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Dill Pickle Recipe for Canning

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Some days I just want a pickle, and nothing compares to a perfectly crisp home canned pickle.  They top my burgers and hot dogs all summer long, but more importantly, in the winter time, they remind me that summer will come again.

Fork of Dill Pickles

The very best pickles cant be bought in a grocery store.  If you want a good pickle, you’ll have to ask grandma for a jar or learn how to make them yourself.  I kick myself every time I don’t can quite enough for a full year.  In those years, I find myself scanning the supermarket shelves, hoping for anything that might qualify as a real pickle.

I’m always disappointed.  How can they get away with charging $8 for a jar of wilted, slimy excuses for pickles?  On top of that, they’re loaded with preservatives that have no business in pickles.  Every time I reach this point I vow that next summer there will be more pickles.

Cucumbers ready to become canned dill pickles

 

My secret to the perfect pickle is to select small cucumbers, about the size of your pinky finger.  Whether you’re making slices of whole dills, the size of the cucumber is key. Anything bigger is best suited to pickle relish or hog feed.  (If you have really super tiny baby cucumbers, try making miniature gherkins (cornichons), which are made with a very different recipe.

When you select cucumbers for canning pickles, the seeds should be barely visible.  The picture below has a cross-section of 3 different cucumbers.  The top one has fully formed seeds, and they’re already beginning to fall out a bit.  If you can this cucumber, the center would fall out and the outside would never be crisp.  If all you have is giant cucumbers, try making refrigerator dill pickles.

The bottom two cucumbers are both acceptable for canning but choose the smaller slices on the left for best results.

Choosing Cucumbers for Canning Pickles

The top cucumber is only suitable for hog feed. The one at the bottom right will work, but the bottom left cucumber will give the best canned pickles.

If you have very large cucumbers and your heart is set on canning, you can also try making either dill pickle relish or bread and butter pickles.  Both of those recipes are designed to accommodate large overripe cucumbers.  The cucumbers are layered with salt for about 2 hours before canning, which draws out extra moisture and removes bitterness from the overripe cucumbers.  Added sugar in both recipes also helps mask any residual bitterness, and a bit of turmeric makes up for the fading color as the cucumbers are past prime.

Jar size also makes a big difference for home canned pickles.  You can have the best pickle recipe in the world and the freshest tiny cucumbers, but if you can in quart jars they’ll be overcooked.  Always can in pints rather than quarts.  Quarts require longer processing times and are liable to produce mushy pickles.

Cucumbers packed into jars for dill pickles

There’s an old-school practice of soaking pickles in pickling lime before canning, and this helps keep them crisp during the canning process.  It’s a complicated process, and involves a lot of time and mess, soaking and rinsing.  Not to mention a lot of lime.

These days, most canners substitute something called pickle crisp.  It doesn’t have anything funny in it, just calcium chloride.  The calcium helps to reinforce the cell walls in the cucumbers, and that keeps them from popping during the canning process.  The end result is firmer pickles without a lot of extra work.

It doesn’t take a lot of calcium chloride to get the job done.  Roughly 1/8th tsp per pint or 1/4 teaspoon per quart.  Just spoon it into the bottom of the jars along with the spices.  Pickle crisp is optional, but it will help ensure crisp home-canned pickles.

Spices for Canning Pickles

The spices in my pickle recipe include fresh dill, mustard seeds, dill seeds, coriander seeds and black peppercorns.  Note again the small cucumber slices, with seeds barely visible.

Making pickles at home is simple, assuming you have the right ingredients.  I include fresh dill, mustard seeds, dill seeds, coriander seeds and black peppercorns.  If for some reason I can’t find fresh dill, extra dill seed will work.  Fresh dill tends to come in large bundles from the grocery store or farmers market, and if you have extra, try making dill pickled green beans, known as dilly beans here in Vermont.

Start by packing spices, cucumbers, onions and garlic tightly into jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace.  Cover with hot brine, and water bath can.  Wait at least 2 weeks for flavors to infuse, and ENJOY!

