Quick Pickles – 3 Ways!

Published on in Recipes

I’ve had a longstanding love affair with pickles my entire life and only as an adult have I fallen in love with an assortment of pickled vegetables. But anything that involved jars and cans has always been too intimidating to me…until now!


Enter the quick pickle. This was recommended to me recently and with a little nudging in the right direction, I cautiously gave it a try – and that was 8 jars ago! I can’t stop!!

After focusing on a standard dill recipe, I decided to branch out to a turmeric which has a nice, almost sweet aftertaste and a spicy pickle with red pepper flakes for all you heat lovers out there.

Here we go!

Dill Pickles

Ingredients

  • Pickling cucumber, 8 spears per jar (1 giant cucumber or 2 small ones)
  • 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (you can also use apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, but I prefer white vinegar because I always have it on hand.)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 tbs kosher salt
  • 1 garlic clove, pressed or thinly sliced
  • 2 sprigs fresh dill
  • 8 peppercorns
  • 1 pinch celery salt, optional

Directions

  1. Bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
  2. After the boil, stir liquid with a wooden spoon so the salt dissolves.
  3. Let liquid cool.
  4. While liquid is cooling, wash the jar and caps you plan on using with soap and water and set aside.
  5. Cut your pickles into spears and place in jar.
  6. Press or slice garlic and place in jar.
  7. Add dill sprigs and peppercorns into the jar.
  8. When liquid has cooled, pour into jar, seal tightly and place in the fridge overnight to marinate.

Turmeric Pickles

Ingredients

  • Pickling cucumber, 8 spears per jar (1 giant cucumber or 2 small ones)
  • 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (you can also use apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, but I prefer white vinegar because I always have it on hand.)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 tbs kosher salt
  • 1 garlic clove, pressed or finely sliced
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 8 whole peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seed
  • 2 sprigs fresh dill

Directions

  1. Bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
  2. After the boil, stir liquid with a wooden spoon so the salt dissolves.
  3. Let liquid cool.
  4. While liquid is cooling, wash the jar and caps you plan on using with soap and water and set aside.
  5. Cut your pickles into spears and place in jar.
  6. Press or slice garlic and place in jar.
  7. Add dill sprigs, mustard seed and peppercorns into the jar.
  8. When liquid has cooled, pour into jar, seal tightly and place in the fridge overnight to marinate.

 

Spicy Dill Pickles

Ingredients

  • Pickling cucumber, 8 spears per jar (1 giant cucumber or 2 small ones)
  • 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (you can also use apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, but I prefer white vinegar because I always have it on hand.)
  • 1/2 tbs Koser salt
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 garlic clove, pressed or finely sliced
  • 8 peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seed
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Directions

  1. Bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
  2. After the boil, stir liquid with a wooden spoon so the salt dissolves.
  3. Let liquid cool.
  4. While liquid is cooling, wash the jar and caps you plan on using with soap and water and set aside.
  5. Cut your pickles into spears and place in jar.
  6. Press or slice garlic and place in jar.
  7. Add dill sprigs, mustard seed, peppercorns, and red pepper flakes into the jar.
  8. When liquid has cooled, pour into jar, seal tightly and place in the fridge overnight to marinate.

Tips

Want to make sure everything gets marinated evenly? Give the jars a quick shake before putting it into the fridge and then a few more times before opening.

It’s important to let your vinegar/water mixture cool to room temp so you don’t accidentally cook the veggies in the jar. That said, this process can take a long time so I recommend transferring the liquid into a mixing bowl, letting it cool a bit and then if it’s STILL taking forever, throw a couple of ice cubes in to speed up the process. (A few cubes will NOT dilute your mixture!)

Too vinegary? No problem! Just play with the vinegar-to-water ratio until it gets to the desired sour / piquantness!

Most pickle recipes call for a little bit of sugar but these are sugar-free and I personally can’t tell the difference!

I know it’s a pain to find the “right” kind of pickles, but you’re going to want to use either pickling cucumbers or Persian if you can’t find the pickling kind.

You can also make pickle chips which are great for sandwiches and burgers (and frying to make “frickles” but you DIDN’T hear that from me!)

I’ve also pickled sliced carrots and whole green beans with the standard dill recipe and they were awesome! A bit sour and oh so refreshing for summer!

 

6 Comments

  1. Andy Harris
    August 9, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    I’m going to try one right now. One sec.

  2. Doug Gaffney
    August 23, 2019 at 12:48 pm

    I’ll try some of these. I’ve been making my own pickles for years. My friends and I do a pickle swap every summer. My favorite is Alton Brown’s kinda-Sorta-Sours

    https://altonbrown.com/kinda-sorta-sour-pickles-recipe/

  3. Cheri
    October 8, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    Hi Gina,

    Thank you for sharing these recipes. I made the Dill and Spicy varieties and they are great. Don’t be scared to jar and can stuff, I did it for the first time a few years ago and now I have a stock pile of Christmas, hostess and party favor gifts to give away.

    Love listening to you on ACS and appreciate you staring this blog.

    Cheers,
    Cheri