How To Can Dry Beans At Home – Without Soaking

Dry beans are one of the easiest things to can at home. The only ingredients needed to can dry beans are beans, salt, and water!

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Is It Cheaper To Can Dry Beans At Home?

If you are just starting and have to buy all the jars and a pressure canner and everything then no, it won’t be cheaper to can them at home. However, once you get going and have all the canning essentials it is cheaper to can your beans at home.

Great Value brand canned black beans at Walmart are 82 cents a pint, which is $1.62 a quart. If you already have a canner, jars, and rings, you just have to buy the ingredients and lids it comes out to about 90 cents a quart. You can get ball canning lids for about 52 cents a lid on Amazon. A 4lb bag of great value black beans is $4.98, they have 13 cups of beans in them, which is 13 quarts. So for the beans, it’s about 38 cents a quart.

What You Need To Can Dry Beans

• Dry beans
• Salt
• Water
• Pressure canner (a water bath canner will not work for this recipe)
• Jars, lids, and rings
• Large pot to heat water
• Jar lifter for lifting jars out of the canner

How To Can Dry Beans

Preparing To Can Dry Beans

First, fill a large stock pot with water put it on high, and bring it to a boil. Also, follow the pressure canner instructions on how much water to put in it and put it on the stove to bring to a boil. I am using a 23 qt Presto pressure canner, for it you need to put 3qts of water in the bottom. Add a splash of vinegar to the water in the pressure canner to keep the jars from getting water stains on them, especially if you have hard water.

While those are heating wash the jars and rings in hot soapy water. Because I wash mine before putting them away I just fill a sink with hot soapy water and let them sit in it a while before giving them a quick scrub and rinsing them.

Next measure out the beans and rinse them. You will need a cup of beans for a quart jar, or half a cup for a pint jar.

After all the jars are clean and the beans are rinsed, put one cup of beans in each quart jar and one teaspoon of salt. If doing pints, then use half a cup of beans and half a teaspoon of salt.

Next, fill the jars with boiling water from the pot, making sure to leave one inch of head space in the jars. I normally fill them about to the bottom of the neck of the jar, which is about an inch below the top.

Wipe off the tops of the jar with a paper towel to make sure they are clean and dry. Then place the lids on top of the jars and screw the rings on. Don’t overtighten the rings, just finger tight will do.

Canning Dry Beans

• Once the jars of beans are ready and the water in the pressure canner is boiling. Lower the jars into the canner and put the lid on. Make sure the lid is all the way tight.

• Bring the water back to a boil. When steam is coming in a steady stream out the vent hole, set a timer for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes are up, put the weight on the pressure canner and let it come up to pressure, and the lid to lock. Where I am that is 10 lbs, but check what it is for where you are here. If you are just using a basic weight, make sure you pay close attention and make sure it stays at 10 lbs. My husband got me this handy weight that is extremely helpful. You can set it to 5, 10, or 15lbs and not have to watch it so closely.

• Once the canner is up to pressure and the lid lock is up they need to can for 90 minutes for quarts or 75 minutes for pints.
• After they have been in there the correct amount of time at the right pressure, turn the stove off and let the canner cool down and lose pressure. You need to wait for the gauge to read 0 lbs and the lid lock to go down. DO NOT try to make the canner lose pressure faster by taking the weight off. The canner is under pressure and if you release the pressure too fast you can break the jars.

• After it has lost all its pressure and the lid lock is down, you can take the lid off and remove the jars. I put my jars on a cutting board with a towel on top because they will be wet and very hot.

• If you notice that any rings are loose, give them a quick tightening.
• Let the jars cool overnight and then check to make sure they are sealed.

And no, canned beans don’t look very pretty.

That is it takes to can dry beans! I can beans every couple months for our family and once you get going, it doesn’t take much! Canning them in the wintertime helps warm the house up too!

FAQ About Canning Dry Beans

Is It Safe To Not Soak The Beans First?

Most recipes for canning beans have you soak the beans first. I cannot really find any reason why it is necessary. Almost everything I find says to soak them first so that you don’t overfill the jars when the beans expand. Which, obviously you have to leave room for them to expand, but at least for me, it isn’t reason enough to bother with soaking them. I think soaking them first makes too mushy of a bean anyway, they are mushy enough when I skip the soak. However, soaking them first is the recommended way to can them and it really isn’t that hard, just soak them in a bowl of water the night before you plan to can.

Can I Water Bath Can Dried Beans?

No, it is not safe to water bath can dried beans. Because beans are a low acid food they must be pressure canned to be canned safely.

Can I Use My Pressure Cooker To Can Dried Beans?

No, your pressure cooker/instant pot is not tested for canning safety.

Can I Can Different Kinds Of Beans At Once?

Yes. Because all beans have to process for the same amount of time it is okay to mix the beans, even in the same jars if you want. I often can dry beans mixed of black and kidney beans just because sometimes I want more than one color of beans in whatever I’m making.

How Do I Know If The Jars Are Sealed?

Canning lids have a bubble in the middle of them. When sealed the bubble will not go up or down. Push down in the middle of the lid of the canning jar. If it doesn’t move at all then your jar is sealed, If it moves then your jar is not sealed.

What Do I Do If I Have A Jar That Doesn’t Seal When I Can Dry Beans?

There are several things you can do. Some people will try to re-can it within 24 hours. Personally, I have never done this and I’m not sure what I think of it. You can also put it in the fridge and just use it within a couple days. Or you can freeze it.