Dill Refrigerator Pickles

By Addie

This is a very easy recipe from the booklet Favorite Pickles & Relishes. I have made these pickles several times and it takes only a few minutes to mix up the pickling liquid and prepare the cucumbers… the pickles are crisp and have a wonderful garlicky dill taste. Makes one gallon of pickles

Ingredients

• 2 dill heads (I have substituted 3 tablespoons dill seeds)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 8 cups water
• 1/4 cup pickling salt
• 1 gallon pickling cucumbers

Preparation

Step 1

Put the dill, garlic, pickling spices, and bay leaves in the bottom of a glass gallon jar. Cut the cucumbers in quarters and add to the jar.

Combine the vinegar, water, and pickling salt in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and cool.

When the vinegar mixture has cooled, pour it over the cucumbers, making sure that all the cucumbers are covered.

Refrigerate for at least three days before eating. Keep refrigerated.
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Comment:

I am so happy I found this site. When a friend dropped off 5 lbs of pickling cukes the other day I knew I wanted refrigerator pickles. I have tried other recipes in the past….this is the best! I will definately be making these again. Thank you for sharing.

What are pickling cucumbers? is it a special kind or would just regular garden cucumbers be ok?

I was going to ask the same thing — except I always figured a pickling cucumber was probably a baby size of cucumber. In other words, if you let a pickling cucumber grow, it becomes a regular sized cucumber. Is this right?

Pickling cucumbers are a smaller variety of cucumber that never grow very large. However, you could easily substitute regular size cucumbers for this recipe if you slice them or cut them in quarters. The pickling cucumbers (especially the smaller ones) are often used whole, but for the best results a regular size cucumber should be cut into smaller pieces so the pickling spices and vinegar solution could saturate all of the cucumber flesh.

Can you tell me what a dill head is? I want to make these pickles and I have no idea where to buy a dill head. Although I guess I could just buy the dill seeds. I have seen them in the spice department. This sounds like a good recipe.

A dill head is the flowering (seed) part of the dill plant. I think unless you are growing dill in your garden or perhaps have access to a farmer’s market or specialty store they would be hard to find… or at least they would be hard to find in any of the stores around here! When I make these pickles, I use the dried dill seeds and they work just fine.