Make a quick jar of pickled carrots for snacks and appetizers.
The countdown is on. Soon, we will have fresh fruits and vegetables available for canning. But until then, we are filling our time making quick pickles. Pickled vegetables are a great way to jazz up your meals, especially in the late winter, early spring time when the grocery store vegetables are looking a little worse for the wear. Pickles have other benefits too. Eating pickles helps you lose weight – the sourness decreases your appetite – and many people swear that the vinegar helps to keep them healthy by boosting immunity. Pickled vegetables make a quick, easy, and unusual appetizer.
Quick pickles, those that don’t require processing, can easily be made in 10 minutes. I usually make a few jars of quick pickles each spring. Sometimes it’s carrots, sometimes cauliflower, always good. This month it’s baby carrots again (you can find a different recipe here) as quick pickles are this month’s Food in Jars Mastery Challenge category. I only make one jar at a time, but you could easily double or triple the recipe.
- ½ lb. baby carrots
- ⅓ cup white vinegar
- 3 Tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup water
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp peppercorns
- 2 strips lemon peel
- Blanch carrots until crisp-tender. This took about 2 minutes in my microwave. Rinse with cold water.
- Fill a one-pint canning jar with the carrots, peppercorns, bay leaves and lemon peel.
- Heat vinegar, water, sugar, and salt until sugar dissolves.
- Pour over carrots. Cover and let sit in the refrigerator for 3-5 days before using.
Nice recipe! I have yet to try ‘quick’ pickling yet – I usually let my pickling items sit in the jar from anywhere from 3 hours to a little over a day or two. Have you tried a taste test between a quick pickle and a long one? I wonder what the difference is and if it is noticeable. Maybe long pickling is a waste of time if you can get the same taste from a quick pickle! Thank you for opening my eyes to another avenue of pickling! Oh and P.S.. carrots are one of my favorite vegetables to pickle!
Billy, quick pickles are just those that have not been fermented (at least that is the definition I have always followed). According the the Master Food Preserver handbook, they are best if left to sit for a few weeks. But…..I do remember a refrigerator pickle that I made years ago that you could eat within hours. Can’t seem to put my hands on it right now (kitchen remodel!) but it was a bread and butter type pickle made in a casserole dish. You could make it at lunch and serve it for dinner. It was pretty good. BTW – I love pickling carrots too, but my all-time vegetable favorite is Brussels sprouts. https://www.seedtopantry.com/2013/09/10/pickled-brussels-sprouts-canning-and-preserving-month/