Directions for Freezing Bush Beans

Harvest beans and inspect for old or damaged beans and remove for compost pile.

Rinse in cold water and individually inspect them again for quality, making sure they are not too old or insect damaged, don't want to eat those!

After rinsing them all, turn out onto paper towels to drain a bit and get knife and cutting board to start cutting off ends of beans.

Cut off ends and damaged parts.

Save for compost pile!

Beans ready to blanch before freezing.

Use a large stockpot so all the beans can fit in one pot.  Bring to a boil and put in beans and leave in for about 3 minutes.

Beans need to be blanched before freezing to destroy all the bad bacteria and enzymes. 

Get ready two large bowls filled half way with cold water and add ice cubes to them.  The finished blanched beans will be immediately drained and put in the ice water to stop the blanching process.

So, you will blanch for about 3 minutes and when the time is up....

you will drain the beans before adding to ice water.

Let the beans sit in the ice water for about 3 minutes.

After the 3 minutes in the ice water, drain again.

Lay the beans out on paper towels...

pat dry...

and, to try to get as much water off of the beans as possible, I place a fan on them to help to dry them out.

After about 15 minutes or so, put the mostly dry beans in the freezer bag (I use the quart size) to about an inch from the top of the bag.

The freezer bag is full of beans and ready to have the air sucked out.....since I don't have one of those machines that do it for you...

I use a straw to suck out the air myself.  It works, but I think next year I will invest in one of the freezer seal machines.

Air sucked out and package sealed.

This mornings harvest:  some put aside for steaming tonight and the rest ready for the freezer to eat another day!