Dill Pickle Jar Closeup

If you’re giving them out as gifts, consider some cute labels.  Chalkboard labels are all the rage these days, but I stick to ball canning’s dissolvable labels because they’re easy to remove so that you can reuse the jar once it’s empty.

If you really want to save money on pickling, buy your canning supplies in bulk.  While rings and jars can be reused, lids should be new each time to ensure a good seal.  We buy our canning lids in bulk online and bring our canning unit costs down considerably.  If you’re looking for a quick fix, you can also try a pre-made dill pickle spice mix, just make sure your cucumbers are fresh and tiny.

Home Canned Dill Pickles

Just getting Started Canning?

If you’re just getting started canning, but plan on making canning and preserving food part of your lifestyle long term, try investing in an online canning course.  Pioneering today has a canning with confidence course that takes you through the ins and outs of canning from basic canning safety all the way through to pressure canning meat at home.  The course covers:

  • Canning Safety – Safe techniques to for home canning
  • Water Bath Canning – Jams, jellies, pickles, tomatoes, and other high acid fruits and vegetables including low sugar, no pectin variations.
  • Pressure Canning – How to safely operate a pressure canner at home to can almost any type of food for long-term preservation
  • Troubleshooting and Storage – Figuring out why a recipe just didn’t work, and maximizing storage of your home canned goods.

Take a look at Canning with Confidence if you’re planning on investing heavily in long-term home food preservation.

Lineup of Canned Dill Pickles

Lineup of Canned Dill Pickles
Yield: 5 Pints

Dill Pickle Recipe for Canning

This dill pickle recipe yields crisp pickles and is easy for beginning canners.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Start your water bath canner in a pot big enough to hold 5 one pint mason jars. The water (and the pot!) should be deep enough once the jars are added there is at least 1 inch of water above the top of the jars. Bring the pot to a boil.
  2. Prepare a brine by bringing 4 cups water, 4 cups vinegar and 1/2c salt to a boil.
  3. While the brine and canner are coming up to a boil, gently wash cucumbers to remove any dirt and nip off both ends. Either leave the cucumbers whole or slice into 1/2inch slices.
  4. At the bottom of each wide mouth pint mason jar, add 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds, dill seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns and the dill heads or fresh herb sprigs.
  5. Pack tightly with pickles and a few slices of onion. Top 2 with 2-3 garlic cloves. Be sure to leave 1 inch of headspace above the pickles.
  6. Cover with brine to just submerge the vegetables, being sure to leave 1/2 inch of headspace above the top level of the brine.
  7. Cap and band mason jars to just finger tight and place into boiling water in your water bath canner. Process for 10 minutes for pints (or 15 min for quarts) below 1000 feet of elevation. (15 minutes for pints at 1,000-6,000 feet)

Notes

  • This recipe makes slightly more brine than you need to can 5 pints of pickles, to make sure you have enough to properly fill all the jars. Store any extra in a mason jar at room temperature for later use.
  • The spices can also be adjusted without affecting canning safety, based on your preferences.
  • The salt is not necessary for preservation in this recipe, and can be adjusted to your tastes. Salt levels in pickles are a very personal thing, and I've seen recipes that use A LOT more salt, and just a few that use less. Around 1/2 cup is a good middle ground, but if you like them REALLY salty add 3/4 cup (alternatively, use 1/4 cup for lower salt pickles).
  • DO NOT use table salt, it has additives that don't work well for canning. Lacking pure canning salt, use kosher salt.
  • DO NOT adjust the vinegar/water ratio to lower the amount of vinegar. The acidity in the vinegar is what preserves the pickles and makes them suitable for water bath canning. For a more sour pickle, you can increase the amount of vinegar (but never reduce it).

