Homemade Pickles

Pickles! Acidic, crunchy, colorful, nutritious. A perfect snack or colorful addition to a rich meal. Making homemade pickles means you’re in charge of the flavor profile. Like sweet pickles? Add some honey or more sugar. Like a little more or less salt? You’re in charge of that too. Want some heat? Some black peppercorns, red chili flake, or dried chilis work nicely. You can even use fresh peppers like jalapenos that will make the whole batch spicy.

Note that if you do pickle something spicy like jalapeno, it’s spiciness will spread to all the other veggies packed in with them! If you don’t want this, simply pickle the jalapenos in a different container.

Notes for Homemade Pickles

• I typically stick to white, distilled vinegar and apple cider vinegar for pickles – use what you have.
• Homemade pickles mean you get to choose the flavors! Garlic, spices like cloves or star anise, herbs like thyme, rosemary, dill, bay leaf, and chilis are all great add-ins to flavor up your batch.
• Pickling veggies is typical, but experiment if you dig this acidic preparation! Avocado, shrimp, artichoke, garlic, asparagus, the list goes on and on. My favs include carrots, radish, beet, onion, cauliflower, hard boiled eggs, and the classic cucumber with a little sliced garlic and thyme added for flavor. The beet will turn your pickle a pinkish-red color, as will radishes to a lesser degree – you can always pickle these separately if you don’t like that.
• Since we’re not using the array of preservatives you’d find in store-bought pickles, keep these stored in your fridge in a sealed container.
• The ratio in this recipe is meant to be easily adjusted depending on how much you want to pickle.