French Beans Success

Orange_King

I have been amazed atthe amount of French Beans I have had off relatively few plants and I'm still regularly cropping. Do these need cooked before freezing them or can they be put in the freezer once they are picked?

foxgloves

Hi,
I've got some to freeze too. You don't need to cook them but they need blanching first, so if you know how to do this, ignore me, if not, bring a pan of water to the boil, drop the top & tailed beans into it, turn the heat down & just give them about a minute or so. Drain & immediately put them in cold water. Pack into freezer bags & they'll be fine. Sometimes you can be eating last year's while getting ready to sow next year's.

Orange_King

Thats great - thanks. I have more to pick and fancy keeping some for later in the year.

lisa26_2

I don't even blanch them...just wash 'em, chop 'em and chuck 'em in the freezer (in bags!!!). They're just as good as fresh when cooked from frozen.

izzwizz_2

I do the same as lisa26.

wssla00

me too! Never bother blanching them....

Orange_King

That sounds even better - thanks all.

ukbill69

First year for me and I love how many they have produced. Will do some more next year.

xrjtg

I've tried to blanch runners before and they've come out of the freezer a bit grey and not all that appealing. I'll try straight to the freezer if I ever get another glut.

troubrs

I read in a Good Housekeeping Magazine that they's done a trial blanching & not blanching & the not blanched ones came out better, so I'm going to try that this year.
Really pleased with my climbing runner beans this year, Cobra variety, huge crop!

Lotus-eater

troubrs wrote: »

I read in a Good Housekeeping Magazine that they's done a trial blanching & not blanching & the not blanched ones came out better, so I'm going to try that this year.
Really pleased with my climbing runner beans this year, Cobra variety, huge crop!

That's very interesting, unfortunately I have never been organized enough to label bags of blanched and not blanched beans, but haven't really noticed the difference.
I mainly stopped blanching because it was so much extra work, although I did do a couple of bags early in the year because I wanted to test them.... but I never got round to labelling them and now they are all mixed up

Cobra is a french bean btw