Can you boil water?
Yes?
Then you can make quick pickles.
Yet another little thing you can add to your list of things that make people go:
“wow holy shit you made your own pickles awesome good job you’re awesome wow”
Boiling water. That’s all you did. That’s all you did for the compliments and the unlimited supply of pickles.
If you don’t even like pickles, make these purely for the compliments and to make your fridge look prettier.
Quick Pickle Quickles
There’s three ingredients you need to quick pickle anything:
Water, vinegar, and salt (+literally any vegetable you can think of).
Couple notes:
Fresh ingredients are best. Don’t make pickles to get rid of old veggies in your fridge, they’ll get limp and gross and not crisp.
Choose literally any tougher veggies that can hold up to it. As you can see in the picture up there I used a couple different peppers, carrots (great for banh mi-like sandwiches), cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers (I was far too old when I realized pickles were cucumbers). Pickled red onions are 🔥🔥🔥.
Cut them into any shape you like: matchsticks, coins, halves, slices, or just throw ‘em in whole.
Once you have your basic ingredients, it’s up to you how to further flavor them. I usually throw in a couple smashed garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, whole peppercorns. Other options include:
Dill, thyme, oregano, rosemary, tumeric, smoked paprika. Put anything, it’s your world we’re just living in it
Ingredients:
A couple clean jars
Your veggies of choice (cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, peppers, red onions are a great place to start)
1 to 1 to 1 ratio:
1 cup of water
1 cup of vinegar (I use rice vinegar. White, apple cider, anything is fine.)
I tbsp. of salt
Optional additional flavorings:
red pepper flakes, peppercorns, smashed garlic cloves, sugar, dill, thyme, oregano, rosemary, tumeric, smoked paprika.
~1 tbsp. of sugar if you want it a little sweeter (good for red onions)
Directions:
1 - Prep your jars. Wash out some glass jars for each veggie batch you want to do.
I found that the 1 to 1 to 1 ratio is good for about one jar of veggies.
2 - Prep, wash, dry, and cut your veggies into whatever shape you feel like. Put them into each jar.
Try to pack them in tight without smashing them.
3 - Prep your herbs, spices, or garlic that you want to use and add them to each jar.
This is all preference. For instance, sugar is good with red onions (to me), but it sucks with pickles (to me). Fun fact, here in Korea, pretty much all pickles are super sweet (not good) (to me). Which is why I make my own.
4 - Make the brine. Put your vinegar, water, salt, and sugar (optional) in a small sauce pan and bring it to a boil until it dissolves. Pour the brine into your veggie jars.
All salt is salty but some salt is saltier than other salts. The 1 to 1 to 1 is just a good starting point, you may need to adjust depending on your taste and the salt you’re using.
5 - Get rid of the air bubbles by tapping the jars and top off with brine. Seal the jars tight and let them cool, then refrigerate.
The longer you wait, the better they get. Try to wait a couple days before opening them up.
That’s it. It’s super easy and it’s nice to always have pickles on hand as toppings…but more importantly….to always have pickle brine on hand…
So you can make the greatest and easiest fried chicken ever. Next time.
eat pickles and leave comments
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Sounds good. Just curious, how long can they be stored in the fridge? And can you store them without refrigerating?