How to Make Bread and Butter Pickles: An Illustrated Guide to an Old-Fashioned Recipe

Butterfly has been gardening and preserving food of all kinds for many years, and she thrives on the creativity involved in these processes.

Ingredients

For the vegetables:

• 25 to 30 medium cucumbers (we used about 12 cucumbers in these pictures, so a 1/2 recipe)
• 8 large white onions
• 2 large sweet peppers (we omitted these, as my mother is allergic to them)
• 1/2 cup salt, for mixing into vegetables

For the pickling solution:

• 5 cups cider vinegar
• 5 cups white sugar (2 1/2 lbs.)
• 2 tablespoons whole mustard seed
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves

Note: This recipe is adapted from a 1970s version of Kerr Home Canning and Freezing Book. It will yield 14 pints.

Necessary Equipment

• A boiling waterbath or steam canner
• Canning jars (any size), with appropriate lids
• Jar lifter
• Tongs, or magnetic lid lifter
• Sauce pan or stock pot, for boiling pickling solution and heating pickles
• Large crock or bowl, for salting vegetables
• Large colander, for draining cucumbers
• Ladle
• Canning funnel (has a wider mouth than normal, which fits just inside jar rims)

Instructions: Quick Summary

1. Salt the cucumbers, onions, and peppers.
2. Drain the cucumbers and heat them in the vinegar pickling solution.
3. Prepare your jars and canning equipment.
4. Pack the pickles into jars and then process them in a boiling waterbath canner.

Please refer to the photo guide, below, for step-by-step instructions.

Step 1: Salt Cucumbers, Onions, and Peppers

Step 2: Drain Cucumbers; Heat Them in Vinegar Pickling Solution

Step 3: Prepare Your Jars and Canning Equipment

Step 4: Pack Pickles Into Jars; Process in a Boiling Waterbath Canner

Have Even More Cucumbers? Try This Fermented Pickle!

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2009 Joilene Rasmussen

Comments

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on August 12, 2010:

Wonderful! I hope you are as delighted with them as my family is.

Deanna on August 12, 2010:

Ok! So I am going to make this today! Can't wait to try it. :p

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on August 08, 2010:

Deanna, great! Thanks!

Deanna on August 08, 2010:

I am going to bookmark this page

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on June 17, 2010:

Bread Bin Berty, let me know how they turn out! I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. :D

Bread Bin Berty on June 12, 2010:

This stuff looks amazing, I've just printed your instructions out, will buy the ingredients and have a go!

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on September 16, 2009:

Fastfreta, you know it's never too late to learn! Seeing a row or three of newly canned food on your shelves may give you almost as much satisfaction as a freshly scrubbed house. :-)

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on September 16, 2009:

Ivorwen, do try them, if you can.

There is a very good reason to heat the pickles in the solution, instead of leaving them completely raw before packing into jars. Heating them helps them pre-shrink a bit, so you don't come back to your pantry one day and find a bunch of floating pickles and wasted space in your jars. In this recipe, I'm not sure it makes much difference, though, as the salting period helps draw out much excess moisture.

Some people also say that a brief, pre-heating period helps keep pickles crisp, so you don't have the wonderful experience of opening a jar of mushy pickles with which to impress your family. ;-)

Joilene Rasmussen (author) from Ovid on September 16, 2009:

Jarn, your question is hard to answer, because a dill is not just a dill...there are many varieties, and the same is true of bread and butter pickles. For instance, Kosher dills don't have any dill at all, but are based, as I recall, on garlic. (I've never made that variety.) Most dill recipes call for "mixed pickling spices," which usually includes cinnamon, powdered ginger, whole mustard seed, whole allspice, black peppercorns, whole cloves, dillseed, coriander, whole mace, bay leaves, and dry crushed red peppers. Some dill pickles also undergo a lengthy soak in a fairly heavy brine. My favorites include this spice mixture, fresh garlic, and fresh dill.

Conversely, bread and butter pickles have no dill, do include lots of onions, turmeric, and sugar or, as Ivorwen has noted, honey. Some recipes call for dry ginger and peppercorns, but I suppose one major difference is that dill recipes nearly always call for white vinegar, and bread and butter pickle recipes often use cider vinegar.

I chose this recipe out of many variations because my husband is fondest of them, and they go a long ways - they are powerfully flavored, good for relish trays, and simple to make.

Alfreta Sailor from Southern California on September 15, 2009:

My mother would love this hub. I've never canned anything in my life, I wish I had done so when I was younger. Good hub, anyway.

Ivorwen from Hither and Yonder on September 15, 2009:

This recipe is somewhat different than the one I tried this year. In ways, it looks simpler, as the pickles are heated in the brine. The recipe I used had honey in it and the vegtables were packed into the jars, then the brine was poured over the top. May give this one a go -- if I have enough cucumbers! :)

Jarn from Sebastian, Fl on September 15, 2009:

Those look really tasty. I love pickles. How is this recipe different from dill pickles? Or more exactly, what ingrediants give bread and butter pickles such a different flavor?