Healthy Fermented Dilly Beans with Garlic
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Fermented dilly beans are the bomb diggity, mmkayyy? I like to can both shelf stable AND fermented dilly beans to have a nice variety of pickled goodies. We normally plow through the lacto fermented beans all summer as the beans produce and then save the pickled canned ones for the winter.
Just how it works in our house.
You can also store ALL fermented ones in the fridge, or cold storage (aka a root cellar or cold room) for a year or better. I’ve even stored fermented pickles for 5 years, but they’re a bit soft at that time.
Why Fermented Dilly Beans?
Fermented foods are an amazing source of probiotics and gut healthy bacteria. The gut is where everything starts for our health. If you’re not taking care of you gut and supporting good bacteria, the cascade that follows can be detrimental.
Now, I know, there are folks that fermented foods don’t agree with them. I get it. But the mass majority are NOT nourishing their bodies they way they really should be. And for many, that’s consumption of fermented foods.
Lacto-fermentation improves the bioavailability of vitamins and minerals, meaning our body more readily absorbs and takes up those from fermented foods.
Basically, fermentation is a controlled rot of our food. We add salt to encourage good bacteria growth that produces the tangy flavors, lactobacillus, to rot our food while the yeasts, molds, and other spoilage inducing bacteria are kept at bay due to salinity and the adjusted pH.
When we allow our food to rot a bit, our bodies can more readily use that partially broken down food than when its raw. That’s just basic common sense…. our gut works less hard to break down and utilize the food as opposed to just housing a bowl of raw green beans.
Both are good, but one is a bit better and more useful to us! Fermentation breaks down anti-nutrients and sugars using lactobacillus to make the nutrients so much easier to absorb. When you add that along with the prebiotic fibers of vegetables, you are feeding your gut a probiotic and health promoting powerhouse.
WITH SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS ROTTEN FOOD.
Like… WHAT?!
That is magical!!! Is it not?
Am I the only one enamored with fermentation, how simple it is, but how simply amazing it is for us and our health.
This is also why I constantly preach to not put all your preserving eggs in one basket. Learn multiple skills and broaden your horizons, because while my home canned dill pickled beans (or dilly beans) are delicious, so are the fermented dilly beans that quite literally feed and fuel our guts.
If you want your body to run well and detox well, since everyone is obsessed with detox these days, you need to start by fueling it well. When you fuel it well and heal your gut and feed it, your body can then detox appropriately. Also known as “open pathways.” Detox starts with gut health, and no tincture, herb, or cleanse is going to work if your gut is a mess. Because it all starts there and cascades outward.
Green Bean Variety
A question I frequently get when I start processing my green beans is what variety I grow. I have try mannnyyyyy varieties here in my little slice of Ohio and have landed on Provider beans. They have, by far, been the best producing, flavored, and growing on our farm.
I encourage you to try many varieties to find what you like best. Gardening isn’t a one and done thing, but just years of trial and error. And my years of many, many errors landed me on Provider beans.
Save the seeds from your garden and you’ll have even stronger, more well adapted plants, to your little microclimate the next year!
Enough yappin’, let’s make some fermented dilly beans!
Equipment You Might Want
- 2 wide mouth quart mason jars
- Glass fermenting weights
- Air locks
Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds fresh green beans
- 8 cloves garlic
- 1 Tbs dill seeds
- 6 cups water, divided
- 1/4 cup salt
Step 1: Prep
Start by picking fresh beans and rinsing well under cool, running water.
Snip the ends and snap into pieces you want to eat. I normally leave the smaller ones whole and snap the big ones in half just so they fit in the jar easily. Set aside.
Smash and peel the garlic cloves.
Measure out 2 cups of hot water and mix in 1/4 cup salt. Stir to dissolve. Once dissolved, add in remaining 4 cups of cold water to cool the hot water down. You DO NOT want to dump hot water over your ferment. Cool, room temperature preferred.
