Bread-and-butter pickles
Sweet, turmeric-yellow cucumber and onion slices — the pickle most children will actually eat, and the one that uses up the big cucumbers.
Makes
About 8 × 500 ml (pint) jars
Active time
1¼ hours
Total
5 hours including the ice soak, plus 12–24 hours cooling
Photo versageek on Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0
Before you start
What keeps this jar safe
- The 1 L of 5% vinegar to 2.7 kg of cucumbers and 2 L of onions is the tested ratio — the sugar can be cut only by following a tested reduced-sugar recipe, and the vinegar is never cut.
- Pickling or canning salt for the ice soak; drain well, or the syrup ends up watery.
- The jars are hot-packed — bring the slices back to a boil with the syrup before filling, so the 10 minutes in the canner is enough.
- Skip the pickling-lime firming option on the source page unless you follow its three rinses exactly; the crushed-ice soak is the simple way to crisp slices.
This follows NCHFP: Bread-and-Butter Pickles. Quantities, acid and times are theirs; do not scale the vegetables without scaling everything, and do not change the vinegar, lemon juice or processing time.
Ingredients
- 2.7 kg (6 lb) pickling cucumbers, 10–12.5 cm (4–5 inches) long
- 2 L (8 cups) thinly sliced onions — about 1.4 kg (3 lb)
- 125 ml (½ cup) canning or pickling salt
- 1 L (4 cups) vinegar (5%)
- 900 g (4½ cups) sugar
- 30 ml (2 tablespoons) mustard seed
- 22 ml (1½ tablespoons) celery seed
- 15 ml (1 tablespoon) ground turmeric
- Plenty of crushed or cubed ice
Processing
- Jars
- 500 ml (pint) or 1 L (quart) — same time
- Headspace
- 1.25 cm (½ inch)
- Time at 0–300 m (0–1,000 ft)
- 10 min
- Higher up
- Both sizes: 15 min at 300–1,800 m (1,001–6,000 ft), 20 min above 1,800 m (6,000 ft).
Method
- 1
Wash the cucumbers and cut 2 mm (1/16 inch) off each blossom end. Slice them 5 mm (3/16 inch) thick — a mandoline makes this even — and slice the onions thinly.
- 2
Toss the cucumbers and onions with the salt in a big bowl, bury them under 5 cm (2 inches) of ice and refrigerate 3–4 hours, adding ice as it melts. Then drain them well.
- 3
Set 8 washed 500 ml jars to heat in the canner and wash the lids.
- 4
Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed and turmeric in a large pot and boil 10 minutes. Add the drained cucumbers and onions and bring slowly back to a boil, stirring gently.
- 5
Fill the hot jars with slices and the hot syrup, leaving 1.25 cm (½ inch) headspace. Free bubbles with a chopstick, top up with syrup if needed, wipe the rims, centre the lids and screw the bands on fingertip-tight.
- 6
Lower into the canner with at least 5 cm (2 inches) of water over the lids, bring to a full rolling boil and process 10 minutes for 500 ml or 1 L jars at 0–300 m.
- 7
Turn off the heat, uncover, wait 5 minutes and lift the jars onto a towel. Leave 12–24 hours and check the seals. Let them sit 4–5 weeks before opening; the flavour needs the time.
Keeps: 12 months in a cool dark cupboard. Refrigerate after opening and eat within a couple of months.
Variations: Squash bread-and-butters: swap slender zucchini or yellow summer squash, 2.5–4 cm (1–1½ inches) across, for the cucumbers — same quantities, same times. The lime variation is not for squash.
Tested source: NCHFP: Bread-and-Butter Pickles. Checked October 2026. If a jar did not seal, refrigerate it and use it within a few days. Never taste anything from a jar that is bulging, leaking, spurting or smells wrong — when in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
The crop
Cucumbers: when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Pickling is the only real way to keep a cucumber, and it comes in two flavours. Fresh-pack (quick) pickles are cucumbers in a hot 5% vinegar brine, water-bath processed by a tested recipe — dills, bread-and-butters, relish. Fermented pickles are the old way: cucumbers in a salt brine in a crock for three to four weeks at 21–24 °C (cooler takes five or six), turning sour on their own, then refrigerated or canned. Both start the same way — small, fresh, unwaxed pickling cucumbers, with a 1.5 mm (1/16 in) slice taken off the blossom end, because the blossom carries an enzyme that softens the whole jar. Use 5% vinegar and never dilute it, pickling salt, and the recipe’s exact ratios. What does not work is freezing: a frozen cucumber thaws limp, water-logged and off-flavoured. The one exception is ‘freezer pickles’, where slices are salted and sugared in vinegar first and the texture is part of the deal. Canning plain cucumbers in water is not a thing.
More for cucumbers
- Pickling
Quick fresh-pack dill pickles
Kosher-style dills without the weeks of fermenting: an overnight salt soak, a hot spiced brine, and a short bath.
7–9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1 hour over two days active
The recipe → - Fermenting
Brine-fermented dill pickles
Real deli pickles: cucumbers, dill, garlic and a salt brine, soured by the same bacteria that make kraut. No vinegar bite, just depth.
About 2 × 1 L jars of pickles per 4 L (1 gallon) crock · 30 minutes active
The recipe →