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© Ashley Adamant
Category: Canning
Dill Pickle Recipe for Canning ~ Safely Preserve Dill Pickles at Home #pickles #dillpickles #recipe #pickling #canning #foodpreservation #homesteading #selfsufficiency #prepper

For more information on the specifics and safety of canning pickles and pickled vegetables,
check out the USDA Guide to Home Canning.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hi! Any advice on how to get enough tiny cukes to can at once?. I always have them growing at varying sizes and have to wait a few days to save enough for a batch. By that time, I feellike the ones I picked the first day are soggy and maybe the reason I get soggy pickles. Also, I never heard the pint jar rule before. Doesn’t that mean there are only about 4- 5 pickles in each jar, though?

    Reply

    • We’ve been lucky enough to find small ones at the farmers market from farmers who know how to pick picklers to make good pickles. If you grow 4-5 plants you should have enough for a small canning batch twice a week. Since they can up so fast I just do a few pints a twice a week for about a month. Yes, pint jars means you’re only getting 5 or 6 whole pickles to a jar, but they taste so much better that way!

      Reply

    • Stagger your seedling times, as the plants mature the younglings for each plant set will match up as the first yield is always smaller than the last.

      Reply

  2. This is a great recipe! I love seeing people doing home canning, it really is a great project to start and be proud of once it is finished. I need to start pickling at home more – I usually just purchase mine from the store. I know I would save much more money doing it myself. Thank you for sharing your recipe!

    Reply

    • Technically, you can use ground spices, but I wouldn’t. The whole spices season your pickles and then stay at the bottom of the jar. Ground spices will cover everything and the pickles you pull out of the jar will be a bit mucky from the spices. Same flavoring, but just shmutz everywhere. If you do for some reason use ground spices, use a lot less. They have so much more surface area they’ll flavor the pickles more strongly.

      Reply

  4. If I read the instructions correctly, you add the jars to the canner after the water is already boiling. Is that correct? I have always had the jars hot, packed them, then put them in the canner, and brought to a boil. Putting jars into boiling water kinda makes me a little nervous!

    Reply

    • Yes, I’d definitely suggest having the water already at a boil. I start the water boiling before I even think about prepping the vegetables. It usually takes at least half an hour for my canner full of water to come to a boil, and all of that time is extra cook time for the pickles. There’s a lot of time that the pickles would be in jars in the temperature range of 160 to 212, hot enough to cook the pickles, but not hot enough to can the pickles. That means that you’re pickles are being “cooked” for a lot of extra time that’s unnecessary.

      The brine is boiling, goes into jars and then those nearly boiling jars go into boiling water. I’ve actually broken jars when the temperature inside the jar was too different from the water inside the canner. The thermal shock to the glass was too much.

      So yes, long reply later, the water in your canner should be boiling before you load the pickles, to minimize cook time for the cucumbers and to prevent jar breakage from thermal shock.

      Reply

      • Just made the recipe. But afterwards I realized you have blackpeppercorns listed in ingredients but no step to add it. Hopefully they will still turn out good :/

        Reply

        • Thanks for catching that, all the dried herbs go in together into the bottom of each jar. I’ve corrected that in the instructions. Likely you won’t notice much difference in the finished pickles, the peppercorns give them a very mild pepper flavor that’s nice but not essential. A lot of the stronger flavors come from the dill, mustard and coriander seeds.

          Reply

          • Can I make these without the coriander seeds? I only have the powder on hand. Also, is this enough vinegar to make them “canned” safe?

          • You can skip the mustard seeds all together (or use powdered if you want, either way). Yes, this is a canning recipe, and you need at least half the liquid in the recipe to be vinegar (5% acidity) for canning.

          • Just a heads up that cucumbers are technically fruit not vegetables. Had to point that out owning a nursery business and all.

    • If you water bath can them as instructed, they do not need to be refrigerated. Water bath canned pickles are shelf stable, until they’re opened. Once you open the jar, they’ll keep in the refrigerator for months. While you’re waiting 2 weeks for the flavors to infuse, keep them at room temperature out of direct sunlight (i.e. in your pantry).

