Bread and Butter Pickles
Bread and butter pickles are an old-fashioned classic that remains popular to this day. They're one of the most common types of pickles, and a favorite of home canners everywhere.
Servings: 5 (500 ml) pint jars
Ingredients
- 10 cups 2.5 L pickling cucumbers, sliced and trimmed into ¼" (0.5 cm) slices
- 3 cups 750 ml white vinegar
- 4 medium onions sliced
- 2 cups 500 ml white granulated sugar
- ½ cup 125 ml canning salt
- 2 tbsp 30 ml mustard seeds
- 1 tsp 5 ml celery seeds
- 1 tsp 5 ml ground turmeric
Instructions
- Combine cucumbers, onions, and canning salt in a bowl. Cover with ice water and let sit for 2 hours.
- Transfer mixture to a colander, rinse with cool water, and pat dry.
- Sanitize jars, lids, and canner before making pickling liquid.
- Boil vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, turmeric, and celery seeds. Add cucumber and onion mix and bring to a boil.
- Pack vegetables into jars, leaving ½ inch of space at the top.
- Pour hot pickling liquid over veggies, remove air bubbles, adjust headspace if needed.
- Wipe jar rims, seal with lids, and tighten bands.
- Place jars in boiling water bath canner, process for 10 minutes.
- Remove jars, let cool for 24 hours, check seals.
- Store canned pickles in a cool, dark place for up to one year.
Notes
The recipe above is written out for Traditional Bread and Butter Pickles, and it's a safe, tested canning recipe. It can also be made as a refrigerator pickle recipe, just skip the canning step and store the pickles in your refrigerator until needed.
The jars will need at least a week to "pickle" to develop full flavor.
Ball Canning provides a few bread and butter pickle variations in their traditional recipe, including:
- British Bread and Butter Pickles: Replace the white vinegar with 3 cups of apple cider vinegar and the granulated sugar with 2 cups of packed brown sugar. Add a teaspoon of ground ginger to your turmeric.
- Zesty Bread and Butter Pickles: Replace the celery seeds with 2 tbsp of prepared horseradish and replace the turmeric with 2 tbsp of grated ginger.
Altitude Adjustments for Canning Pickles
Water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes, so jars need to be processed a bit longer as you go up in elevation. Here are the altitude adjustments for canning Bread and Butter Pickles:- For 0 to 1,000 Feet in Elevation - Process pint jars for 10 minutes, and quart jars for 15 minutes.
- For 1,001 to 6,000 Feet in Elevation - Process pint jars for 15 minutes, and quart jars for 20 minutes.
- Above 6,001 Feet in Elevation - Process pint jars for 20 minutes, and quart jars for 25 minutes.