This homemade bread and butter pickle recipe is easy, delicious, and doesn’t require canning.
Made with cucumbers, onions, and a homemade brine, this recipe is quick to prepare, just like giardiniera. Enjoy them with your favorite burger, sandwich, or as a snack by themselves.
What Are Bread & Butter Pickles?
Bread and butter pickles are sweeter than dill pickles. They’re brined in a vinegar-sugar mixture with other ingredients and spices.
There are a few ideas where the name “bread and butter pickles” comes from:
- Some say it was popularized during the Great Depression because butter-and-pickle sandwiches were all people could afford for lunch.
- It may also be related to traditional English cucumber sandwiches, which are filled with cucumbers and butter or cream cheese.
- As the story goes, they didn’t have money for groceries, so they traded the sweet pickles for essentials like bread and butter. They also sold them to make cash, marketing them as “bread and butter pickles.”
Regardless of their origins, I think we can all agree that they’re delicious! Especially on a sandwich with Homemade Bread, deli meat, and cheese or cheeseburgers!
Why We Love this Recipe
One of the best parts about pickled veggies is that you don’t need canning jars to make them! Fresh cucumber slices are infused with flavor from a seasoned vinegar mixture, then stored in the fridge.
It takes just 15 minutes of hands-on time, then 25 hours to marinate. The result is a batch of sweet and salty pickles that the whole family loves!
Ingredients:
CUCUMBERS Pickling cucumbers are smaller in size, and fresh is best! Get them at the grocery store, a local farmer’s market, or grow them in your own garden.
ONIONS Slice ‘em thin, they add lots of flavor to the brine!
BRINE This is made with a base of white and apple cider vinegar. It’s seasoned with light brown sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and kosher salt.
You can also add red pepper flakes for an extra kick.
How To Make Bread & Butter Pickles
While this recipe does need to chill for 25 hours for the best tasting pickles, it is quick to prepare with just 3 simple steps!
- Prepare: Thinly slice the cucumbers and onions and place in a large bowl with salt. Chill and let the salt pull out excess water to make room for the brine! After chilling, rinse off the salt, drain excess water, and put the cucumber and onions back in.
- Brine: In a small saucepan, combine all brine ingredients (per recipe below).
- Combine: Pour it over the top of the sliced cucumbers and onions and chill!
Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or pint jars.
How To Serve Them
- Inside or next to burgers and sandwiches
- In or with chicken or tuna salad
- In potato or pasta salad
- Battered and fried
- With Bloody Marys
- With deviled eggs
More Pickle Recipes
- Dill Pickle Pasta Salad
- Dill Pickle Deviled Eggs
- 4 Ingredient Dill Pickle Dip
- Crispy Fried Dill Pickles
- Creamy Dill Pickle Chicken with Bacon
Did you enjoy these Bread and Butter Pickles? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 7 pickling cucumbers
- 1 white onion
- 3 tablespoons kosher salt
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup white vinegar
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoons celery seed
- 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
- Slice the cucumbers and onion into thin slices and place in a large bowl and toss with the salt. cover and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
- Transfer the cucumbers and onions to a colander and rinse off the salt. Drain excess water from the bowl and put the cucumber and onions back in.
- In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, vinegars, and spices and heat over medium-high heat until the sugar has dissolved. Pour over the top of the sliced cucumbers and onions and allow the bowl to come to room temperature before placing in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Appetizer, Side Dish
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Always read the entire recipe before making anything! I flew too close to the sun, just tossed everything into a bowl. No salting the water out of the cucumbers, no draining the salty water. We’ll see . . . mine may be inedible. But I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll be at least OK!
I made three batches of these delicious pickles! I canned them. They turned out amazingly delicious that the first batch went quickly. My youngest daughter who doesn’t like bread and butter pickles ate a jar of these pickles in 48 hours. Great on tuna fish salad or ham sandwich or from the jar when you want sweet with a kick. Love them
Hi Holly,
My neighbour just gave me 3 large regular cucumbers from her garden. Your recipe calls for 7 pickling cucumbers, so how many should I use? Also, normally when I make a cucumber salad I peel the cucumbers, as my husband says they will bother his stomach, so is it better for this recipe to leave the skins on? Thank you as I plan to make.
Hi Sue, you will want to slice about 3 ½ cups of cucumbers. So depending on how large the cucumbers are you may need to use about 2. I find it best to leave the skins on but I would love to hear how it turns out for you if you remove them.
Very easy to make! Very crunchy and tangy! I love them!
Hi, I put the cukes in 3 pint jars, but there wasn’t enough liquid to cover them?
Hi Dorothy, this is not a common problem readers have so I am not sure what went wrong. My best guess would be that your cucumbers are not packed into the jar as tightly as ours were or that your cucumbers were larger than ours resulting in more cucumbers in each jar. I hope that helps!
Am I packing these in 1pint jars or leaving in a bowl.
You can leave them in a bowl (with a lid), transfer them to jars, or store them however you prefer. When making a large batch, my grandma used to store them in an old ice cream pail with a lid.
These are the best. First time I had them my mother made them with the extra cucumbers from the garden
Can these go in a canner?
I have not tried canning this Michelle, so I can’t say for sure. If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out!
I have made these and they are great! How long will they stay good in refrigerator?
Mary, they should last a few months in the fridge. We hope you enjoy them!
Mine are bitter. Think I used too much mustard and/or celery seed. Would that cause bitterness?
It could be too much mustard or celery seed, or it may have been the cucumbers you chose. It could also be that the salt wasn’t rinsed off well enough in Step 2. Sorry that happened, Di. I hope you were still able to use them!
Oh yeah, looking back at the recipe, I didn’t measure correctly at all. Probably messed up the salt step as well. Hope that’s it and not the cucumbers – they’re home grown (but had been in the fridge for a week or more. Going to give it another try and follow your recipe to the T.
I always taste my homegrown cucumbers as they will be bitter sometimes due to lack of watering during high heat and drought times.
the only ones I make,no more wasting!
I have celery powdered. Do I have to use the seeds. Same with the mustard. Sounds like a great recipe. These are the only pickles I eat.
Hi Pam, for the best results we recommend following the recipe as listed. Powdered celery and mustard won’t give you the same results and will make the brine very cloudy.