Alternative to freezing beans ?

Is there any practical alternative to preserving the glut of french and runner beans we all get than freezing them ?

I like to eat mine slightly "al dente" so freezing them is out of the question as they always end up soggy,limp and waterlogged without any "bite" once they've been frozen,whether blanched or not.

I wish they were as good as frozen home grown peas but alas they are always just soggy !

Any thoughts ?

 

I seem to remember from my childhood (before home freezing, actually prob. before Clarence Birdseye) that my grandmother (prob. before Cleopatra) used to salt them. I can't remember the exact process but I think it involved a layer of beans and. a layer of salt alternatively, presumably in a sterilised kilner jar The salt was, I imagine, washed away before boiling otherwise you would be cooking in very salty water.

 

You can dry the beans out of french beans of course - I guess you could runners too, with the ones at the end of the season that you can let the beans develop in else they'd be too small to bother!

The other option is to feed them to friends and store up favours :D (not that that's my main intention when giving surplus veg and cut flowers to friends and neighbours of course...)

 

We invested in a dehydrator last year and dried loads of peas, beans, leeks, tomatos, apples, strawberries and chillies.
They keep very well and take up less space than frozen veg and fruit.