Sweet & Tangy Refrigerator Pickles Recipe
Refrigerator pickles are one of my favorite summertime staples. I find myself making them on repeat through the hottest months of summer, along with homemade salsa, bruschetta, and my zucchini muffins. This recipe is actually my mom’s. She made it often during the summers as a way to use up extra cucumbers from the garden, and we loved it! These pickles are quite different from the classic dill pickles that you might be used to. Rather than savory, these are tangy and sweet; they’re closer to a bread and butter pickle than a kosher dill.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Lasts for weeks in the fridge, so you can enjoy them all summer long. They never last more than a day or two in my house though 😉 Extra flavor, thanks to the addition of thinly sliced onions. They make such a difference! Uses just a few kitchen staples. You probably already have all of the ingredients in your pantry! Perfect for using up excess cucumbers from your garden! My cucumber salad is another great option for this during the summer months.
What You Need
As with most old-fashioned recipes, my refrigerator pickles recipe doesn’t require any fancy ingredients. Instead, we’ll combine a few pantry staples for maximum flavor!
Cucumbers. Fresh summer cucumbers work nicely, though as kids we often requested my mom make this recipe in the winter as well, so I know that grocery store cucumbers will work just fine in a pinch. Really any variety of cucumber will work! Spices. Including mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric. The seeds are pickle staples (I’m sure you’ve seen them floating near the bottom of your store-bought pickle jar) and add flavor while the turmeric adds a nice golden color. Onions. Yellow or sweet onions are my preference, but white or even red would also work here. If you hate onions, you can leave them out of this recipe, but they do add a little extra something in terms of flavor, so I recommend including them! If omitting, just replace them with additional cucumber slices. Vinegar. I use and recommend white vinegar, it works best for letting the cucumber/pickle flavor shine, but you could experiment with other similar vinegars like apple cider or rice wine vinegar. Sugar. I know it seems like a lot, but the sugar is a key ingredient in this recipe as it helps balance the vinegar. Also, these are sweet pickles after all!
SAM’S TIP: Slice your pickles and onions as thin as you possibly can! I like to get mine as close to paper thin as is possible; it helps them to absorb the flavor of the brine faster. A mandolin makes quick, efficient and consistent work of this, I link to the (inexpensive) one that I use in the recipe card below. Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Refrigerator Pickles
SAM’S TIP: While I ultimately like to store my pickles in mason jars, I almost always first let them sit overnight in a large bowl. I’ve found that the bowl ensures that all of the veggies are coated in the brine, while the mason jar sometimes leaves the top layer brine-less (and therefore flavorless!). I’d like to note that I don’t recommend using these pickles for making my fried pickles. Stick with dill pickles for those! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified of all the newest recipes, and find my free recipe tutorials on YouTube 💜
Related Recipes
