Old Fashioned Bread and Butter Pickles (2024)

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

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

• Pickled Peppers
• Refrigerator Dill Pickles
• Barbecue Sauce
• Mixed Berry Jam
• Raspberry Rhubarb Jam

Be sure and check out Spicy Dill Pickles from Delicious Table.

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