Skip to Content

3 Easy Ways To Make Homemade Pickles

3 Easy Ways To Make Homemade Pickles

Make dill, sweet or zesty pickles in less than 5 minutes with these easy hacks!

We share kitchen shortcuts and tricks on how to cook more healthfully and deliciously in the kitchen. Teaspoonofspice.com

It’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks Wednesday – the day we share our favorite time-saving kitchen tricks and cooking shortcuts to help you make healthy and delicious meals.

You can see all our Healthy Kitchen Hacks here. To get exclusive healthy kitchen hacks – only available to our email subscribers – sign up HERE.

Now…onto today’s featured Healthy Kitchen Hack:

3 Quick Pickle Hacks

Are you in a pickle?

No worries. Here are a couple pickle hacks to help you out!

How to Make Quick Pickles | @TspCurry

1. The Quickest Cucumber Pickle. Ever. – I learned this hack over a decade ago. We were still living in Chicago and I was having a conversation over a picket fence my old Italian neighbor. (#truestory) She’d taken a break from weeding her garden of tomatoes, peppers, onions and basil. We were discussing cucumber recipes when she asked,

“Do you put fresh cucumbers slices in a jar of pickle brine, after the pickles are gone?”

“What? Really?”

But I tried it. Yum! Dill pickles, bread & butter pickles, sweet pickles, and especially spicy pickles – all pickle brines make delicious fresh cucumber pickles.

Just add fresh cucumber slices to pickle brine and let set in the refrigerator for:

  • 2 minutes for slight flavor
  • 2 hours for a good flavor
  • Overnight for lots of flavor – our favorite

Now, we always use our pickle ‘juice’ at least twice.

3 Easy Ways to Make Homemade Pickles via @tspcurry #healthykitchenhacks Click To Tweet

2. Veggie Quick Pickles. – Almost any fresh veggie is tasty in pickle ‘juice.’ We’ve tried broccoli, celery, radishes, kohlrabi, snap peas, even cabbage slices in leftover pickle jars. But our favorite veggies are:

  • Carrots
  • Radishes
  • Peppers
  • Cauliflower
  • Green beans
  • Okra
  • Summer squash
  • Zucchini slices

How to Make Quick Pickles | @TspCurry

Occasionally, I will drop fresh veggies into boiling water for a minute, then fish them out with a slotted spoon. Then plop into the jar of pickle juice – this helps the veggies soak up more pickle brine. But it’s not necessary.

Here are a few other reasons we love our Quickest Pickles:

  • Expensive gourmet pickles are more budget friendly – when the pickle juice is used again (and again!) to make fresh pickles.
  • Avoid food waste by dropping any limp or wilted veggies in pickle juice.
  • My kids will eat almost any vegetable after a soak in pickle juice!

3. Easy homemade refrigerator pickles. Always wanted to make your own pickles? But not ready to try canning? These are for you!

Quick Radish Pickles | @TspCurry

This recipe for Quick Pickles Radishes is infinitely adaptable: It’s delicious with cauliflower, carrots, zucchini slices or green beans instead of radishes. No rice vinegar? Use apple cider vinegar. Prefer honey over white sugar? Great. No fresh ginger, not problem; use another spice like mustard seed or celery seed or leave it out. All you really need is vinegar, salt, water. Sweetener like a bit of sugar/honey/agave/maple is optional – but makes these pickles much more of a party in your mouth.

More pickle recipe inspiration:

Pickled Candy Cane Beets

Sesame Ginger Pickles Cucumbers

Print
clock clock iconcutlery cutlery iconflag flag iconfolder folder iconinstagram instagram iconpinterest pinterest iconfacebook facebook iconprint print iconsquares squares iconheart heart iconheart solid heart solid icon
Quick Radish Pickles | @TspCurry

Quick Veggie Pickles


  • Author: Serena Ball
  • Yield: 2 cups pickles 1x

Description

Easy refrigerator pickles which are infinitely adaptable. Swap out rice vinegar for apple cider vinegar. Used honey instead of sugar. Great for cauliflower, carrots, peppers, zucchini or other vegetables


Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 cups pickle-sized pieces of cauliflower, carrots, peppers or other vegetables
  • 1 1/4 cup water
  • 1 1/4 cup rice vinegar
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • 1 piece (1/2-inch square) fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
  • 1 pinch crushed red pepper

Instructions

Cut vegetables into pickle-sized pieces. Place in a large glass bowl.

In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients except veggies. Heat ingredientes to boiling and pour over radishes. Cool. Store in the refrigerator.

Notes

If you use honey instead of sugar, use 1/4 cup, not 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon.

Have you ever made pickles? Which veggies would you add to pickle ‘juice?’

Avoid #foodwaste. Use leftover pickle 'juice' to make dill, sweet or zesty pickles in less than 5 minutes! Healthy Kitchen Hacks at Teaspoonofspice.com

Mona

Wednesday 5th of July 2017

I LOVE the idea of using pickle brine after the pickles are gone! Such a great tip.

Serena Ball

Thursday 6th of July 2017

Enjoy LOTS more pickles Mona! (:

Comments are closed.