Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Canning Burrito Beans: A Photo Tutorial

I enjoy the convenience of home canned beans. They taste ever so much better than store bought, and are super easy and inexpensive. I am canning another batch right now, so I will show you how it's done.

First, decide how much you want to can. I am making 14 quarts. Measure out 7 pounds beans (or 1/2 pound per quart) and soak overnight. I didn't take a picture of the soaking. I'll assume you know how to do it. I use a five-gallon bucket to soak this amount of beans.

measure out and soak beans

Drain the beans and place them in your biggest pot, covered with fresh water. Bring them to a boil and boil, gently, for 30 minutes. This plumps the beans to just about their full size.

boil beans 30 minutes

My husband set up this nifty outdoor kitchen for me to work on. Ain't he great!!

Put clean jars in the oven and bake them at 250 for 20 minutes or so. This sterilizes the jars. You can also run them through the sterilize cycle of the dishwasher or boil them.

Heat and sterilize jars

Gather your ingredients and place into each dry jar:

1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 Tbsp chopped onion OR 1 tsp dried onion
1/2 Tbsp chili powder
a heaping 1/2 Tbsp chopped jalapenos
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp oregano

gather spices

add to jars

Put rings and lids into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let simmer until needed, but DO NOT BOIL.

simmer lids (and rings)

Fill each jar with three cups of the beans and then add the hot cooking water to 1" headspace. If you run out of cooking water, plain boiling water will suffice. Use a small rubber spatula or other tool (I use a chopstick) to stir around the spices. Wipe rims with a clean washrag carefully to assure a good seal and top with lids and rings.
Place jars in canner

Add the appropriate amount of water to your pressure canner, add jars and process at 10 pounds for 90 minutes.

process for 90 minutes at 10 pounds

When done, allow pressure to dissipate naturally, then allow jars to cool on counter overnight before removing rings and storing.

All done!

That's all there is to it! If you have any questions or need clarification on any of the steps, please ask!

1 comment:

Laura said...

I love the idea of a outdoor kitchen! Thank you for the great tutorial!