Bread and Butter Pickles are crunchy, sweet and tangy. They’re delicious with sandwiches, burgers, or as a snack. Old-fashioned bread and butter pickles – just like grandma used to make!
Bread and butter pickles are made with cucumbers, onions, peppers, vinegar, sugar and spices. Sealed jars will last up to 18-months. Find detailed step images and a video below! This recipe has been in our family for over 100 years!
They’re delicious chopped in our tuna salad or Southern potato salad.
Find simple to follow instructions are below. This canning recipe comes from my great-grandmother’s farm kitchen and has been passed down for generations.
Be sure and try my Refrigerator Dill Pickles and Pickled Peppers. They are so good!
Why this recipe works
- Uses simple ingredients – Simple to find ingredients readily available at most grocery stores.
- Flavor – Creates a flavorful, crispy bread and butter pickles with only a few ingredients.
- Controls the ingredients – Making homemade pickles free of preservatives and any additives.
- Stock your pantry – Sealed with jars of homemade pickles that will last up to 18-months.
- Surplus of cucumbers – The perfect home canning recipe for using a surplus of cucumbers.
What you’ll need
- Pickling cucumbers – They are a smaller cucumbers with thicker skin and less seeds. Thicker skin helps keep them crispy through the canning process. (Grow them yourself or find them at your local farmers market throughout the summer!)
- Bell Peppers – We love the combination of red and green bell peppers.
- Yellow or white onions – Use whatever type of onions you want. We chop them, but you can also just slice.
- Pickling or Kosher salt – This is an essential ingredient to canning pickles. Salt, along with ice, helps draw the excess water out of cucumbers, giving you a crisp pickle.
- White vinegar – Vinegar creates the perfect flavor combination for the brine for bread and butter pickles.
- Sugar – Adds just the right amount of sweetness to this pickle recipe.
- Cloves, celery seed, mustard seeds and turmeric – Adds a pop of spice to these pickles.
- Mason jars – Easily locate them at Tractor Supply stores, Walmart and small independent hardware stores.
- Water bath canner – This large enamelware pot with tools will last a life time of canning. Order it here! You will need to water bath pickles to make shelf stable.
- Jar lifter – This is my favorite Ball jar lifter. It’s heavy duty built and rubber helps grip the canning jars well. You’ll use this to place jars into the water bath canner and remove after they are done.
We grow our own pickling cucumbers, but you can also buy pickling cucumbers at local farmers markets.
How to make Old Fashioned Bread and Butter Pickles
- Prep ingredients – Wash pickling cucumbers and cut into slices. Cut onions and peppers into small pieces.
- Combine cucumbers, onions, peppers with salt – Place the salt, cucumber slices, onion, and bell peppers in a food-safe bucket. Use your hand to stir the mixture so the salt is evenly distributed.
- Add ice – Put a clean kitchen towel on top of the cucumbers, with few inches of ice. Let sit for 3-4 hours in a cool place. (Salt, along with the ice help the cucumbers remove excess water so pickles will remain crisp when canned.)
- Drain water from cucumbers -Drain water from the cucumbers, set aside.
- Make the brine – In a large pot, combine vinegar, sugar, ground cloves, mustard seed, celery seed and turmeric. Bring to a boil and stir with a spoon to combine ingredients. (Don’t add the cucumber mixture to the brine or it will make pickles soggy!)
- Prepare water bath canner and jars – Prepare the boiling water canner. Heat the jars in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Wash lids in soapy water and rinse well, set aside. Set bands aside.
- Add to jars– Place equal amounts of cucumbers, onions, and bell peppers into each hot jar. Ladle hot pickling brine over top of cucumbers, leaving ½-inch headspace.
- Seal jars – Wipe the rims with a clean, damp paper towel. Center the lids on jars. Apply the bands to fingertip tight.
- Hot water bath – Process jars in the boiling water canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude.
- Cool and store jars – Remove the jars with a jar lifter and allow to cool completely on the counter for 24 hours. Wash jars with damp kitchen cloth and remove bands to store.
- Check if jars are sealed – Let the jars cool and the lids will begin to make a “pinging” sound as they seal. The lid should not flex up and down when the center is pressed.
