Best Dill Pickles Recipe for Canning - GardensAll (2024)

As the summer cucumber harvest rolls in, it’s time to pickle them, so sharing here our bestdill pickles recipe for canning.

This dill pickle recipe turn out perfectly crisp, crunchy, and full of flavor. Canning pickles is one of my all-time favorite vegetables to preserve and is surprisingly quick and easy, on top of also being rewarding. Here’s how to do it!

Grow (or Buy) the Best Cucumbers for Pickling

I always buy Cucumis sativus, otherwise known as homemade pickle cucumber seeds, fromBotanical Interests.

While any kind of cucumber can be used to make pickles, some are better than others. There are two primary types of cucumbers in the US, pickling cucumbers and slicing cucumbers.

Cucumber Varieties: Pickling Cucumber vs. Slicing Cucumbers

Slicing cucumbers tend to be larger, with thinner skins, softer interiors, and a stronger ‘cucumber’ flavor. Generally speaking, the longer a cucumber is, the thinner the skin will be, and the better it will be for eating fresh (and not pickled).

Pickling cucumbers are usually smaller and shorter in size. Their skins are thicker and crispier, and the interior is naturally firmer. If pickles don’t have dense skin, they will not hold up well to the pickling liquid. You want a soft and squishy interior with a crisp and firm exterior that makes that classic crunchy snapping sound.

So for your planning purposes, we cover this but the bottom line for now is to use what you’ve got! If you’re growing cukes and you have more than you can use fresh, then pickle what you’ve got.

You can also freeze cucumbers.

Use The Best Cucumbers from Your Garden

The best cucumbers are small or medium, about four to five inches long. If you choose to pickle several sizes of cucumbers, make sure you keep similarly sized cucumbers together during the process to ensure uniformity in the flavor and texture. Look for firm ones that are freshly picked.

Age Matters for Making the Best Dill Pickles Recipe for Canning

When it comes time to harvest from your garden, age matters too. If picked prematurely, the cucumbers will not hold up well to the pickling process and can fall apart or be mushy.

But if you wait too long, the seeds will harden and the skin will be too tough to bite into. If you aren’t sure what to look for yet, try sampling a bite out of a cucumber. You want it to be slightly more crunchy than a pickle, and with a sweet flavor and not bitter.

If your cucumbers are bitter, this may help: Why are my cucumbers bitter?

Wash Cucumbers

Once you have your cucumbers, wash them well. From your own garden or the local farmer’s market, you can simply rinse off any excess soil.

If you source your cucumbers from the grocery store, there will likely be a light wax coating on them that needs to come off. Use a mild soap and a gentle dish rag to clean it. Rinse well before proceeding with the pickling process. If it’s still shiny, it may require a gentle scrub with a vegetable brush.

Slices, Spears or Whole?

Next, decide how you want to slice your pickles. Spears and whole pickles make better snacks than slices or chips, but this comes at the cost of fitting fewer pickles in each jar. If you are concerned about a lack of canning supplies, you should probably slice them.

Our Best Homemade Canned Pickles Recipe

We will give you thiseasy canned pickles recipein batch sizes for the sake of simplicity.

It takes six or seven cucumbers (the equivalent of 1 1/2 – 2 pounds of cucumbers) to make a quart of pickles.

Multiply this recipe by the number of cucumbers you have. If, for example, you have fifty-six cucumbers, you should multiply the ingredients by eight.

Canning Supplies and Equipment You’ll Need

• Water bath, a large stock pot with a wire rack insert, or an electric canner
• Wide mouth quart jars (one for every 6-7 pickles)
• Wide mouth rings and lids (the rings can be reused, but lids usually need to be replaced because they don’t seal as easily, so you can by extras the following season.
• Jar lifter
• Bubble remover spatula, (yep… that’s a thing)!

This Dilla Pickles Recipe Makes One, 1-quart Jar

For more, simply Multiply to increase the following recipe quantities according to the number of cucumbers you are pickling.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. cucumbers (about seven cukes)
• 3 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups distilled vinegar
• 1 clove garlic
• 4 peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon pickling spices
• 3 teaspoons dill seeds (fresh or dry works)
• 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 1 bay leaf

Instructions

1. In a large stockpot, mix the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pickling spices. Bring the mixture to a boil. This is thebrine for dill pickles recipe.
2. As the brine heats up, wash all of your cans in hot soapy water and rinse them well. Let them air dry on a towel.
3. Heat up your canning pot so that it’s ready in time. It needs to be about 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure there is a wire rack on the bottom to prevent breakage.
4. Add the garlic, dill seeds, mustard seeds, bay leaf, and peppercorn to each of your canning jars. Then fill the jar with whole, speared, or sliced cucumbers. Pack them in tight if you can.
5. Pour the brine you prepared into each of the jars, being careful to leave about a half inch of headspace. Run a bubble remover over the interior edges of the jar to help the bubbles escape.
6. Add the lids, and tighten the rings down to be “hand-tight”. This does not take a lot of effort to achieve; snug is perfect.
7. Begin by placing each of these jars into your water bath. The water should cover at least one to two inches over the tops of the jars. Bring the water to a boil, and boil at 180 degrees Fahrenheit* for 15 minutes. If the temperature drops below boiling or too slow as in a gentle boil, you need to restart your timer to ensure a good seal. If you live at a higher elevation, you’ll need to allow it to boil for even longer.
8. After enough time has passed, remove the jars from the water bath using the jar lifter, and place them on either a wire rock or a dry, clean towel on your countertop. Do not let the jars touch one another, as this can cause the glass jars to break.
9. Let the pickles stand for a day. This allows them to seal and cool down to a safe temperature. After a day, push down on the lids to listen for popping. If the lid pops, it means it didn’t seal. That is okay and normal, especially as a novice canner. For the unsealed cans, refrigerate and eat those pickles immediately. If you don’t have the space, offer them to a friend (who will be very grateful for this gift).

Notes:

For low to medium elevations, our reader below is correct:

“180 degrees is not a rolling boil, but it is however the temperature you want to do low-temperature pasteurization.”

~Carol Wissel, GardensAll reader contribution

Storing Dill Pickles

Once your pickles are canned, sealed, and put away in the pantry, they can last for up to a year or more on the shelf, and a few months refrigerated after opening, according to the USDA. However, if you buy canned pickles from the grocery store, they’re often dated 18-24 months out.

The FDA has a free app you can download to your smartphone that lists over 650 food and beverages, including baby food, eggs and dairy products, meat, poultry, produce, seafood, and more.^[2]https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Where-can-I-get-a-food-storage-chart

Even the FDA site says that some canned goods will last less than a year and others may last longer.

Still, it is wise to rotate your canned goods, whether homemade or not, because most foods tend to lose their flavor and nutrients after a year. The bottom line is that there’s no one answer, for shelf life is an approximation rather than an exact science, based on a number of variables, as is often the case when working with organic matter and scenarios.

We hope you enjoyed this simple andeasy canned pickles recipe!

For more options to consider, you may also wish to peruse these articles:

• Easy Refrigerator Pickles
• Homemade probiotics

We’d love to hear your favorite pickling recipe/s and if you try ours, send us photos and your review of how you liked it.

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