Zesty Pickles Canning Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 pounds cucumbers about 10 small to medium cucumbers
- 2 cups distilled white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons pickling salt
- 2 cups water
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon sugar optional if you want a sweeter pickle
Instructions
- Cut the cucumbers into thin slices.
- Combine the water, pickling salt, and distilled white vinegar in a pot, and bring to a boil.
- Mix together the cucumbers and all other ingredients that are not in the pot being boiled.
- Pour the boiling mixture from the pot over the pickle ingredients in each Mason jar – leaving a ΒΌ of an inch head room.
- Place the heated lids and jars onto the Mason jars.
- Put the filled jars into the water bath canner and process for 10 minutes – spacing them about two inches apart so the glass does not touch.
- Remove from the water bath canner and place, separated, on a towel to dry until they are cooled and sealed for either storage or consumption.
Notes
Always place your hot Mason jars onto a towel before placing them on a counter or table.. Do not allow the hot glass to touch, or it will likely chip or burst, and ruin your preserved food.
If you opt to use fresh garlic in the recipe, the liquid content of the jars could be tainted a blue or greenish color This is purely a cosmetic issue, and does not mean the pickles are not safe to consume.
Tara Dodrill is a homesteading and survival journalist and author. She lives on a small ranch with her family in Appalachia. She has been both a host and frequent guest on preparedness radio shows. In addition to the publication of her first book, ‘Power Grid Down: How to Prepare, Survive, and Thrive after the Lights go Out’, Dodrill also travels to offer prepping tips and hands-on training and survival camps and expos.
Thanks for another recipe, I put my pickles in the hot water bath for 5 minutes, haven’t had a mushy pickle, and they are soooooo good:)