Do you just love the flavor of homemade dill pickles? Well get ready this is the best homemade pickle recipe EVER!!!
I have had a life long love affair with pickles. And I do mean life long, ask my parents how long a jar of pickles lasted around our house growing up. You might have thought ‘The Flash’ lived at our house how quickly we could start to finish polish of a big ol’ jar of pickles. Sliced, spears, whole, dill, spicy doesn’t matter to me I loved them all!
Now that I better understand the dangerous ingredients in food. I notice things like yellow 5 or polysorbate 80, and I would rather not put that trash in my body or my kids growing bodies.
A few years ago when I was pregnant with child #5 a new neighbor brought over 2-quart jars of absolutely heavenly tasting to my pregnant mouth, pickles. And just like that my love affair was re-ignited. Also just like that two quart jars were gone.
So the recognition for this amazing, but simple, recipe goes all to my good friend, Jasmine.
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Pickle Recipe for Canning
This recipe is a good old fashioned canning recipe. No “quick pickle” or “refrigerator” recipe here. These are those long shelf life, pickle in the summer last for all year kinda pickles. The best thing is that they are still so crisp and crunchy!
Easy Pickle Canning Recipe
Many home canning recipes involves lots of complicated parts or lots of ingredients. Not this recipe the brine has just 3 ingredients, the spices do as well. So if uncomplicated but deliciously simple is what your going for this is your new go-to pickle recipe!
Pickle Recipe No Sugar
To me, there is nothing more irritating than finding a recipe that looks really great only to find out it’s loaded with sugar. I mean that is one of the reasons I enjoy making homemade foods to skip boatloads of sugar, or worse high fructose corn syrup, shutter…
This recipe, the best homemade pickle recipe EVER, has no sugar. I will give you a little hint part of the amazing secret is not using white or distilled vinegar like most pickles recipes but using ACV. Yes, I know so simple but soooo good.
Just trust me after one jar of these, you might just dedicate a whole growing season to pickling season as I do. Ok I kid, but pretty close
Best Homemade Pickle Recipe
For these pickles, you want to make sure you have a pickling cucumber. Of course, the best ones are the ones you grow, but you can also find them at farmer’s markets and grocery stores, from time to time.
Remember you want them to be a younger more firm pickle. Depending on the variety that might mean no more than 3-5 inch pickle. My favorite Varieties to grow just for pickle making are the Monika Cucumber and Early Fortune Cucumber from Baker Creek Seeds.
Pick them a day or two before you want to can them. Wash and clean them and then store them in the cooler part of your fridge for a day or two. This is cold packing your pickles and it helps to keep your pickles firm and crisp. Alternately if keeping them in the refrigerator does not work you can submerge them in ice water for several hours prior to the pickling process.
5 pounds of cucumbers usually make 2-3 quarts or 5-6 pints of pickles. After deciding how much you want to pickle, decide if you want whole pickles, sliced or spears. I usually decide this based on the size of pickles. If they are on the larger side slicing them into chips will help to make the most per jar.
You will need:
5 pounds of pickling cucumbers. If you are just going with garden-fresh cucumbers about a gallon size Ziploc is about right
Dill seed or even better fresh dill heads
mustard seed
Apple cider vinegar
Garlic
hot peppers or red pepper flakes (optional if you like heat)
fresh grapes leaves (optional but helps keep pickles crisp)
canning jars
2 part lids
water bath canning supplies
Best Homemade Pickle Recipe
Ingredients
- 5 lbs. pickling cucumbers
- 1-3 tsp mustard seed
- 1-3 tsp dill seed
- 8-12 whole garlic cloves
- 3 cups apple cider vinegar
- 6 cups water
- 3 Tbsp pickling salt
- 4 + fresh dill heads optional
- 4 fresh grapes leaves optional **helps keep pickles crisp**
Instructions
- Wash, clean, trim cucumber ends. Store in the fridge overnight.
- when you are ready to start canning, put the cucumbers into an ice water bath to sit out on the counter while you work. This step helps ensure your pickles stay crisp and not mushy.
- Fill water bath canner and place you cleaned and prepared jars in the canner to start them getting hot and sterilized.
- in a small saucepan place your lids (not rings) in a small amount of water to soften the seal and sterilize the lids.
- To make your brine: combine water, apple cider vinegar, and pickling salt in a stockpot over medium-high heat.
- While the brine is heating up and the jars are warming. Collect the spices, peel garlic, and slice cucumbers into the desired shape if necessary.
- Once the brine is well heated, not yet to a boil but close. Remove jars from canner only as you are ready to fill that jar. place your garlic, and 1/2-1 tsp (depending on desired taste) of each dill seed and mustard seed into every pint jar, or split that if using pint jars. Then pack cucumbers into the jar as tightly as you can get them in. Fill the jar with brine leaving 1-inch headspace, repeat until each jar is filled * With this step, you will want to make sure you work quickly, you don't want your jars to cool too much before you add hot brine and put them back in the canner. The fast temperature changes are what causes jars to break!!
- If you are using fresh dill head or grapes leaves for freshness add those in while packing in the cucumbers.
- Place a sterilized lid on each filled jar, add a ring, and tighten to hand tightness.
- Place jars into the canner, making sure the water level in the canner is at least 1 inch over the tops of the jars.
- You want your canner to be at a full boil. Let the pickles process in the canner like this for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Then lift the jars out of the canner to completely cool on the counter.
- The lids should be down and not popped up as a sign if it sealed well or not. If it did not seal just put it in the fridge to store they are still perfectly fine.
- Leave pickles for at least a month before opening, for the best flavor.
Notes
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Nothing is better than opening a jar of homemade pickles and biting into that summer fresh dilly crunch. This is the best homemade pickle recipe. I can’t honestly my grandmother ever made pickles but if she did these would rival that! This recipe is different from most but still simple, and that simplicity is oh so heavenly.
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Beth is a mother of 6 living on a handful of acres in an old farmhouse in central Kansas. Beth has a background in the military and health and fitness however her passions come from her homestead life. Beth is an enthusiastic homeschooling mom, avid organic gardener, chicken & goat wrangler, who is obsessed with herbs and natural remedies and maintaining an all-around Do-It-Yourself lifestyle. Beth loves to share all she has learned about and sustainable living. While striving for a healthy, natural life, family-centered life.
