1/2 inch difference isn't going to matter.

LOL, I wasn't aware this was an annual discussion! :-) Thanks for the input everyone; I went with blanch/frozen. When we're ready to eat them, I usually cook them in water with a little salt until they reach the desired tenderness....sometimes till they are just like canned green beans!

I guess I like the versatility in texture with frozen, but you are right, if the power goes out I will be crying.