Ridiculously Easy Homemade Pickles!
At my farmer’s market, there’s an amazing pickle stand with about 12 different kinds of delicious homemade pickles. They have garlic pickles, super dilly dill pickles, sweet pickles, spicy pickles and all the flavors in between. I love my pickles so the pickle stand was a weekly must stop for me.
…..Until I realized how ridiculously easy it was to make my own homemade pickles. I’m talking really, really easy. I can’t stress to you how simple this is. Like so easy I could kick myself for spending so much of my hard earned money at the pickle stand for years and years when I could have been making them myself all this time. No canning, no special equipment – just water, salt, spices and your cucumbers! Easy peasy.
This will literally take you 10 minutes tops and in 3-7 days, you’ll have the best homemade pickles in town. I like to make a bunch of jars of pickles at one time while I have all the ingredients out. I can knock out a couple jars of pickles in no time flat.
The recipe down below is a basic recipe for old fashioned homemade easy dill pickles and it’s my very favorite, cut right out of a falling apart old, old church recipe book that I think was my grandmother’s (best kind of recipes, right?!). But, I also like to experiment with the spices, add some hot peppers to one jar, add extra garlic to another jar – you get the idea.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about the second best part of this recipe – or maybe it’s the first best part, I can’t decide between this and how easy they are. These pickles are lacto-fermented, which means they contain the really good, beneficial bacteria (probiotics!). So eating these will help heal our gut lining, provide anti-inflammatory benefits, give us better digestion, strengthen our immune system, and turn us into super heroes. Okay maybe not so much the last part, but I sure feel like a super hero when everyone who eats these pickles tells me how amazing they are 🙂
Ridiculously Easy Homemade Dill Pickles
Makes 1 quart sized jar
Ingredients:
cucumbers
2 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of fresh dill (the flowered heads of the dill taste the best for these pickles, so use them if you can get them)
½ tsp coriander seeds
¼ tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp whole peppercorns
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cups of water
1 tablespoon sea salt
optional ingredients:
handful of fresh grape, raspberry, oak, blackberry or cherry leaves (these types of leaves supply tannins, which help keep the pickles crispy and crunchy)
onion or a clean rock piece to weigh the cucumbers down and keep them submerged in the brine
DIRECTIONS:
Decide what size pickles you would like and cut your cucumbers into your desired size. Keep in mind that sliced cucumbers will ferment faster than whole cucumbers. Pack your cucumber slices into your jar. Pack them tight! Add the spices on top. Mix the water and sea salt together until the salt is dissolved. Pour your water/salt over the pickles. Leave about an inch of space between the water and the top of the jar. All the cucumbers must be submerged in the water. If you are having trouble getting them totally submerged, you may need to add a “weight” to the jar to keep them submerged. I like to add a big chunk of onion. Not only does the onion give great flavor, but it does a good job of keeping the cucumbers under the water. You may also add a clean rock if you don’t want to use an onion.
Put a top on your jar and leave on the counter for 3 days. Test a pickle on day 3. If it is to your liking, put the jar in the fridge. This stops the fermentation process. You won’t have to worry about keeping the pickles submerged once they go in the fridge. If the pickles are not to your liking, keep testing them each day. You know they are perfect when they taste great to you and they still have their crunch. If you leave them out on the counter too long, they will lose their crunch and get really soft so it’s important to put them in the fridge when they are to your liking. No one likes a limp pickle 😉
If you start to see a white film or mold on top, just skim it off. It is harmless (just yeast!), but it will impact the taste of the pickles, so you want to skim it off as soon as you see it.
Your pickles will keep for 6 months in the fridge. Enjoy!
Step by step picture instructions:
