Easy and Delicious Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What gives bread and butter pickles their taste? ›

Bread and butter pickles are best described as being a lot like sour dill pickles, but with sweet onion and sugar added to the pickling mix to give them their one-of-a-kind flavor. They are right at home on deli sandwiches, burgers, and charcuterie boards. And they're fantastic just straight out of the jar!

It may be a normal reaction during fermentation caused by bacteria. If the pickles are soft, they are spoiled from the yeast fermentation. Don't use them. Using too weak a salt brine or vinegar solution may cause soft or slippery pickles, as can using moldy garlic or storing the pickles at too warm a temperature.

This is a basic 3-2-1 pickle recipe—three parts vinegar, two parts water, one part sugar. Salt and spices are totally up to you.

Properly canned bread and butter pickles can be stored in a cool, dark place (like a pantry) for up to 1 year. Store opened jars in the fridge and use within 3 months.

The process of fermentation gives pickle its distinctive flavor that serves as the perfect balance of spicy, sour and bitter to have along with a meal. The diversity of flavors in a single bite is what makes the dish truly complete.

Soak Cucumbers In Ice Water Beforehand

Doing this before you start canning them will give you the crunchiest pickles you've ever had!

Any vegetable can be pickled, and pickles can be part of a healthy diet. Eat bread-and-butter pickles in moderation to limit added sugars, and keep an eye out for sodium too—if you already eat out or eat foods high in sodium, a pickle spear or two per day could push you over the limit.

Mineral Rich Salt

Salt hardens the pectins in vegetables and this is what makes them crisp. Without enough salt, your vegetables, and especially pickles, will be soft and mushy. Pickles need more salt than my other cultured vegetables to keep them crisper.

Most pickle recipes call for distilled white vinegar. This is the clear, colorless vinegar made by fermenting grains. It has a mellow aroma, tart acid flavor and does not affect the color of light-colored vegetables or fruits.

Why do you boil vinegar when pickling? ›

You take all of your ingredients, apart from the product that is being pickled, and bring them to a boil. The heating process helps activate the flavors in the brine and marry them together. This hot brine is then poured over what is to be pickled and then stored in the refrigerator.

An easy pickling recipe to follow is the 3-2-1 method; three parts water, two parts vinegar, and one part sugar. This 3-2-1 pickle brine is on the sweeter side, making it great for bread and butter pickles or spicy pickled beets. For a more savory pickle, use less sugar.

Today, the term is well known as a sweet pickle, like my Bread & Butter Chips. These pickles are sweeter than my dills, but they still have that pungent garlic flavor.

Overall, pickles aren't harmful to dogs in moderation. Offering your dog a plain pickle every once in a while is okay! Just don't give your dog pickles covered in garlic, peppers, or onions because these ingredients are highly toxic to your pet.

The Pickle Float

The brine used to make bread & butter pickles is syrup like and quite dense. If slicing or English cucumbers are used, you will notice the slices floating to the top. This is because the syrup is heavier than the large cucumber slices resulting in a lower pack weight.

The acetic acid in vinegar or the lactic acid produced by brine gives the pickle its salty, sour taste. Brine also can contain a variety of spices to add flavor to pickles. Common spices added to brine include garlic, horseradish, dill, and white mustard seeds.

The key difference between these two types of pickles is their taste. Despite bread and butter pickles using the same cooking method as dill pickles, they use far different spices that make them sweeter. According to Wyse Guide, sugar is added to the bread and butter brine to help alleviate its sharp vinegary taste.

While there is no scientific reason as to why bread and butter taste so good together, everyone seems to agree that eating butter with bread is one of life's greatest culinary experiences. Some argue that adding butter to bread before toasting enhances the flavor of this already delicious pairing.

Bread and Butters are sweet and sour because they're made with a vinegar and sugar brine and are flavored with spices including things like mustard seed, coriander seed, cloves, dried red pepper and allspice.