For brining pickles, use a food safe 5-gallon bucket. Often times you can pick one up from a bakery. But, if you cannot find one use these food safe plastic bags to line a 5-gallon bucket.
Don’t be nervous if you’ve never canned- it’s really easy! A cookbook on home canning that I highly recommend is from Ball Canning. Order it here!
Each year, we plant a small vegetable garden and grow our own pickling cucumbers. As you can see, in the picture above, we train the vines to grow up the lattice.
This keeps the cucumbers up off the ground, so they grow nicely, take up less space, and keep them in better shape as they mature. Pickling cucumbers will also have less chance of disease when grown this way.
It’s a summer tradition in our household to make homemade Bread and Butter Pickles. And I love Pickled Peppers too! These old-fashioned bread and butter pickles are a must-have to our pantry shelves. We use them to barter with other farms and neighbors, plus enjoy plenty ourselves! (They are delicious with a sandwich or cheeseburger!)
Why they’re called Bread and Butter Pickles
It is said that these delicious pickles got their name because during the Great Depression, they were an inexpensive staple in households. People used them in sandwiches of Bread and Butter because that’s what they could afford. Many things during that time were rationed too, so they made many things from scratch.
Best Varieties of Cucumbers for Making Pickles
Canning Bread and Butter Pickles is relatively easy. While you can certainly use different kinds of cucumbers, pickling cucumbers are the best. They have a thicker skin and are small in size, therefore have less seeds. They can withstand the very hot brine and still come out crunchy.
Recipe FAQs
We use a combination of ground cloves, celery seed, mustard seeds and turmeric for this bread and butter pickle recipe. They blend perfectly for this recipe.
Dill pickles use a herb called Dill and have less sugar, making them a little more tart. Old-fashioned bread and butter pickles use a blend of spices, sugar and vinegar making them have a unique sweet and tangy flavor.
Once the jars of homemade pickles are sealed, store them in a cool, dry place for up to 18 months or so. Although, I highly doubt they will last that long!
More Canning Recipes
Be sure and check out Spicy Dill Pickles from Delicious Table.
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Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Bread and Butter Pickles
- 25 to 30 pickling cucumbers, sliced ¼-inch thick
- ½ cup pickling or kosher salt
- 1 large yellow onion diced
- 1 large green bell pepper diced
- 1 large red bell pepper diced
- 7 cups white vinegar
- 6 cups granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
- 2 teaspoons celery seed
- 1 ½ teaspoons turmeric
Instructions
Bread and Butter Pickles
- In a 5-gallon food-grade bucket, combine the sliced cucumbers, salt, onion, and bell peppers. Stir so the salt is evenly distributed. Cover the cucumber mixture with a clean kitchen towel or tea towel, and place a few inches of ice on top of the towel. Allow to sit for 3-4 hours in a cool place.
- Drain the vegetables and set aside. Make the brine by bringing the vinegar, sugar, cloves, mustard seeds, celery seed, and turmeric to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Meanwhile, prepare a boiling water canner. Heat the jars in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Wash the lids with hot soapy water. Set bands aside.
- Place an equal amount of cucumbers, onions, and bell peppers into each hot jar. Press down the mixture, as it will rise when you pour in the brine.
- Use a wide-mouth funnel, ladle hot pickling liquid over top of the cucumbers, leaving a ½-inch headspace. Remove any air bubbles. Wipe the rims with a clean, damp paper towel. Center the lids on the jars. Apply the bands until the fit is fingertip tight.
- Process jars in the boiling water canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Remove the jars and allow to cool completely on the counter for 24 hours. Check the lids for seal. The lid should not flex up and down when the center is pressed.
- For best flavor, let stand for 3-4 weeks before enjoying. Store the jars in a cool, dry place for up to 1 year. If a jar doesn’t seal, store in the refrigerator and use within 3 months.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
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Seanna Borrows says
This is such a great recipe for bread and butter pickles. Your instructions make canning a breeze. I love that I can always count on your tried and true recipes.
Jessica Robinson says
Thank you! I’m happy that I made it easy for you to navigate this pickle recipe!
