Quick & Easy Homemade Pickle Recipe

While I was visiting my friends in Tennessee a few weeks ago, we made homemade pickles. One of my friends, Leigh, makes them all of the time, so she taught the rest of us how--making the learning process very easy, even for someone as domestically inept as me. Although I haven't replicated the recipe on my own yet, I'm definitely going to do so before the summer is over (I promise!). 

Want to join me in attempting to make homemade pickles on your own? Here's the recipe that we used and the steps that we followed.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup white vinegar (approx.--you can eyeball this one)
• 2 rounded teaspoons sugar (you can definitely cut the sugar if you want to--I know I'm going to be doing so!)
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 clove cracked garlic (optional--for those who like garlic ;)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill leaves (they smell SO good while chopping them!)
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 cucumbers

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prep your ingredients. Wash your cucumbers and cut off the ends. Get out a heat-proof bowl that will hold all of your cut up cucumbers. Make sure you have some jars (with tops) nearby. 

2.  Pour the vinegar into a small saucepan and heat over medium high heat. Add the sugar, mustard seed, salt, bay leaf, and garlic. Cook until it begins to simmer and the sugar dissolves. Stir periodically.

3. While the vinegar concoction is simmering, cut up all of your cucumbers. Cut into approx. 1-inch slices, usually on an angle (optional). Fill your bowl with the cucumbers. 

4. Cut up the dill. Remove the stems and just cut the leaves. You can use dry dill, but Leigh tells me that fresh is the way to go. She grows it in her garden--how fabulous is that?

5. Put the dill in the bowl with your cucumbers. Pour the heated vinegar mixture over the cucumbers, and make sure that they're all basically covered with the mixture. Stir to ensure that they're evenly coated. Leave the bowl out on a counter until they've cooled completely. 

6. Once the mixture has cooled, fill your jars with pickles and enough juice/liquid that all of the pickles are covered. If you're super fancy you can use a funnel, but we used a small measuring cup and it was fine. Put the pickles in the fridge overnight, and enjoy the next day! Yay! They're really yummy. 

If you want to make a lot of pickles all at once, like we did, you can just double or triple this recipe. I believe it can also be tweaked pretty easily, and that you can make sweet pickles, bread and butter pickles, etc., by just changing the proportions of the ingredients. I'm probably not brave enough to do this, but those of you who know your way around a kitchen definitely should!

I think that bringing a jar of homemade pickles as a hostess gift is an adorable contribution to a summer party or get-together, so encourage trying this recipe if you have any fun upcoming cookouts, summery events, etc. :)

Look at us, getting all domestic today! 

Enjoy your pickles, homies...