I would definitely keep the salt, and perhaps keep some of the sugar in case it helps with colour as you mention. As for acidity, the proportions of green to dried beans I like are the ones from the recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, so I will check the vinegar ratio for that one and go from there. Knowing I can safely lower the sugar while using those bean proportions really helps.

Thank you for the information about ratios, acids, vegetables. I appreciated you making a long story long, as the information is very helpful. I’ll have to rethink those things.

[The reason I'd think of using frozen beans is that they are actually cheaper than fresh right now, are already blanched and trimmed, and it'd be something I could can off season, not in the rush and heat of summer, and have available to eat from a jar this winter. But I would prefer fresh all things being equal.]

Again, thank you so much!

There are a lot of different issues here, so let’s start with the easy part: sugar. The sugar in vinegar pickles (which is what a 3-bean salad is) is there not for flavor, but rather to balance the flavor of the vinegar. For sugar to prevent the growth of molds and bacteria, you need a lot of it–I’m talking equal parts sugar and fruit or vegetable. So, yes, you can safely cut back on the sugar. Same goes for salt. Notice, however, that both sugar and salt do act as preservatives for taste and color at these levels, so cutting back either may affect the flavor. But rest assured it will not affect the safety.

Adding additional vegetables to a oil-vinegar-water canning recipe is generally a no-no. Remember, the goal here is to make the vegetables acidic enough to make them safe for water-bath canning. Fresh beans are more acidic than dried beans, so it’s perfectly safe to use them instead of so many dried beans. The “olives and preserved peppers” are more unpredictable. Pickled green olives are usually fairly acidic; black olives, on the other hand, are just barely acidic (pH 6.0-7.0). Same goes for the peppers–their acidity will be determined by how they were preserved. If either the olives or the peppers are less acidic than the ingredients in the current recipe, you would need to adjust the ratios of vinegar, water, and oil to make it safe for water-bath canning. To make a long story short, in general, it’s not a great idea to tweak the ingredients (aside from a few herbs and garlic) in vegetable pickle recipes.

Your remaining question has to do with whether you could make this with frozen beans. I mean, I guess you could, but why would you do that? The point of canning vegetables is to preserve food–maybe from your own garden, or from a local produce stand that you trust. Frozen green beans are already preserved. If you’re buying green beans, fresh or frozen, in winter, why not just buy enough to make a single batch for eating? The quality of off-season produce is generally not high enough to justify going through the trouble of canning.

Do you think it would be okay to leave out ALL or almost all of the sugar? When I make my favourite bean salad for a meal, I use my favourite homemade dressing which is just oil (olive), vinegar (cider), garlic, italian seasoning, s+p. I’d love to make it taste close to that, so if it’d be safe to water bath can, I’d like to cut right down on (or cut out altogether) the sugar. Do you think I should increase the vinegar and salt?

I also add olives and preserved peppers. I wonder if I could add olives to this also.

Thank you sincerely for any input you may have.

The other main difference is that yours is mostly garden beans, but I would like the proportions of mine to be more cooked dried beans and fewer garden beans, more like the “standard” recipe I mentioned: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_06/bean_salad.html Do you think that would affect the chemistry, ie sugar/vinegar amounts?

I also wanted to season it with garlic and Italian seasoning, and am guessing from seeing the herbs in yours that would be okay.

Oh, also, fresh green beans are out of season and very expensive at the moment. Have you ever heard of using frozen for something like this? They would have already been blanched. I’m guessing they would need to be dried well after thawing first but other than that should work?

I would really appreciate your thoughts on my conundrums! Thank you so much.