Unlock the art of quick pickling with our comprehensive guide. Discover how to transform a wide array of vegetables into tangy delights, and unleash your creativity by experimenting with a spectrum of exciting flavors, turning each pickle into a unique masterpiece.
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Ingredients
Directions
This is NOT a single recipe. Instead, we decided to give you a reference guide to quick pickling. Quick pickling is fast and easy to do and has so many possible variations. Therefore, we thought it would be more powerful to share the basics and encourage you to make your own creative choices. To this end, the ingredients above are all suggestions for things to try, but are by no means exhaustive.
There are three elements to a quick pickling.
1. The Brine
2. The Aromatics
3. The Pickle
The brine is the basic foundation of all pickles. It is necessary, but not sufficient. Brine for quick pickling (non-fermentation based pickling) involves vinegar, salt, maybe sugar, and water. Change up the ratios a bit if you want, but most of the flavor variation is in the later steps.
The ingredients for the brine makes about 2 cups of brine. You'll need enough brine to fill all of the jars you plan to use, so scale accordingly.
To make the brine, add the ingredients to a saucepan and heat until the salt and sugar are just dissolved.
That's it, you're done making the brine.
Aromatics are the alchemical art of the quick pickle. There are so many options to choose from and they combine in unique and amazing ways.
Pick the aromatics you want to use for your pickles. Toss the aromatics into the brine or pickling jars.
That's it, you are done with the aromatics.
You can make choices about the form and preparation methods for the food that will be pickled. You can slice, dice, blanche, and/or julienne. It's up to you.
Once you've prepared your veggies to be pickled, add them to sanitized jars along with the aromatics of your choice and cover COMPLETELY with brine. If you leave pieces sticking out of the brine, those parts will go bad. Put the tops on the jars and the jars in the refrigerator. Wait as long as you can before you eat them. They will be delicious in 30 minutes, heavenly in 2-4 weeks.
Here's some tips to help you get the most flavorful pickles:
FRESH: Pickling is best done with super-fresh vegetables. Save the slightly bruised specimens for soups or other forms of preservation.
ALL WELCOME: Almost any vegetable can be pickled, if you're unsure, do a quick google search to see if someone else has tried to pickle the veggie you are trying (hint, they have)
WHOLE VS PARTS: Juicy items like cherry tomatoes are best preserved whole. Most other items just want to be cut in a way that gives them a lot of surface area to bathe in the delicious brine. Ultimately, it's up to your tastes to decide what shape the pickles are.
DULL OR VIBRANT: Pickling tends to dull colors, but you can keep bright colors more vibrant if you blanch these items before pickling. Blanching is simple: bring a pot of water to boil and dunk the items in the boiling water for a minute or two, then shock them in an ice bath to stop the cooking and preserve their color. Note: This is purely aesthetic and will not do much to impact the delicious flavor of your pickles.
SPRINT NOT MARATHON: Quick pickles are easy and QUICK. They don't require big projects of sanitizing and canning and are ready to eat whenever you want. The downside of that ease is that they don't keep indefinitely. Most quick pickles will last between a few weeks and a couple months in the fridge. If you want to preserve veggies longer than that, it's time to invest in a canning setup.