Tina says
This is a delicious recipe and this is the second year I’ve made it. One note to consider. Measure the cucumbers by weight and rewrite the recipe using weight. I counted out 27 cucumbers, put all the ingredients together and ended up with 6 pints rather than 12, and I had almost half the pickling liquid left over. I used all the salt in the raw veggies, so I hope they’re not too salty this year. Cucumbers vary in size and weight so using the number of pickles is imprecise. Thanks for the recipe.
Jessica Robinson says
Hello Tina,
Happy to hear you’ve made the recipe twice and loved it. We give a rough estimation for how many cucumbers to use. It’s really a tough thing to measure cucumbers. Even weight would not necessarily help, as some cucumbers have more weight or less depending on the water level in them. It also depends on how tight you or anyone packs the jars with cucumbers. There are so many variants. We also provide a video so you can see what everything looks like and the process for making pickles.
Judy Brown says
Recently purchased bread and butter pickles at farmers market and was told I could reuse brine by just putting in new cucumbers, does this sound kosher to you? No pun intended
Jessica Robinson says
Um…. I’m not sure I would recommend this. I know you can use refrigerated brine for things like adding to potato salad. But, not sure I would recommend reusing a brine from previously made pickles in your fridge for making a new batch of pickles. I think vinegar and ingredients are inexpensive enough, that I would highly recommend making a new brine and heating it to the appropriate temperature.
Samantha says
Are these crunchy after being in the pantry for several months? I made a bread and butter recipe last year and they were soggy after opening them
Jessica Robinson says
Samantha,
These will definitely be crunchy when you open them up a few months later. Just be sure and follow my directions!
Amy says
Bread and butter pickles are the BEST! Thanks for all the info. My pickles always turn out soggy, so I’m excited to try making them with your recipe!
Jessica Robinson says
Thanks so much Amy! These are my great-grandmother’s pickles!
Cheryl says
Great recipe, thanks Jessica!
Jessica Robinson says
Cheryl,
Glad to hear that you enjoyed them!
Brittany says
This recipe looks fantastic! Would it work on other vegetables as well? Thank you for sharing!
Jessica Robinson says
Hi Brittany,
Thanks so much! This is definitely a great pickle recipe. I’ve never used this brine for pickling vegetables, but you can certainly use it for that.
Karol says
Made these today! Absolutely fantastic! Been canning Bread and Butter for years and this is the best recipe! Thank you! Enjoy all your posts!
Jessica Robinson says
So happy to hear that you loved them Karol!
Clara Carlisle says
Can you can without using turmeric? Your recipe sounds amazing. I have been looking for recipe like this.
Jessica Robinson says
Hi Clara,
You can make them without turmeric, but they won’t taste quite the same. Order it on Amazon or find it readily in any grocery store in the spice aisle.
Lori F says
I am so excited I have everything in a bucket right now! Do you recommend rinsing them to get rid of excess salt or is just draining them the way to go?
Jessica Robinson says
Lori,
No need to rinse! Just go ahead and hold your hand over the cucumbers and drain any excess liquid.
Lisa Hatfield says
Jessica, I love this recipe from your Grandma! Mine always made pickles every summer and I can remember them in jars in her cellar. She never had a recipe printed though! So glad you have your family recipe.
Jessica Robinson says
Thanks so much! Aren’t homemade pickles the best?!
Lynnette Marte says
I remember there was a point I was obsessed with eating pickles.
Marie Kait says
Yummy! I’m growing cucumbers in my garden this year. Something to keep in mind! It would be nice to enjoy something I grew/made in the Winter!
John says
Very similar to a family recipe that has been in our family for multiple generations. We like to experiment each year with smaller batches after the big cuke harvest. Horseradish, Hot Pepper, Beet root bread n butter to name a few. You should really caution your readers if they are new to canning. Pickles are the “gateway drug” of canning. Started with pickles and now grow,raise,gather,hunt,fish,crab, clam,and oyster for preserving all of the above and then some…
Jessica Robinson says
Glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe. So nice to hear all the different things you can!
Flyingkids says
Such a nice recipe for making pickles. This looks really delicious. Something families can try.
Nellie Tracy says
This recipe is just what I need, now I can stock up!
Princess Quinn says
My grandma used to cook PAPAYA pickles. And the recipe was passed down to my mom, which she tried to teach me. And now, I think it is time to learn this recipe on my own. LOL