      Reply

    • The processing time is 10 minutes for pints or 15 minutes for quarts. I recommend using small cucumbers in pints because they’ll be crisper pickles, but quarts will also work too.

      Reply

  9. Would everything in the recipe be the same if I cut the cuts lengthwise for long pickles? Also I use pickling lime for bread & butter pickles and really like how crisp the pickles are would the dills
    be just as firm?

    Reply

  10. Have a question. I have enough brine left over for another couple of pints or a quart. Can I save the brine and reheat it the next time I have another batch of cucumbers?

    Reply

    • Of course! The brine will keep just fine at room temperature for quite some time. I had an extra jar hanging out on my counter for almost a month before I made another batch with it and it’s just fine. Really, there’s no reason for it to go “bad” since it’s just spices, vinegar and salt.

      Reply

  11. 5 stars
    Your cooking them to long for a quart jar you process them 5 minutes, you won’t have soft pickles, heck my mom, never used a canner for her pickles, she just had everything pipping hot and the lids sealed but for me 5 minutes in the canner is just right. Thanks for a new recipe… I agree on tbe store bought pickles, I rather go without…

    Reply

    • I’ve heard many people that don’t actually “can” their pickles and just seal the jars after boiling brine is poured over the top. While that works fine most the time, there is a small risk of contamination using that method.

      Reply

    • Hi, I have been making pickles for over 40 years and I never use the amount of vinegar to water. The pickles never spoil. I pack my cucumbers in hot boiled jars. With garlic and a sprig of dill in bottom of each jar and a sprig on top. 1/2 inch head space. Pour hot brine over them and then sterilized lids and cap and a 5 minute bath with water already boiling before put jars in. The brine is 8.5 cups of water and 2.25 cups of vinegar with 1/2 cup of Kosher salt. These are crispy and the best pickles you will ever taste. Not mushy and stay crisp for at least 6 months. To stop garlic from turning blue in the jar I blanch garlic for a few minutes in in boiling water. Try these and if you are paranoid put in refrigerator, But, I assure you if you use sterile process in jars and cooking you will not have any problems. Enjoy!

      Reply

      • That’s so interesting! I’m glad you’ve had good luck with those and haven’t had any issues, but at least by modern canning guidance that’s nowhere near enough vinegar for a safe pickle. It’s all about your comfort level, but I always use at least half vinegar because I’d rather be safe than sorry. I actually use all vinegar in my bread and butter pickles, and they’re some of my favorites.

        Reply

    • You could pressure can these, but the cucumbers would probably come out as pulp. These are actually recommended for low temp pasteurization (180 degrees for 30 minutes) for best results.

      That said, if you really wanted to pressure can them, I’d can them at 5 pounds pressure for 1 minute. That’s not a tested recipe or anything, but it should be more than sufficient to pressure can pickles.

      Reply

    • Yup. That’s all high acid, even with the pulp in there. The only thing to watch is it needs to be standardized to 5% acidity (which most commercial vinegars are). Homemade vinegar might not be strong enough to pickle the cucumbers and acidify them enough for canning.

      Reply

    • I’ve been there. I usually toss in 1 tsp per jar. Make sure they’re fresh though, dill seeds lose their flavor pretty fast with storage and after a year or so it’s barely there. Give them a smell to make sure they still have some flavor left.

      Reply

    • Not adding water to the brine is just fine for safety, and honestly, that’s how I make my Gherkin pickles with no water. If it was all vinegar then it’s totally safe for canning, but they’ll be a bit more sour. I enjoy them that way too, just a bit more bite to them. If you find they’re too intense for you when you open them, you can add a bit of sugar syrup to the jar and then store them in the fridge or a few days. I bet that’ll make them taste a lot like bread and butter pickles or sweet dills, and the sugar will help balance the vinegar.

      Let me know how they go when you open them.

