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If you grow your own vegetables, you can certainly relate: we carry the first zucchini of the season into the house like a trophy and celebrate cooking it with obsessive care. Zucchini No. 5 is watched with growing unease, and by the tenth, the family becomes mutinous, and we are torn between the urge to just let them grow out of control and the regret of letting them go to waste.
But here’s the solution, for I have the best recipe for pickled zucchini that will solve your zucchini overflow problem! With this recipe, you not only preserve an abundance of the green, yellow or striped varieties before they become baseball bats, but you’ll also create a flavour-packed treasure for the cold winter months.
Pickled zucchini
Yield: 6 jars of 1/4 l
Ingredients
2 kg zucchini of any size
1 kg bell peppers of any colour
0.5 kg onions, cut into rings
3/4 l apple cider vinegar (store-bought or homemade)
1 l of water
0.5 l apple juice
200 g sugar
4 tbsp salt
2 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp dill
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp peppercorns
juice of one lemon
Instructions
One of the many great advantages of this recipe is that you can use zucchini of any size.
If they have really grown into baseball bats, you can peel them, cut them lengthwise into quarters and remove the mushy, seed-containing core with a spoon.
Cut the zucchini, bell peppers and onions into slices of 2 – 3 mm (1/10 inch). This recipe requires no salting before pickling.
Mix the vegetables in a bowl so that they are evenly distributed.
Put the vinegar, water and apple juice in a pot and bring it to a rolling boil.
Add the vegetables and spices, and let it boil for one minute. If your pot is too small to handle all the vegetables at once, you can boil them in portions and layer each batch in the jars after cooking.
Fill everything in jars, fill up with brine, leaving a headspace of about an inch. Then close the lids tightly.
Once they’ve cooled down, you can eat the pickled zucchini right away. However, I like them best when they have had a resting time of 2 – 3 days.
After cooling down, you can store the pickled zucchini in a cool place (a cool basement works fine; alternatively, put them in the fridge) for up to one year.
Once a jar is open, you must store it in the fridge and consume it within 7 days.
How to use pickled zucchini
Pickled zucchini make a great side dish for a charcuterie or cheese assortment or as an ingredient in sandwiches and wraps. We also like it chopped up and mixed in potato mash to add a complex, salty and vinegary flavour. Or you mix it into an egg salad together with (pickled, fermented or raw) onions and mayonnaise.
Pickled zucchini
Ingredients
Method
- One of the many great advantages of this recipe is that you can use zucchini of any size. If they have really grown into baseball bats, you can peel them, cut them lengthwise into quarters and remove the mushy, seed-containing core with a spoon.
- Cut the zucchini, bell peppers and onions into slices of 2 - 3 mm (1/10 inch). This recipe requires no salting before pickling.
- Put the vinegar, water and apple juice in a pot and bring it to a rolling boil.
- Add the vegetables and spices and let it boil for one minute. If your pot is too small to handle all the vegetables at once, you can boil them in portions and layer each batch in the jars after cooking.
- Fill everything in jars, fill up with brine, leaving a headspace of about an inch. Then close the lids tightly.
- Once they've cooled down, you can eat the pickled zucchini right away. However, I like them best when they have had a resting time of 2 - 3 days.
- After cooling down, you can store the pickled zucchini in a cool place (a cool basement works fine; alternatively, put them in the fridge) for up to one year.
- Once a jar is open, you must store it in the fridge and consume it within 7 days.
Notes
Your zucchini problem? Solved!
This recipe transforms your “zucchini problem” from overwhelming to solved. It’s incredibly simple: no salting, and any zucchini size works.
Imagine those jars of pickled zucchini lined up in your pantry, waiting to be opened on a cold winter day when garden-fresh zucchini are only a dim memory. There’s hardly anything more rewarding!
So, harvest your zucchini now while they’re still abundant (and before they become baseball bats) and make these delicious pickles. Your future self will thank you.
That was easy, right? If you’re hooked on pickling now, you may also like this recipe for quick gherkin pickles or this one on sweet-sour pumpkin.
For more recipes to preserve your harvest, view this site: Preserving – seasonalsimplelife.com