My kids and I are all pickle fans. I love almost anything pickled– beans, beets, asparagus, carrots… But my kids like plain old cucumber pickles best, so that is what I make the most of. Home canned cucumber pickles are great, and I will happily eat them, but in my humble opinion, the best pickles are not canned.
Quick pickles, also known as refrigerator pickles (or quickles if you prefer) are not even cooked, let alone canned. You simply pour the boiling brine over the raw veggies and seal. Because they are not cooked, these will be the crispest pickles you’ve ever had. And they stay crisp for several months!
Not only that, they fit much better into the life of a backyard homesteader because you can easily make these pickles a quart at a time, which matches the way that cucumbers trickle in from the garden nicely, and turns the whole “making pickles” into something you can actually pull off while making dinner.
The trade off is that they are not shelf stable, and must be stored in the fridge. Although they can last up to a year, the practicality of keeping a year’s worth of pickles in the fridge is obvious. Unless you have a second fridge just for pickles.
So, I usually just make a few quarts of these, and enjoy them until they’re gone. Aren’t all the best things in life ephemeral?
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs small pickling cucumbers, no thicker than a hot dog
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar (not “white vinegar”)
- apx. 1 ½ cups water
- 1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
- ¼ teaspoon each of: whole black pepper, corriander seed and dill seed
- 2 allspice berries
- 2-4 garlic cloves
- 3 sprigs fresh dill
Instructions
Trim the very ends off of the cucumbers and pack into a quart sized canning jar (preferably narrow-mouth).
Pour vinegar into the jar and then top off with water, filling to the very brim. Now, using a jar lid to keep the cukes in, pour the brine back out into a saucepan.
Add the salt and whole spices to brine, then heat to boiling and allow to simmer 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the garlic and dill to the jar. Then pour boiling brine back into jar, filling to the very brim again.
Put the lid on and allow to cool to room temperature before storing in the refrigerator.
Note: These must cure for about a month for the pickle magic to happen, if you eat them too soon they taste like very salty cucumbers.
You must be logged in to post a comment.