How to make pickled cucumbers

Vinegar or ferment

A vinegar pickled cucumber is packed in an acidic brine and preserved by that acid immediately. It is sharp, clean and predictable, and it is what most British gherkins and cornichons are.

A fermented cucumber is packed in salt water and preserved by the lactic acid the bacteria on the cucumber produce over days. It is sour rather than sharp, more complex, and it is what a proper deli dill pickle or a Polish ogórek kiszony is.

This page covers the vinegar version. The fermented one has its own page, and the difference is worth understanding before choosing which to make.

The method

Crispness is the whole difficulty. FoodHQ does not publish acidity figures, brine strengths or keeping times, and does not say which pickles are safe unrefrigerated. Those are safety numbers set by a food safety authority; in the UK the Food Standards Agency is the authority. Use a recipe from it or from a body with the same standing, and treat this page as the explanation of what the method is doing.

1. Choose small, firm, ridge or pickling cucumbers. Large salad cucumbers are watery and go soft — this is the main cause of disappointment.
2. Cut off the blossom end — the end opposite the stalk — taking a few millimetres. It carries enzymes that soften pickles, and removing it is the single most effective anti-softening step.
3. Soak the cucumbers in iced water for a few hours. This firms them noticeably.
4. Optionally salt them for an hour and rinse, which draws out water as with onions.
5. Pack them into clean jars with dill, garlic, mustard seed, peppercorns and a dried chilli. A grape, oak, blackcurrant or horseradish leaf is traditional and is thought to help firmness.
6. Warm the vinegar, water, sugar and salt together until dissolved, and pour it over hot but not boiling. Boiling brine cooks the cucumber and guarantees softness.
7. Seal with vinegar-proof lids and leave for at least a week before opening.

Why pickles go soft or hollow

• The blossom end was left on. Enzymes concentrated there break down pectin in the cucumber. Cut it off.
• Salad cucumbers were used. They are bred for water content and thin skin, and neither helps.
• The brine was boiling when poured. It part-cooks the cucumber.
• They sat too long before pickling. Cucumbers deteriorate fast — pickle them the day you get them.
• Hollow centres usually mean the cucumbers were over-mature or grew too fast, and it happens before they reach the jar.
• Not enough salt, in a ferment, lets softening bacteria establish. In a vinegar pickle this is less of an issue.
• A tannin leaf — grape, oak, blackcurrant, horseradish, bay — is traditionally added and is widely believed to help.

The pickles you can buy, for comparison

Cornichons

Tiny French vinegar pickles, very sharp, with tarragon. Served with pâté and cold meat.

Gherkins

Larger vinegar pickles, often sweetened. The British and Dutch style.

Dill pickles

Usually fermented in the American deli tradition, though vinegar versions are sold under the same name.

Bread and butter pickles

Sweet vinegar pickles with mustard seed and turmeric, sliced.

Ogórki kiszone

Polish fermented cucumbers. Sour rather than sharp, and cloudy by design.

Common questions