Yellow beans, also known as wax beans, are a special variety of the well-known green bean. They are more tender and have a finer taste, but can be frozen just like their green sister.

Freezing wax beans cut into small pieces and portions is a good idea

Buy Wax Beans

When buying fresh beans, whether yellow or green, make sure the vegetable is crisp. The colors are bright green or yellow, the pods have no brown spots or soggy bruises. Take a bean and break it through. Small droplets must escape from the flesh at the point of breakage to guarantee that the bean is fresh.

Clean wax beans

If you have bought or harvested a large quantity of beans, leave the legumes in a cool room until ready to use. Just before further processing, wash the beans under running water and cut off the ends. With some types of beans, the middle threads also have to be removed.

Preserve Wax Beans

Wax beans will keep in the fridge for up to three days if wrapped in a damp kitchen towel. By then they should be prepared and eaten.
Large quantities of legumes are best used for storage. There are two ways to do this:

  • boil down the wax beans in jars or
  • freeze the wax beans.

The preserving

Boiling beans, including wax beans, was the specialty of the older generation. The clean beans were divided into bite-sized pieces, filled into jars, poured over with salt water and sealed in an airtight container and boiled down in a large cauldron. Treated in this way, the beans could be kept for years.

The Freeze

Freezing vegetables is simple and modern. With just a few steps, you can store a whole bean harvest in the freezer to save space.

  1. Clean the wax beans and cut them to the desired size.
  2. Prepare boiling salted water in a large saucepan.
  3. Place the beans in boiling salted water for a few minutes.
  4. Drain the salt water and immediately place the beans in ice water. That's how they keep their color.

You can now freeze the blanched beans in portions in suitable freezer containers. Wax beans will last about a year in the freezer. If you want to further process the frozen beans, thawing them first is not necessary.

The garden journal freshness ABC

How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?

The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:

  • as a free PDF file to print out yourself

Category:

Vegetable garden