The Good Table At Home: The Easiest Fridge Dill Pickles

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Homemade dill pickles (yellow because they’re a Boothby’s Blonde cucumber)

From the Kitchen / In the Garden

One of my favorite summer hacks, if you will, is to grow vegetables I can enjoy later. This year, I have pickling cucumbers, but they grow sporadically, with not enough yield to do a big canning project. I was a little grumpy about it, but then I found this phenomenal recipe from Smitten Kitchen, and now I’m back to pickle bliss.

The best thing about this recipe is how ridiculously simple it is: slice cucumbers, put them in a jar with some vinegar, sugar, and pickling stuff, put in the fridge and wait for the magic to happen. My family inhales these. If your family likes pickles, they will too.

Easiest Fridge Dill Pickles
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

INGREDIENTS
8 larger or to 10 smaller firm, fresh Kirby (pickling) cucumbers
3 teaspoons kosher, coarse or pickling salt (if using a featherweight brand such as Diamond, use a little more)
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1/2 cup white vinegar

DIRECTIONS
Slice your cucumbers very thin — I used 1/8-inch slices here but usually go even thinner on a mandoline. Place them in a 1-liter or equivalent lidded jar. Add 3 teaspoons salt and dill, then pour in white vinegar. Close the jar and give it a few shakes to begin distributing the ingredients.

You’re going to find the liquid level in the jar worrisomely low as it is well below the pickle pile line, but don’t fret. Within an hour or two, the salt will draw the moisture from the cucumbers and wilt them, while the liquid becomes a perfectly balanced pickle brine.

Place jar in the refrigerator near the front, which should remind you to shake it once or twice more over the new few hours. (Or whenever you’re back at the fridge.) You can eat them as little as 1 to 2 hours later, but they become ideal at 6 to 8 hours. They’ll keep in the fridge, submerged in their brine, for 3 weeks, though never around here.