Purple Beans?

Harvesting Royal Burgundy Beans

How-To process 'green beans' for the freezer.

We have been planting Royal Burgundy (Phaseolus vulgaris) bush beans for at least 5 years. They are a wonderful bean - nearly stringless, insect- and disease-resistant, tender, and delicious. Best of all, you can easily find them on the plant.

The beans start as a deep purple and the seeds are nearly black. Once you cook them the bean turns bright green.

They keep well, even in the freezer - I pulled some out last week for our dinner and they were just as nice as they were last year when they were harvested.

I prefer to freeze my green beans. They stay pretty crisp and are the most like fresh beans. Mushy canned beans are just YUCK. (OK, if you put enough fried onions on top of them, I'll eat them.)

Besides being a lower quality, the beans must be pressure canned - in July and August - for at least 20 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. I can process an entire picking of beans in the time it takes to bring the canner up to pressure.

Here are the two varieties we planted this year. The first picture shows the plants side-by-side. The Royal Burgundy has a darker and more variegated leaf. Great Lakes is the green variety Bob planted. We had trouble finding enough Royal Burgundy this year.

It's easy to find the purple beans on the plants, unlike traditional 'green' beans.

The beans are harvested and then rinsed well. After that, I trim the ends, sorting out beans with insect or disease damage. All the bits left over go to the chickens, so nothing is wasted. My chickens are my organic matter composters!

This is my favorite part! You can see the progression of color change in the hot water as you blanch them. They go into the boiling water bath for 2 minutes and are pulled out to be quickly cooled down.

Blanching stops the enzyme process which destroys the color, flavor, and texture of your beans.

After cooling them completely, I put them on a clean towel to remove excess moisture.

They are then placed in quart-size freezer bags, removing as much air as possible (using a straw and closing them quickly), and popped them into the freezer.

They are in dinner-sized portions (for 2 adults) and have most the air removed.

As I said, after a year in a deep freezer, the beans taste nearly as good as when I initially processed them.

Most roadside vegetable markets and stands have fresh green beans for sale right now. Grab a few pounds and process them for the freezer. It doesn't require any special equipment except freezer baggies. Don't use regular sandwich bags - they aren't thick enough to prevent freezer burn.

Next year, make room in your garden for Royal Burgundy beans.

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Here is my favorite way to make green beans for supper.

Turn oven on to 350°F

Take beans from freezer and place them in a deep bowl. I don't thaw them first, but you can.

Gently toss the beans with a generous serving of olive oil, garlic, and grated Parmesan cheese.

Put them on a cookie sheet in a single layer. You will need room to stir them, so a bigger cookie sheet is better than a too small or 'just right' sheet.

Place the beans in the oven, stirring them every 5 - 7 minutes or so.

When some of the beans are starting to crisp, they are ready.

I have a slow oven so it takes about 20 minutes. You could use an air fryer, too.

These savory beans go really well with meatloaf and twice baked potatoes.

Back to the garden -

Polly