Madagascar vanilla beans are botanically known as Vanilla planifolia or Bourbon vanilla beans. These beans are long and slender with a rich flavor and aroma. Madagascar vanilla beans have thick, oily skin with an abundance of seeds. They are the most common vanilla beans on the market today.

Usually sold to fine dining chefs, these vanilla beans are fresher, more moist and significantly higher quality than the bourbon beans found in most supermarkets.

Storage: How to Store Vanilla Beans

Shelf Life: Stored properly, vanilla beans should stay fresh for up to a year, possibly longer if vacuum packed.

There are dozens of ways to use vanilla beans. When you have a recipe that calls for the inner scraping of the vanilla beans, don’t throw away the pod. They still have plenty of flavor left in them. In fact, depending on how you use them, vanilla bean can often be reused over and over again.

How to Use a Vanilla Bean
How to Make Vanilla Extract
Vanilla Recipes

How to Use Dried Vanilla Beans - If you accidently leave your vanilla beans out, don't despair, here are several tricks for rehydrating or using dried out vanilla beans.