Bread and Butter Pickles
Bread and Butter Pickles, sweet and tangy, my favorite pickle canning recipe to capture summer in a jar. These are the best!
This is the summer I tried my hand at pickling. I love it. I'm hooked. Just opened a jar of the bread and butter pickles I made and oh...my...god. Outrageously good! And I don't talk this way. So why am I? And then Meathead tasted them and he said oh...my...god, these are incredible.
I've always liked bread and butter pickles. Something about the sweet-tart flavor and the onions. I grab a fork and stand at the counter and just eat them out of the jar. No shame and sometimes that's my lunch. I'm not kidding.
These were quite a bit different in preparation than the dill pickles I made earlier this summer. I used the Kirby cucumbers but I sliced them using a mandolin and then chilled them under crushed ice for a few hours. Mandolins kind of freak me out. My mom gave me my dad's and this was the first time I used it. Seeing as my dad sliced off the tip of his finger, I was a little bit scared. But I managed with no bloody fingers and it made the slicing of all these cukes go really quickly and they were all uniform in size. Cool.
I guess chilling them under ice keeps them crisp in the jars. It works, my pickles were crunchy, both the cukes and the onions. In terms of flavoring, the brine I used had sugar, apple cider vinegar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, turmeric and crushed red pepper. These pickles are simply fantastic. Better than any store bought stuff I've tried.
So kids, some day when you have vegetable gardens and are cooking and want to make what your momma made, try these pickles. You will love them and hopefully think of me ~ Kelly🍴🐦
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Bread and Butter Pickles
Ingredients
- 4 pounds pickling cucumbers known as Kirby's, washed and scrubbed, ends trimmed, sliced ¼-inch thick
- 4 large white onions, sliced
- ⅓ cup kosher salt, I use Diamond Crystal
- 5 pieces of garlic, either whole cloves or cut in half
- 4 cups sugar
- 3 cups apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons mustard seeds
- 1 ½ teaspoons celery seeds
- 1 ½ teaspoons turmeric
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Instructions
- Wash and sterilize 6 pint size jars, lids and screw caps, either in boiling water, hot soapy water or the dishwasher. Do not re-use lids and screw caps.
- In a large nonreactive stockpot, combine sliced cucumbers, onions, salt and garlic. Cover with a flour sack towel and then cover with 2 - 3 inches of crushed ice. Put a lid on and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, up to 12 hours.
- Prepare a boiling- water canner or large pot of water, bring to a boil.
- Remove towel and ice and transfer cucumber mixture to a colander and rinse well. Discard garlic pieces.
- In the same pot, combine sugar, apple cider vinegar, mustard seeds, turmeric and crushed red pepper. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Stir in cucumber mixture from the colander and bring back to a boil. Remove from heat.
- Pack mixture of cucumbers and onions into sterilized jars with the liquid brine to about ½ inch from the rim. Wipe jar rims, add lids and screw caps.
- Process jars in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars to clean towel and let rest for 24 hours. You'll hear lovely popping sounds as the jars seal. If after 24 hours you have any jars that didn't seal, put in fridge and use in a couple of weeks.
- This is the hard part, let the pickles rest for 4 - 5 weeks before opening. Enjoy.
Recipe Notes
- Adapted from BHG Canning Summer 2015
- A hot water bath is recommended for proper sealing and canning safety. Please refer to USDA Home Canning Guidelines for direction.
Nutrition
Just finished making a batch of your bread and butter pickle recipe! They came out wonderful but, ended up with 7 pints instead of 6 which was "OK" with me! Can't wait to crack one open at Thanksgiving time.
Enjoy!!
Tara and Kelly, you ladies are making my mouth water with your yummy talk of pickling peppers! I want to give banana peppers a try. Some of my fondest memories growing up are watching my parents canning and as an adult, making pickles with my late mother-in-law. Bread and butter are one of my family's faves. Our plan to pickle this summer was shelved but try, try again, as the saying goes.
Aww. It's always a rewarding experience when I pickle anything. Next summer will be better!!
I've read alot of bread n butter recipes. I'm going to try using your recipe to make jalapeno peppers pickled.
Green candy...!
I'll let you know
Please do let me know! I made candied jalapeños last week... just sugar and apple cider vinegar, so good and addictive. I thought about trying the brine from these pickles, too.
@Kelly, candied jalapeños!! Need recipe...
I make them this way from this recipe: https://www.feastmagazine.com/cook/starters_and_sides/article_dc3cb414-9827-11e9-9fe4-2f770e573e3a.html.
These are super good! I wasn't sure how using the ice would work to make them crispy, but it does. It's not like biting into a crisp dill, but they are still crisp. The flavor is wonderful! I'll be making these next year again. Thanks!
You are so welcome! These are my favorite pickles to make every year, I just made two batches!
I made these a week ago.... I actually tried them today & they are delicious! I will try my best to wait for the others because I know they will only get better with time. I did make a few altercations of my own! I like mine to be extra crisp so I did not first boil my cucumber mixture with the apple cider vinegar mixture. I boiled the apple cider vinegar mixture, had the jars already packed with the cucumber mixture, & then ladled the boiling apple cider vinegar mix into the cucumber mix filled jars! I then hot water bathed for 10 minutes. I'm not sure if this made a difference in the crispness or not but I just wanted to be sure.
Happy to hear you like them. Other people have told me they fill up the jars like you do. I know that mine come out pretty crunchy, too!
Sorry, I have extra pickle juice left. Can I use it for my next batch?
I wouldn't, I've always discarded any leftover liquid in the pot after filling my jars.
What do you mean by a flour cloth? A dish towel? Wouldn't it taste like clothes detergent?
I want to try this but would like to hear your answer. Thank you
It's a lightweight, white flour sack kitchen towel like you see in the photos and video. No, it does not taste like detergent. If that concerns you, try cheesecloth, doubled up for more thickness.
just finished getting them out of the water bath & they all popped nicely. Took me all day, fooling around with them but I wanted to give them the 4 hr time in the fridge.
You will love them!! I'm just getting ready to do mine for the season.
I can’t get enough of these. I’m done buying bread and butter pickles at the store, these are outrageously cheap to make... and I’m sick of seeing high fructose corn syrup in every single jar!! I have been buying regular dill pickles for the longest time after I spotted this nasty ingredient that shouldn’t be consumed by anybody or anything.
I'm with you, hard to go back after getting hooked on homemade pickles. So happy you like them!
First, I have to say I loved seeing the Schnucks label in your photos. I'm from St Louis, but currently living in Virginia as we follow around the Navy. Second, and most importantly--this is hands down the best recipe I have ever tried for bread and butter pickles. The ice bath is an absolute must and totally worth the time investment. Thanks so much for sharing!!!
So many people have commented about seeing Schnucks labels in my posts!! These are my favorite, getting ready to start making this season's batch. The ice bath is key. So glad you liked them!
These are close to my family recipe and the crushed red pepper is a great addition!
I always buy my pickles but I'm excited to try making my own, bread and butter pickles are my favorite! Where would you recommend I buy the cucumbers? Are they at any typical grocery store or do I have to order them special? Thanks for sharing!
I don't know anything about canning, when you said process jar in boiling water, do you submerge the whole jar tightly covered? Thanks.
Yes. Refer to the link for safe canning procedures. ?
These are the sweetest Bread and Butter Pickles you'll ever eat.
So good, you'll be eating them out of the jar!