Easy Bread and Butter Sweet Pickles Recipe
A simple, old fashioned sweet pickle recipe that you can make in an afternoon
Bread and Butter sweet pickles are super simple to make
When it comes to eating pickled foods as a side dish or snack, I’m a tart and spicy guy.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s giardiniera, sweet peppers, cucumber spears, or any other veggie, I prefer the acidic bitterness of vinegar, accented by the sour green, spicy notes of dill, mustard, and peppercorn.
On the other hand, when it comes to using pickles as an ingredient in other foods – say relish in a tuna salad or slices for the top of a burger, I like them sweet and tangy.
The difference in preference is because I think sweet pickles tend to accentuate food flavors while sour pickles tend to overwhelm them unless the food is really strongly flavored to begin with.
Easy Sweet Pickles: 3-2-1 Rule
Sweet Pickles are dead simple to make, even without precise measurements. All you have to do is remember the “3-2-1” rule: 3 parts vinegar, 2 parts water, 1 part sugar. That makes it easy to scale up or down based on the quantity of cucumbers you have.
In general, they also have fewer spices than sour pickles – usually just celery seed and mustard seed. You don’t have to be precise here either, a ¼ part of spices is usually more than enough.
That said, I when I do sweet pickles, I like my sugar to vinegar ratio to be closer so the vinegar flavor isn’t as pronounced. My combo is closer to “2-1-1”, i.e. 2 parts vinegar, 1 part water and 1 part sugar.
You really can’t mess this up, so once you’ve made sweet pickles once or twice, feel free to dial it up or down to find a combo that tastes good to you.
Super Simple Bread and Butter Sweet Pickle Recipe
Prep Time: 15 min | Rest Time: 3hrs | Cook Time: 6 min | Yield: 2 quarts
One of the simplest types of sweet pickles are “bread and butter” pickles. Contrary to the name, they have no bread or butter in them. That’s just an American moniker they picked up from a woman who reportedly made these pickles at home and traded them with her local grocer for basic foods like bread and butter. In the rest of the world, these pickles are still just known as “sweet pickles.”
Basic Bread and Butter pickles are just sliced cucumbers and onions in vinegar and sugar water with a little celery and mustard seed added for a flavor boost. Here’s how to make them:
Ingredients
(This makes around 2 quarts of pickles)
- 3 medium cucumbers
- 3 medium onions (white or red)
- 1/3 cup salt
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1-1/2 tsp celery seed
- 1-1/2 tsp mustard seed
Instructions
Step 1: Wash the cucumbers and slice into thin chips. Peel the onions and slice them as thinly as possible.
Cucumbers and red onion sliced
Step 2: In a large jar or crock, arrange the cucumbers and onions in layers, sprinkling salt over each layer.
Layer the sliced cucumbers and onions, adding salt between each layer
Step 3: Cover and let stand for 3 hours. Drain off juice as it accumulates
Step 4: Combine water, vinegar, sugar, celery and mustard seed* in a pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar
Sugar (top), Mustard seed (bottom), and fresh celery seed (left)
Step 5: Boil mixture for 3 minutes
Step 6: Add your cucumbers and onions to the pot and heat to boiling point, but do not let it boil.
Step 7: Pack immediately into hot, sterilized jars and seal.
Freshly jarred bread and butter pickles
Step 8: Let stand for at least 1 week before eating.
Sealed jars can be stored at room temperature for a year or more. Store opened containers in the refrigerator.
* Note: If you like a little “hotter” flavor to your pickles, add the mustard seed to a small container of cold (it must be cold) water and let them sit for 30 minutes or so before combining in step 5. This makes the mustard flavor more pronounced.
Optional Upgrades
- Add fresh chopped bell pepper to your cucumber/ onion layers to add a fresh, green snap to your pickles.
- Add a few whole allspice berries to your spice mix to add a little warm, clove-sweet, peppery flavor to the pickles.
As I mentioned above, once you’ve made these once or twice, feel free to experiment by adding new flavors. Grape leaves, rose hips, lemon grass, and other herbs complimentary to the tangy-sweet flavors of these pickles are great choices.
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