Thursday Recipe - Bottled Bean Salad

I adore bean salad, when it's done right. Pouring a bottle of Italian salad dressing over some canned green beans, garbanzos, and kidney beans isn't doing it right. If you like it that way, eat it. I won't judge. I just won't eat it with you. I love the sweet and sour pickled bean salad at Costco, but it only comes in giant bottles and I'm the only one who really eats it at my house. The bottle is too much for me.

I picked a big bucket of beans from my garden and decided to try out a bottled recipe for bean salad, sort of based off this recipe (the second quick one, not the overnight one). Of course I switched it up based on what I had available, so this is my version. I'm also not a fan of the garbanzos and kidneys, so I left them out entirely. Feel free to substitute one cup of canned kidney or garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed well, for one cup of the fresh green beans. The recipe makes about 4 pints.

Bottled Bean Salad

8 c. fresh green beans, washed and cut into 1-1.5 inch pieces (I used a mix of green and yellow beans because that's what I planted)
1/2 c. chopped celery (don't be afraid of the leafy bits in the center, those are great in this recipe)
1/2 c. diced onion (I used red onions from my garden, it's about 1 medium-small onion)
1/2 c. diced bell pepper (red and yellow are pretty, but green works, too)
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. mustard seeds
1/2 t. celery seeds
2 t. pickling salt or kosher salt
1 1/2 c. white vinegar (5% acidity)
3/4 c. water

Place the vegetables in a big pot. Cover with hot water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain and pack into pint jars.

Mix sugar, mustard seeds, salt, vinegar, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Pour over vegetables in jars. If you don't have quite enough, finish filling the jars with vinegar. My recipe didn't make quite enough of the pickling syrup.

Wipe off the rims of the jars, then seal and process according to your altitude. I processed my jars for 15 minutes.