These Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles was one of my most unusual requests ever. I had to reinvent a way to make dill pickles for a supermarket chain who has a special customer focus. Not just any supermarket, but Consumer Reports that Wegmans Food Markets is the “Best rated supermarket chain in America -2014.”
I was taxed with this requirement: no cutting allowed — ingredients had to be taken off the produce shelf and added to the Perfect Pickler® fermenting kit.
Wegmans Food Markets wants to emphasize their growing line of cleaned and pre-cut produce for busy-active cooks. The goal is to take the ingredients off the shelf and get them lacto-fermenting in minutes. And they need to taste better than jars found on the unrefrigerated shelves… and be a value in time and cost savings… and Wow! These jewels are loaded with probiotic goodness!
From this exercise I discovered the great American Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles are hiding on produce shelves just waiting for you to create. Let me show you how easy-peasy it is combining a trick from Korea and a new variety of cucumbers to make this great pickle any time of year.
This recipe makes 1 quart of Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles.
– Recipe by Bill Hettig 2015
Ingredients for Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles:
- Whole cucumbers. Make sure these cucumbers are fresh, the special type of yeast on the outside of cucumbers prevents them from fermenting properly unless they are fresh.
- Four cloves of garlic, smashed with a knife to remove the skins. Note that they are not sliced.
- Pickling Spice. This spice mix contains bay leaves, dill, mustard, coriander and several other seeds. Pickling Spice can be found in many supermarkets. Use one tablespoon.
- One teaspoon of fresh dill. If you don’t have fresh dill, use two teaspoons of dill seed instead.
- One tablespoon of Celtic Sea Salt or other premium brand of salt for the brine.
Directions for Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles:
- Add the Pickling Spice to a one-quart jar.
- Lay the jar on its side and lay in the cucumbers. If required, cut only the cucumbers you need to fit. They will hold up better if left whole during fermentation. Stand the jar up and clear a space in center of the jar.
- Rinse your dill and pack as much as you can fit into center of the jar.
- Finally add your garlic cloves without the husks to your ferment.
- Make a salt water brine solution. To do this, dissolve your salt in filtered water at a ratio of one tablespoon of salt to two cups of water for this one quart batch.
- Fill your jar with this brine solution until about one inch from the jar lip.
- Use some sort of weighty object to hold the pickles under the brine solution. Be sure to place the jar in your sink as you do this as there is sure to be spillage. We sell our brine overflow cup as a weight here: Brine “Catch” Cup – Wide Mouth
- Remove the cup and wipe any debris on the lip of the cup and the jar, then put the cup back in. Install a Lid Gasket inside a Wide Mouth Fermenter Lid. Tighten the lid on until its snug.
- Add tap water to a ClearView Airlock to the max line. Now gently insert the airlock into the hole of the fermenter lid until snug. Make sure not to push too deeply into the lid. As the fermentation happens, the water should move back and forth, and bubbles should move through the airlock, this is correct and indicates a tight seal.
- Write down the date you began fermentation on the lid using a Lid Marking Pen. After 4 days, check to see if the pickles are sour enough for you. If they are not, just add a day and re-check.
Enjoy your Easy-Peasy Dill Pickles!
For even better and more delectable recipes, check out our Fermentation Recipe Booklet, where you will find many recipes, tips and tricks to brine pickling, and so much more!
