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I am not a pickle person. I never have been. I’m not particularly fond of dill, is my main problem.
When I was younger, I would make pickles for 4-H, and people said they were good, but I never tried them.
Now that I’m a little older, I can tolerate a pickle if I have to, but I still don’t like them. I’m better with them mixed into things (tuna salad, say) than I used to be. I’m trying not to pass my pickle prejudice on to the next generation.
![bread and butter pickles](https://www.ourdailycraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pickle-lid.jpg)
I’m actually kind of starting to like bread and butter pickles.
These crunchy, sweet beauties are not laced with dill, so they’re spicy in a good way. They’re also dead simple to make, and once you buy the spices once you’ll be able to have pickles whenever you want so long as you’ve got a cucumber hanging around and a week to wait.
It’s worth it, I promise.
After the snow last week, I’m hesitant to say it’s going to stay warm this time. But I did buy my first local strawberries today, and I made my first batch of pickles (from a regular, store-bought cuke, for shame), so I’m doing what I can to ward off one last cold snap.
This recipe comes from Alton Brown’s Good Eats: The Early Years. (That’s an Amazon link, but I get no money from it.) I’ve barely changed it at all. I love this recipe because it’s one jar. You don’t need a million cucumbers to make it (though if you had a million cucumbers, you could make a bunch). It’s also not preserved in the sense of canning, sticking it on a shelf and eating it years hence. This needs to be refrigerated from day one.
What You’ll Need![pickle spices](https://www.ourdailycraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pickle-spices.jpg)
- 1 cucumber (the recipe calls for two medium, but in these pictures, I just used one; use your judgement based on your definition of “medium”)
- 1/2 medium white onion
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups sugar (I used just a little less this time around, because I used less cucumber)
- 1 pinch kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon each yellow mustard seeds, ground turmeric, celery seeds and pickling spice
- 1-quart Mason jar with lid
What You’ll Do![pickle making](https://www.ourdailycraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pickle-steps.jpg)
- Clean your jar if you need to.
- Mix everything but the onions and the cucumbers in a saucepan. Stir, bring to boil and let simmer for 4 minutes.
- While that’s working, thinly slice your cucumber and onion. Go slow; this should take a few minutes unless you have much better knife skills than I do.
- Pour the liquid over the cucumbers until they’re well covered and the jar is basically full.
- Allow to cool, top off with any remaining liquid if necessary to keep the slices covered, pop on the lid and stash in the refrigerator for a week before consuming.
AB says they’re good for 2 months after opening, but I’m not sure they’ll last that long.
What recipes signal summer to you? I’d love it if you’d share!