How to Store Dried Beans for Winter

Leave the pods on the plant until they are dry, shrivelled and brittle and you can hear the beans rattle. If wet weather or frost threatens first, pull the whole plant and hang it upside down somewhere warm and airy to finish. Then shell the beans, spread them on a tray in a warm dry room until they are rock-hard, and keep them in an airtight jar. A pod that looks dry isn't the same as a bean dry enough to store, though: beans sealed in a jar while still holding moisture can soften, sweat and turn mouldy within weeks.

Letting a large share of a runner, French or broad bean crop dry fully on the plant turns the beans into a dried pulse for soups, stews and casseroles over winter. For sowing, spacing and support, see the runner bean, French bean and broad bean growing guides. Saving seed needs only a handful of pods per plant, kept in a labelled paper envelope. Drying for food means committing most or all of a plant's pods and storing the result in bulk.

What "dry" means

Teagasc, Ireland's agriculture and food development authority, gives moisture figures for beans grown as a dried crop. They come from commercial field beans rather than a garden, but a kitchen jar follows the same chemistry: beans have to be dried right down before long-term storage.

That difference is the usual dried-bean storage failure: a pod that felt done going into the jar, and beans that went soft or mouldy weeks later because they never dried down far enough. Broad beans carry the opposite risk: pods left to dry outdoors can rot before they get there.

Which types suit drying

Most runner and French beans can be left to dry, but varieties bred for tender young pods tend to give a smaller, less consistent dried harvest.

When to stop picking fresh

This is a one-way decision per plant, not per pod. Once a plant is left to mature its pods instead of being picked every few days, it stops flowering and setting new pods, so fresh picking and drying can't run side by side on the same plant for long. Pick part of the crop fresh through summer as normal, then choose some plants, or the last flush of pods on existing ones, from July onwards and stop picking them. There's no fixed date for the switch; it depends on when the pods set and on the variety.

Getting pods dry in a Scottish autumn

Don't pick pods straight after rain, since surface moisture adds back what drying is trying to remove. Pick on a dry day, and get the last of the crop in before the first frost. Check the regional frost-date reference for your area, since first frost can come much earlier in an upland glen than in a coastal lowland garden.

A wet turn in the season is the bigger problem. For French and broad beans, uproot the whole plant and hang it upside down in a warm, airy, dry and dark spot such as a shed or porch, and let it finish under cover rather than risk it in the ground. Treat that as the standard response to a damp autumn, not a sign the crop has failed. For pods that clearly won't finish before frost, pick, shell and freeze the almost-mature beans and use them from the freezer as you would dried ones, boiling them hard before eating just the same. Sowing as early as the crop's frost tolerance allows is the main lever for beating an early frost. Beans can deteriorate only slowly at the moisture level they have at harvest, provided they then dry down properly, so a slow finish under cover is a fair option. A warm, dry room does the job without artificial heat.

Testing for dryness

"Rattles in the pod" is a good sign but not a precise one, because pods can rattle before the beans inside are fully dry. Two more checks work well together:

1. The thumbnail test. Once shelled, a dry bean can't be dented with a thumbnail. It should feel rock-hard with no give. If it dents at all, it needs more time before going in a jar.
2. The pod test. Pods should be fully brown and brittle (black and crispy for broad beans) with no green or grey patches. A pod that snaps cleanly has finished; one that still bends or feels leathery hasn't.

Both should pass before the beans go into an airtight container. A bean that fails either needs longer on the tray.

Shelling and storage

Once pods are fully dry, split them open by hand and pop the beans free. A pod that is still leathery will resist, which means it needs more drying time, not more force. After shelling, spread the beans on a tray in a warm, dry place before jarring them. This last open-air stage is what removes the residual moisture a rattling pod doesn't guarantee has gone. There is no set number of days: use the thumbnail test, and once a bean won't dent, it is ready to jar.

Store fully dried beans in an airtight jar (Kilner, Weck or screw-top) somewhere cool and dark. They keep at best quality for several years in consistently cool, dark storage, or about a year in an ordinary kitchen cupboard, and quality fades gradually well before the beans become unsafe to eat. Beans kept for seed go in a paper bag in a cool, dry place instead, and last at least three years for germinationA seed sprouting: breaking dormancy and putting out its first root and shoot, given the right warmth and moisture. Full definition →.

Cooking: soak and boil hard

Raw and undercooked dried beans contain natural lectins that can make you ill, and kidney beans have the highest levels. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland advises soaking dried beans for at least 12 hours, throwing away the soaking water, then boiling them in fresh water for at least 30 minutes before eating. Most beans then simmer until tender, roughly one to two hours depending on the variety. Don't cook them from dry in a slow cooker without boiling them first.

Common problems

Rot on the plant. Broad bean pods left to dry outdoors can rot before finishing, which is the cue to pull the whole plant and finish it indoors. Uneven drying within a batch. Pods on the same plant don't all mature together, so one pick will include fully brittle pods and some still slightly green. Sort and test them individually rather than jarring the whole harvest as one batch. Picking after rain. Surface moisture adds back what drying is trying to remove. Small holes or grubs inside stored beans. This points to bean weevil or a similar seed-feeding insect that laid eggs before harvest. Discard any beans that are visibly holed rather than risk the rest of the batch.

Common questions

Sources