Skip to main content
Main

Beans, Lima

A preserved canned Lima bean recipe using boiling water, salt, optional sugar, and pressure canning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lima beans and sugar work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Beans, Lima

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Gather Lima beans when they are tender.

  2. Wash, hull, and sort the beans carefully.

  3. Blanch the beans in boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes or in live steam for 5 to 10 minutes.

Pack and season

  1. Pack the beans immediately into hot jars or cans.

  2. Fill the containers with boiling water and stir to remove air bubbles.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar per quart if desired.

Process and store

  1. Process under 10 pounds steam pressure for 45 to 60 minutes.

  2. Remove jars from the canner and seal immediately.

  3. For tin cans, plunge them into cold water to cool quickly.

  4. Store in a dark, dry, cool place.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lima beans + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Provide the main body and texture of the dish once cooked through.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the flavor of the beans.

The step that matters

Remove air bubbles before processing. Trapped air can prevent proper heat transfer and leave headspace pockets, so filling with boiling water and stirring helps the contents heat evenly and seal properly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes