It’s that time of year when home gardens are producing epic amounts of vegetables, especially cucumbers!
While it may be tough to eat an abundance of cucumbers fresh, it’s super easy to preserve them to enjoy later.
These five minute fridge pickles are so simple, and truly only take five minutes!
They’re made with ingredients you likely already have on hand, but if you don’t, you could easily substitute any of the flavorings in the brine for something you already have in your cupboard.
What you’ll need:
Ingredients:
- 1 pound Pickling cucumbers
- 1/2 onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
- 6 sprigs dill
Brine:
- 1 TB pickling or kosher salt
- 1 ts peppercorns
- 1/2 ts crushed red pepper
- 1/2 TB mustard seeds
- 1/2 ts coriander
How to Make Fridge Pickles
Step 1: Get everything clean and ready.
Scrub the cucumbers under cool running water. Be sure to remove all dirt, using a kitchen scrubby helps!
Clean and sanitize the quart sized jar and lid. We like to hand wash the jar and lid then run them through a sanitizing wash in the dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher you can easily place the jar and lid in boiling water for a few minutes to sanitize them.
Step 2: Slice up the veggies.
Use a mandolin or a ridged kitchen knife to cut the cucumbers into medium thickness slices.
Slice the 1/2 onion into big chunks and carefully peel and thinly slice the two cloves of garlic.
Step 3: Add all the brine ingredients to the jar.
Feel free to get creative with these ingredients!
You can easily change the spice level by lessening or omitting the crushed red pepper, and all the other flavors can be adjusted as well. The only essential ingredient in the brine is the salt, everything else can be adjusted to your liking.
Carefully measure and pour all the brine ingredients into the bottom of the clean jar.
Heat 1/2 cup of water on the stovetop until it’s boiling. Pour it carefully into the jar and stir vigorously with a whisk to combine.
Let it sit for a few minutes so all the salt can dissolve completely while you gather the rest of the materials.
Step 4: Pack the jar
Add the sliced cucumbers, onions, and garlic to the jar, packing them tightly as you fill it.
It’s perfectly fine if you don’t have enough cucumbers to fill the jar entirely, since these are fridge pickles the measurements of all the ingredients don’t need to be as exact as they would if you were canning them.
If you happen to have too many cucumbers to fit into the jar, simply get another jar and repeat the previous brine step in that jar.
Step 5: Top off with vinegar and water
Once the jar is as full as it can be with veggies, add 1 cup white vinegar and enough water to barely cover the vegetables. Some of the cucumbers will likely float on the top of the brine and that’s perfectly fine.
Put the top on then swirl the jar around and turn it over to help combine all the ingredients.
Keep your new pickles in the refrigerator. They’ll be ready to eat in a day and will keep for up to two weeks.
It’s a good idea to swirl the jar daily to help the flavors penetrate the veggies, but this isn’t entirely necessary.
We love to use our fridge pickles on sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs and sausages. You can even chop them up and make a delicious burger sauce or tartar sauce with them!
