Super Easy Quick Pickled Carrots Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to pickle quickly? ›

All-Purpose Quick Pickling Brine

Add your washed and sliced produce, packing the jar tightly. In a medium saucepan, bring the water, vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and carefully pour into pickling jar until all contents are submerged. Close the lid on the jar tightly.

Tips and tricks for making quick pickled cucumbers: White vinegar is the traditional vinegar for this recipe and a great place to start. If you know that you like apple cider or rice wine vinegar they are also good.

For best flavor results, wait at least 24 hours before eating the pickled carrots. The longer you wait, the more intense in flavor they will get. Make sure your jars are completely clean and sterilized before using them.

Fill jars with hot carrots, leaving 1-inch headspace. Fill with hot pickling liquid, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel.

Quick pickles are vegetables stuffed into a jar and pickled in a liquid brine solution using a combination of vinegar, water, salt and/or sometimes sugar. They are stored in the refrigerator, rather than canned in a water bath. Quick pickles only require a few days in the brine before they can be enjoyed.

The classic ratio is super easy to remember and is easily scale-able depending on how many pickles you're making. It's 100% vinegar, 50% water, 25% sugar and 12.5% kosher salt by weight. So for example, 200g vinegar, 100g water, 50g sugar and 25g kosher salt (again, you can scale this up or down!).

The base for pickling vinegars is often white vinegar but it can also be cider vinegar, malt vinegar, or wine vinegar. These vinegars vary in flavour and acidity to allow you to subtly alter the taste of your pickles. Vinegar, or acetic acid, is the base of most pickle recipes. Read our guide to pickling.

Because apple cider vinegar is made from apples rather than barley, corn rice or wine, it gives pickles a mellower taste. Using a white distilled vinegar, for example, will create a harsher flavour. But as well as being gentler on your palate, using apple cider vinegar also adds health benefits to pickles.

Now, don't confuse distilled with basic white vinegar, which is stronger and has up to 25% acetic acid. That vinegar is sold exclusively for cleaning purposes and is not a good idea to ingest. However, beyond cooking, distilled white vinegar can be used for many of the same household chores.

Using too weak a salt brine or vinegar solution may cause soft or slippery pickles, as can using moldy garlic or storing the pickles at too warm a temperature. These pickles are spoiled and should be discarded. Pack pickles to allow sufficient room for the pickling solution to surround each piece.

Are pickled carrots good for your gut? ›

Most of us think of small cucumbers when we think of pickles, but actually, pretty much anything can be pickled. Cabbage, radishes, onions, carrots, beets—the limit does not exist. And they're all great for the gut.

Pickling doesn't have to be a long process involving canning and special supplies. If you have vegetables that would be good pickled, like onions, garlic, carrots or green beans, toss them in the jar of leftover pickle juice, and see what happens. They'll make a nice addition to a charcuterie platter or Blood Mary.

Blanching is the process of partially cooking vegetables in boiling water until they are slightly tender but still hold their crunch, then quickly submerging them in ice water to inhibit further cooking. This process helps to maintain the carrots' vibrant colour throughout pickling.

The first step in making pickling carrots is to wash and peel them. What is this? In theory, you could pickle your carrots without peeling them. But unless the carrots are young and small, the skins can taste bitter, so I recommend peeling all but the smallest before pickling.

Vinegar pickling (or quick pickling) is a simple process. Water, salt and vinegar (and sometimes sugar) are combined and heated and then fruit or vegetables are immersed in that liquid.

Then there is the quick-pickle — the kind of pickle that's ready in less than 24 hours, and sometimes in only minutes. One way to speed up the process is to eliminate the water component in the brine. That way, acid is in direct contact with the ingredient so pickling is nearly instantaneous.

Use 'cPickle' instead of 'Pickle'

The 'cPickle' module is a faster version of 'Pickle' that is written in C. This makes it faster than the 'Pickle' library that is implemented purely in Python.

Top the cucumbers with a few stacked lids or a resealable plastic bag filled with extra brine to keep them submerged. Place the airlock on top and secure it to the jar with the band. Store in a cool area (between 60 and 75F [15 and 24C]) for 3 to 5 days, or until the cucumbers taste like pickles.