Homemade Pickling Spice Recipe | Ready for Use in Under 10 Minutes (2024)

FAQs

What can I use if I don't have pickling spice? ›

Place mustard seeds, allspice berries, coriander seeds, and pepper flakes into a small glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake to combine. Add ginger to the jar, seal, and shake again. Add crumbled bay leaves, cinnamon stick halves, and cloves to the jar.

Spices to use include cinnamon, allspice, cloves, mace, peppercorns, and ginger. You can bring out their flavour by toasting them briefly in a dry frying pan. In The River Cottage Preserves Handbook, Pam Corbin recommends using 15-30g of spices for 1 litre of vinegar.

The actual process of pickling takes as little as 10 minutes. Then you should allow your pickles to rest in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours before serving. Although for best flavor, let them brine for 24 hours before serving.

Whatever mixture of spices you end up with, you'll want to use about 1 1/2 teaspoons per pint of pickles (or 1 tablespoon if you're canning in quart jars).

But you certainly don't have to use a store-bought pickling spice if you have the spices you need on hand. In fact, our most popular pickle recipe (Easy Refrigerator Pickles, if you're interested) simply lists the individual spices you need in its ingredient list.

Pickling spice ingredients (usually whole or in coarse pieces) can include allspice, bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, mustard seeds, and peppercorns. Pre-packaged pickling spice mixes are sold in most supermarkets.

The classic ratio is super easy to remember and is easily scale-able depending on how many pickles you're making. It's 100% vinegar, 50% water, 25% sugar and 12.5% kosher salt by weight. So for example, 200g vinegar, 100g water, 50g sugar and 25g kosher salt (again, you can scale this up or down!).

Any basic vinegar is game — white vinegar, apple cider, white wine, and rice vinegar all work well. You can use these vinegars alone or in combination. Steer clear of aged or concentrated vinegars like balsamic or malt vinegar for pickling.

No, there are other methods for pickling, including quick pickling and refrigerator pickling. But this pickling method does call for boiling the brine. This process helps bloom the flavors of the ingredients and help speed up the pickling process when it's added to the fresh vegetables or fruit.

Once the brine is hot and ready, pour it into your jars—leaving ½ inch of headspace between the liquid and the rim for liquid-induced expansion—and screw on the lids. The heat will soften your veg a little and speed up the pickling process. Let the jars cool to room temperature, then transfer them to the fridge.

How do chefs pickle so quickly? ›

The technique—a version of vinegar pickling that doesn't require a full canning process—produces briny, crunchy pickled vegetables in just a couple hours. Heat the brine until sugar and salt dissolve, then pour it over the vegetables and let them cool in the jar—voila, pickles.

Look for a recipe that provides the correct proportions of 5% vinegar, cucumbers and water. The ratio of vinegar to water varies by the vegetable; again select a recipe for the vegetable you are pickling.

CINNAMON, ALLSPICE, MUSTARD SEED, CORIANDER, BAY LEAVES, GINGER, CHILLIES, CLOVES, BLACK PEPPER, MACE, CARDAMOM, AND SULFITING AGENT.

Using quality salt is crucial. Don't use table salt or industrial salt. Measure salt exactly: 2 level tablespoons of salt per liter of water for half-salt pickles or 3 tablespoons of water for traditional salt pickles. The pickles are ready after only 24 hours, when they're half fermented.

Their pickling spice is made with mustard, dill, bay leaf, ginger, allspice, pepper, clove, star anise, coriander, cinnamon, juniper, mace, chiles, and cardamom. Generally, though, these are some of the usual suspects you'll find in most pickling spice blends: Mustard seed. Coriander.

Pickling salt, also called canning salt or preserving salt, is a fine-grain salt with no additives. Made of pure sodium chloride, pickling salt doesn't contain the iodine and anticaking agents that are traditionally added to table salt.

There are many ways to add flavor to a dish without using spices or herbs. Here are a few ideas: Use different cooking methods: Cooking methods like roasting, grilling, or caramelizing can bring out natural flavors in foods, such as the sweetness in caramelized onions or the umami in roasted mushrooms.