Making Salt Free Sweet Heat Pickles
Hi, I’m Chris, and I’m addicted to pickles. In fact my whole family is. For the majority, we prefer sour dill pickles, except for my wife who loves sweet. She especially loves sweet relish. I have a killer salt free dill pickle recipe, from which you can make dill relish. The challenge I now face is to come up with a killer sweet pickle recipe. Normally, bread and butter and sweet pickles are way too sweet for me. I found out though, if I add heat to the recipe, I really enjoy them. Because normal sweet pickles have a lot of sodium here is my recipe for making salt free sweet heat pickles.
Bringing The Heat To Pickles
Pickled Peppers and sweet & heat flavor profiles are not something new. Many Asian cultures employ sweet heat flavor profiles in their cooking. It is also popular in the Caribbean and a flavor profile I really enjoy. If you have had jalapenos from a jar, they are usually pickled in vinegar and give a hot and sour flavor profile. With the use of apple cider and white vinegar with sugar (or a sugar substitute if you are watching sugar) gives us a nicely balanced taste. It is not too sweet, nor too spicy.
Pickle Mania
So you know I have a killer salt free dill pickle recipe. I also have a Low Sodium Creamy Dill Pickle Dressing for your salads. I also have recipes that will be posted in the near future. First are Low Sodium Fried Pickles, then I will post my Low Sodium Dill Pickle Chowder.
Here Is The Recipe For Low Sodium Sweet Heat Pickles
Salt Free Sweet Heat Pickles
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 lbs Small Unwaxed Cucumbers Slice larger cucumbers into slices & spears.
- 1 1/2 cups White Onions You can use the pearl onions or just cut standard onions into 1 inch chunks. 1 inch or less in diameter
- 12 stalks Fresh Dill Preferably with seed heads
- 9 cloves Garlic Peeled
- 2 cups White Vinegar
- 2 cups Apple Cider Vinegar
- 3 cups Water
- 1 1/2 cups Sugar or use a substitute if watching sugar
- 3 tsp Mixed Pickling Spice check to make sure salt-free – McCormick’s makes one that is salt free
- 1 tbsp Red Chili Flakes
- 1 tbsp Mustard Seeds
- 3 Jalapeno Peppers cored, seeded, and sliced (1 per qt jar)
- 1 tbsp Black Peppercorns
- 3 Habanero Pepper cored, seeded and sliced (1 per qt. jar)
Instructions
- Scrub cucumbers clean with a veggie brush and rinse the dill in water, shake off excess water. Cut blossom ends of the pickles off to keep them crisper as pickles.
- Cut the dill stems to a length where they will fit into your jars
- Place vinegar, water and sugar in a saucepan of at least 2 1/2 quarts capacity, and bring to boil.
- While brine is heating, divide all the spices into equal amounts per jar and pack jars with layers of dill, garlic, onions, red pepper flakes, mustard seeds, black peppercorns, jalapeno slices, habanero slices, and cucumbers. Layering so spices are on the bottom and top of the cucumbers.
- Add one teaspoon of mixed pickling spice to each jar. Pour boiling hot brine into jars, filling within 1/2 inch of top, and seal.
- This will yield about three quarts/jars of pickles.. Allow the jars to cool then place into the refrigerator for 1 week to "pickle". The longer the time in the refrigerator the more the flavors soak in. The pickles should be good in the refrigerator for up to 8 weeks.
could these be canned also
Yes you can with a water bath method of canning.