Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe: Making Homemade Pickles

Bread and butter pickles are cucumber slices chefs or home cooks have preserved in vinegar, canning salt, sugar, and various spices and herbs. Typical bread and butter pickle brine flavorings include onions, peppercorns, mustard seeds, turmeric, cloves, red pepper flakes, and celery seed.

The balance of sugar and vinegar makes bread and butter pickles sweeter than dill pickles. You can serve these crispy pickles atop hamburgers, hot dogs or fried chicken sandwiches, or as a side dish for barbecue meats.

One origin story of bread and butter pickles involves cucumber farmers Omar and Cora Fanning, who traded sweet pickles for grocery staples like bread and butter when they were financially unstable in the 1920s. Another name theory traces back to the Great Depression when people ate pickled cucumbers on buttered bread as a cost-saving measure.

Buy pickling cucumbers at the grocery store or farmers’ market to make homemade pickles. Pickling cucumbers are short with thin, bumpy skin and firm flesh. These cucumbers soak up pickling liquid and retain crunchiness. Varieties of pickling cucumbers include Kirby cucumbers, National Pickling cucumbers, Bush cucumbers, and Boston cucumbers.

There are two main ways to pickle food items: preserving the food in a vinegar solution or letting it naturally ferment in a salt brine. If you live in a high-altitude environment, check the USDA canning guide for the proper processing time. Be sure to clean canning jars, rims, and lids with soapy water to sanitize them before the canning process. When making bread and butter pickles, consider these methods:

• Quick pickling: You can make quick pickles, also known as refrigerator pickles, in twenty-four hours. Combine the brine ingredients and bring the mixture to a boil until the sugar dissolves. Let it cool, then pour the brine over the cucumbers and onions in jars. Allow the jars to sit in the fridge for at least twenty-four hours before consumption.
• Canning: Follow a canning recipe to make pickles with a long shelf life. Fill the jars with cucumbers, onions, and brine ingredients, leaving a half inch to an inch of headspace. Then tightly seal the jars. Place the canning jars in a large pot of water and boil them in the hot water bath for ten minutes. Carefully remove the hot jars with tongs and allow them to cool completely before storing them in a cool, dark place for up to a year.

The storage method for pickles depends on the preparation. If you submerge cucumbers in a pickling liquid and let them ferment in the refrigerator, you can store them in the fridge for up to three months. Canning pickles in a hot water bath extends their shelf life. You can keep the canned pickles in a cool, dark place for up to twelve months.