      Reply

    • Yes, you can multiply this recipe as much as you want (double, triple, etc). I’ve only made these in quarts once, and I just added slightly more spices and they came out about right. I’d suggest adding 1 1/2 to 2 times the amount of dry spices to quart jars.

      Reply

  18. Instead of buying the spices seperate, I bought Ball Pickling spice which contains mustard seed, dill seed, coriander seeds and peppercorns. How much of this already mixed spice would you add to your pint jars? Also could I reduce then size of my jars to 8 oz? (First time canner here)

    Reply

  19. I just made this recipe but realized I forgot to put a lid over the pot during the water bath! The water was definitely boiling the whole time but I’m a bit nervous I messed it up, especially because google couldn’t seem to answer my question! Any thoughts on boiling without a pot lid?

    Reply

  22. Dear Lord. I had over 4 quarts of pickles left over after I canned 5 pints. The recipe is way off. Cut your cukes into pint jars to figure out how many before the others die in vain. I’ve just canned them, but to tell the truth, I’m scared at how spicy they’ll be when I try them in 2 weeks. Now I’ll just have to make refrigerator pickles with the rest. I have a pix to prove it.

    Reply

  23. These came out great in terms of both flavor and crunch!! Thank you for the detailed instructions, which were very helpful to me as a first time canner.

    Reply

  24. Hi, I have a counter full of very large slicing cucumbers- I want to can them so they don’t go to waste. I know you say to do the bread and butter or relish- but I want to do dill! Is your recommendation to not use them just because they’ll be really soft, or is there some safety concern for canning them. My kids and I totally don’t care about how mushy they are!

    Reply

  26. I’m so glad I found your site and unlike a lot of bloggers whose commentary is either boring or not informative, yours was both. I’m getting ready to pickle 24 lbs today and I’m excited to see how they turn out. I’ve never used the Pickle crisp before, I find that soaking in a cooler of ice water gets them crisp but I think the next batch I do I’ll try that and compare. Thanks again.

    Reply

  27. This has been my go to pickle recipe this summer. I Left out the coriander after the first batch as we didn’t care for the flavor it imparted. Other than that I use a 1/3 cups of kosher salt and it is perfect for us. Thanks. Now if I can just find more canning jars, that is the frustrating part right now. My area has a shortage and I have used all 20 pint jar I had. Thanks.

    Reply

  28. I have a recipe for refrigerator pickles, can use if I hot water bath dills, the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cup vinegar and 2 cups of water, is that enough vinegar? Thank you, Jackie

    Reply

  30. If you are to leave 1″ clearance at the top of the jar, how do you keep the pickles from floating to the top and being exposed? I have tried making pickles before and that was a problem. I would be putting them in pint jars but I do have small neck and wide-mouthed jars. Would the small neck jars be best? Also, do you have use all of those spices or can you just use the dill and peppercorns to the brine for the pickles?

    Reply

    • Regular mouth jars would certainly help to keep the pickles beneath the surface but once the pickles are canned, it will not hurt for part of them to be above the water level. The spices are for flavor so you can use whatever combination that you prefer.

      Reply

  31. I’ve heard using grape leaves can make your pickles stay crisp. I don’t have access to fresh grape leaves. Will using the canned ones work?

    Reply

    • I am not totally sure if canned grape leaves would work or not. It is actually the tannin in the leaves that helps them to stay crisp. You can substitute oak leaves, horseradish leaves or even black tea if you don’t have access to the grape leaves.

      Reply

  33. Ashley,

    This is seriously the best article I’ve found on making pickles. Thank you so much.

    If I just wanted to make refrigerator pickles (quickles) would the same recipe work?

    Reply

    • Yup, you can do exactly the same thing, just instead of canning them allow the jars to cool to room temperature on the counter and then put them in the fridge. You can actually do raw refrigerator pickles too, by pouring cold brine over the cucumbers instead. It takes longer to infuse flavors, but the cucumbers stay crisper.