Step 2: Assemble the Ferment
Grab 2 wide mouth quart jars and add 1/2 Tbs dill seed and 4 cloves of smashed garlic to each jar.
Layer in green beans, tightly packing to about 1 1/2″ headspace. Really smash the beans in there and tap the jar on a towel to settle them in. They shrink as they ferment, so be aggressive, B-E-AGGRESSIVE.
Over each jar, pour the salt solution over the green beans until they are covered.
Place a glass weight on top and make sure all the green beans are submerged.
Wipe the rims of the jars and then fit them with an air lock. You can also use old canning lids with a band screwed on and burp the ferment daily. An air lock really comes in handy though so you don’t really have to remember to burp them. If you’re forgetful like me :D
Step 3: Ferment
Set aside in a warm area away from direct sunlight. I do the corner of my kitchen so I see them and don’t forget about them.
Allow the dilly beans to ferment for about 2 weeks before you begin tasting. 3 weeks is usually the sweet spot for my taste. The beans should still be crunchy, but also tangy and slightly salty.
Ferments will smell soured, but not super unpleasant. If your ferment smells like a rotten foot or a dead animal… just assume it turned bad and the wrong bacteria got in there and toss it.
Mold formation is up to you. Some people scrape it off, others say no way. You do what works for you there. If you’re sensitive to mold… maybe avoid it.
Once the beans are fermented to your liking, remove the air lock and switch to an air tight lid. Store the fermented dilly beans in the fridge or cold room for up to a year. They’ll even store longer than that, but just expect, depending on how cold you keep them, that they will continue to ferment and get a bit more sour and softened.
I do try to use my ferments up within the year.
To Use:
Open the jar and eat them for a tangy, crunchy snack and your daily FREE probiotic pill.
And now you know how to make fermented dilly beans!
Equipment
- 2 wide mouth quart mason jars
- Glass fermenting weights
- Air locks
Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds fresh green beans
- 8 cloves garlic
- 1 Tbs dill seeds
- 6 cups water divided
- 1/4 cup salt
Instructions
Step 1:Â Prep
- Start by picking fresh beans and rinsing well under cool, running water.
- Snip the ends and snap into pieces you want to eat. I normally leave the smaller ones whole and snap the big ones in half just so they fit in the jar easily. Set aside.
- Smash and peel the garlic cloves.
- Measure out 2 cups of hot water and mix in 1/4 cup salt. Stir to dissolve. Once dissolved, add in remaining 4 cups of cold water to cool the hot water down. You DO NOT want to dump hot water over your ferment. Cool, room temperature preferred.
Step 2:Â Assemble the Ferment
- Grab 2 wide mouth quart jars and add 1/2 Tbs dill seed and 4 cloves of smashed garlic to each jar.
- Layer in green beans, tightly packing to about 1 1/2″ headspace. Really smash the beans in there and tap the jar on a towel to settle them in. They shrink as they ferment, so be aggressive, B-E-AGGRESSIVE.
- Over each jar, pour the salt solution over the green beans until they are covered.
- Place a glass weight on top and make sure all the green beans are submerged.
- Wipe the rims of the jars and then fit them with an air lock. You can also use old canning lids with a band screwed on and burp the ferment daily.
Step 3:Â Ferment
- Set aside in a warm area away from direct sunlight. I do the corner of my kitchen so I see them and don’t forget about them.
- Allow the dilly beans to ferment for about 2 weeks before you begin tasting. 3 weeks is usually the sweet spot for my taste. The beans should still be crunchy, but also tangy and slightly salty.
- Once the beans are fermented to your liking, remove the air lock and switch to an air tight lid. Store the fermented dilly beans in the fridge or cold room for up to a year. They’ll even store longer than that, but just expect, depending on how cold you keep them, that they will continue to ferment and get a bit more sour and softened.
To Use:
- Open the jar and eat them for a tangy, crunchy snack and your daily FREE probiotic pill.
