Cooking From Scratch: How To Make Pickles

by Eden Canon

Learning how to make pickles is easy and will save you money while giving you more control over what you eat.

When you look at your grocery bill as a whole, you’ll find that processed foods are often the leading driver of your expense.   This is especially true when it comes to condiments—all of those tasty additions that are not quite necessary but have the ability to just make a dish.  But why spend the extra amount on a product that contains ingredients such as sodium benzoate, polysorbate 80, and dubious, unspecified “natural flavors?”  Making your own pickled condiments can be a good use of an overabundance of seasonal produce in your kitchen or from your garden, a fun activity to do with friends or family, and most of all it can save you money. Here are some simple, step-by-step guides to get you started on pickling.

How to make vinegar based pickles

The classic pickling recipe from the Kitchn The low-down on using pickling spices, brine and salt by FOOD52 32 of Saveur Magazine’s top pickle recipes

How to make fermented pickles

Phickle.com does a wonderful job at describing the difference between vinegar based pickling and pickling through fermentation. “Pickles made with vinegar, such as quick pickles and canned pickles, are sterilized to avoid stray bacteria.  Lactopickles are not sterilized, and in fact are made by creating a selective environment in which wonderful, healthy lactic acid bacteria can grow and thrive.  By creating that selective environment, you allow the lactic acid bacteria naturally present on everything that grows in the earth to chow down on the sugars that are naturally present in your veggies.  When they do that, they convert said sugars into many things, including lactic acid, which then does the work of preservation.” More information on lactofermentation, including a few recipes and what shouldn’t happen to your pickles  

---

The Joy of Pickling: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors: Small-batch jams, jellies, pickles, and preserves from the South’s most trusted kitchen The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook

---