      Reply

  34. All six of my jars gave the resounding “pop” of them sealing properly. I followed the recipe exactly, and the day after the liquid in my jar is slightly light brownish. Is this normal? It’s my first time canning so just making sure they will be safe to eat in two weeks.

    Reply

  35. Ashley, Thank you very much for you amazing work helping us to become creators with lots of the beautiful things that Nature puts within our reach. The great thing about your recipes is that they bring within all those details that make the big difference between something good and something excellent.

    Reply

  36. I’m no stranger to canning, but I have not done pickles in forever. With this recipe,I’ll be doing a lot more! I filled 10 pint jars with slices and spears, and just opened the first last week. These are delicious, so much better than the store bought dills.

    How does this work with green beans, cauliflower, mushrooms, and banana peppers?

    Reply

    • This is a canning recipe. If properly canned and stored in a cool, dry place they will retain optimum quality for at least a year but will be safe to eat for quite a bit longer than that. The two-week waiting period is just for the flavors to really infuse into the pickles. Once you open a jar, they should be kept in the fridge. If they are still sealed, then they can be stored in the pantry.

      Reply

  38. I’m using English Cucumbers. Do I need to do anything different? I heard some cukes need to be soaked for several hours with salt and onion, prior to beginning. Any advice?

    Reply

    • I am not sure about the soaking but English cucumbers are considered a slicing cucumber and meant to be eaten fresh. You can use them for pickling but it’s possible that they may be softer and not as crunchy.

      Reply

  39. Ashley you have become my go to person for canning recipes! I have waited all winter so the cucumber to come to market to try these pickles! Made them today and doubled the amounts and ended up with a good stash! Thanks so much!

    Reply

  40. I can’t find the coriander seeds can I use the ground instead and on the salt is that 1/2 cup of . salt can I use just canning salt if it doesn’t say pickling thanks Mary beahm

    Reply

    • Yes, you can use the ground. Just be aware that the measurement may be a bit different on the coriander. The canning salt should be fine to use.

      Reply

  41. I have pored over your blog over the last several years after a friend recommended it. I’ve learned so much. Besides the information, recipes and techniques, I think the thing I appreciate the most is your emphasis on safety. I read so many blogs and recipes that never mention bacteria or the negative side of canning and preserving foods. If they don’t mention any kind of safety precautions, I automatically dismiss anything else on their page. Just thought I’d mention that and let you know I appreciate it.

    Reply

  42. This is the second year in a row that I will be using this Recipe, I just put the last jar from last year in the frige and I am so sad I will be out of these pickles for a short time. I have tried a bunch and all of my pickles are going up with this one this year, I can’t wait for the new batch!

    Reply

  43. Overall, I think this is a great recipe. I had question on the salt. I just made my first batch, using a 1/2 cup of salt. They are a little salty for me. Is it ok to lower the salt down to 1/3 cup or is the 1/2 cup needed to preserve the pickles longer in the jar?

    Reply

    • You can definitely use less salt if they are too salty. The salt in this recipe is not needed for preservation. I would recommend waiting the full two weeks for all of your flavors to come together before making a final decision though.

      Reply

  44. I was unsure about posting a reply after reading so many positive replies but I (broken-heartedly) dumped 8 pints of pickles down the garbage disposal because I found them to be inedible. They were sour, salty and pungent with spices. I’m going back to my old Ball canning guide for a dill pickle recipe.

    Reply

  46. I have some cucumbers that went beyond size and are likely bitter. Can these be used in the refridgerator version or will the pickles also be bitter? I have a mock cinnimon apple ring recipe that they can be used in but it is a long and difficult process.

    Reply

  47. My husband canned pickles for the first time we followed another persons directions and now fear we didn’t boil long enough. We packed quart jars tight, left 1/2.” Head space and boiled only 5 minutes. Did we need to boil longer than 5 minutes? If so, do we need to place back in boiling water? Or will they be safe to eat as long as lids sealed?

    Reply

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