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Raise your hand if you love bread & butter pickles because you love anything that's old timey, delicious and comes in a mason jar. These crispy, sweet and tart pickles are delicious right out of the jar or as a side to a sandwich.

Delicious looking bread and butter pickles in a Wecks jar sitting on a marble counter with antique mason jars in the background.

I've been eating these bread and butter pickles for two weeks straight. I eat them faster than I can make them.

I currently. have a puckered up canker sore the size of a ping pong ball on my lip and I still can't stop eating them. That's how good they are.

Table of Contents

What Are Bread & Butter Pickles?

Bread and butter pickles are sweet, tangy, and crunchy cucumber pickles, usually made with sliced cucumbers, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices like mustard seed and turmeric.

They’re a depression-era invention that taste like something you’d find on a chipped plate beside a sandwich on a dusty porch.

Why Are They Called “Bread and Butter” Pickles?

There are two stories. The romantic one says people made these sweet pickles at home and ate them between slices of bread and butter when money—or meat—was tight.

The actual story is better. In 1923, Omar and Cora Fanning, farmers in Illinois, used up their small, unsellable cucumbers by slicing and pickling them, then traded jars for staples like—you guessed it—bread and butter.

They trademarked the name “Fanning’s Bread and Butter Pickles” after using their homemade pickles to barter with a grocer.

Use What You’ve Got

These are good old-fashioned refrigerator pickles, which means you don’t need to process or can them. (But you can if you want to.) I use whatever I have: pickling cucumbers (Kirbys, if I have them), green beans, zucchini—whatever’s coming out of the garden in overwhelming quantities.

Don’t limit yourself to cucumber slices. If it holds a crunch and grows in dirt, you can probably pickle it.

If you're interested in preserving these pickles, read this kosher dill pickle post that outlines the low temperature method that will keep your pickles crisp.

Cucumbers, zucchini and green beans prepped and laying on a marble countertop ready to be made into pickles.

Slicing a cucumber with a wavy knife for ridged pickles.

How I Slice Them

I like to use a wavy knife. Not because it does anything magical for the flavor—just because I like the way it looks. The crinkle cut gives them that deli-style, ridged edge, and it makes you feel like you’re making something fancier than you are. You can get a crinkle cutter on Amazon for around $15. I also use mine for fries when I'm feeling ambitious.

Traditionally, bread and butter pickles are sliced very thin and straight. I slice mine a little thicker than tradition and sometimes crinkle them. That’s as wild as I get.

What If Your Cucumbers Are the Size of Baseball Bats?

Don’t worry. Giant cucumbers or zucchini are fine to use. If your zucchini has seeds, scoop them out. The seeds can turn bitter as the fruit matures.

Cut them in half lengthwise, then in quarters. When you slice across the spears, they’ll look like triangles. This method makes oddly large produce totally workable for refrigerator bread and butter pickles.

Salting and Soaking: How to Keep Them Crisp

Use kosher or pickling salt to draw the moisture out of your vegetables. Regular table salt will dissolve too quickly and can lead to mushy or cloudy pickles.

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Once your vegetables are salted, toss a tray of ice cubes on top to keep everything cold and help preserve crunch. Let the mix sit for three hours.

Pro Tip: Don’t skip the rinse. After salting, rinse the cucumbers very well. Taste one to check that the salt level has come down before you move on to the brine.

Salt being added to a big blue antique bowl filled with sliced onions, zucchini and cucumbers.

An antique blue bowl filled with salt, bread and butter pickles and ice cubes with a wood spoon laying across the top.

Make the Brine

You’ll boil up a mix of vinegar, sugar, and spices (mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, sometimes red pepper flakes if you want the kick). Once your brine is boiling, add the rinsed cucumbers and bring everything back to a boil together.

This infuses the pickles with that sharp-sweet balance you’re after.

Packing and Storing Your Pickles

Grab your jars, canning jars if you have them, but any container with a lid will work. Smash as many pickles into the jars as possible. You want them packed tight.

Then pour the hot brine overtop.

Silver tongs place sliced pickles into a canning jar.

Close up view of turmeric tinged golden brine being poured into a Wecks jar filled with cucumber slices.

You’ll probably have some brine left. Don’t toss it. Store it in the fridge—because if you’re like me, you’ll be making another batch within days. (You'll need to reboil the brine if you use it again.)

Once packed, the jars go straight into the fridge.

Quick Summary:

Salt and ice your cucumbers
Rinse thoroughly
Boil the brine
Combine everything
Pack jars and refrigerate

That’s it.

Want a Hot & Sweet Version?

If you're familiar with Wickles (those culty hot-and-sweet pickles), you know what I'm talking about. To turn this into a spicy bread and butter pickle recipe, just add a spoonful of red pepper flakes or a sliced hot pepper into your brine.

That one tweak transforms these from traditional to addictive.

I have a hot & sweet pickle recipe as well.

Classic Bread and Butter Pickles.

These sweet and tangy pickles last forever in the fridge and are a perfect addition to a snack plate or charcuterie board.

4.67 from 9 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Canning/Preserves

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 3

Stepping time: 3

Servings: pints

Calories: 283kcal

Author: The Art of Doing Stuff

Ingredients

5 lbs cucumbers cucumbers, zucchini, green beans ... whatever
2 onions sliced
¼ cup salt kosher or otherwise
3 Cups cider vinegar
5 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons mustard seed
2 teaspoons celery seed
½ teaspoon whole cloves
1 Tablespoon turmeric

Instructions

Slice your cucumbers. I like mine fairly thick. Almost ¼". But the traditional way is to slice them very thin.
Combine your sliced cucumbers with onions in a bowl. Sprinkle with ¼ cup of pickling salt and toss. Mix in a tray of ice cubes and let sit for 3 hours. (this sucks out the moisture from the cucumbers so they turn into crispier pickles.)
Rinse, rinse, rinse your cucumbers! Soak them in water and then rinse them again. You want to get rid of as much salt as possible otherwise your pickles will taste salty.
Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, cloves and turmeric in a pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add your cucumber/onion mixture to the pot and return to the boil.
Stuff your pickles into sterilized jars, then pour the liquid in until covered. Store in fridge until you wanna eat them (but try to wait a few days otherwise they won't have that great bread & butter pickle flavour)

Notes

This recipe can easily be made into "Hot and Sweet" pickles, by adding fresh or dried cayenne peppers to the jar. Slice the peppers in half lengthwise (three or four peppers if you like it really hot) and stick them in the jar. You can also add cayenne pepper or pepper flakes. Or all three! For the full flavour, let the jar rest in the fridge for a month giving it a shake every so often.

Nutrition

What to Eat Them With (Besides a Fork)

My family members all love pickles, but they also all agree that they never eat them. Which I don't understand, but who among us has any real understanding of any of our family members?

Standing in front of the fridge with a fork in my hand is my go-to method. But if you need ideas:

Add a few to the side of anything BBQ-y: ribs, hot dogs, pulled pork
Layer them onto homemade burgers instead of dill pickles
Use them in sandwiches, with sharp cheese and mustard
Pair them with cheddar and crackers for a lazy lunch plate

They’re also very satisfying when you just feel like chewing on something while dinner’s cooking.

They started with a crinkle cut and ended with a canker sore. That’s the arc. Highly recommend.

Classic Bread & Butter Pickle Recipe

What Are Bread & Butter Pickles?

Why Are They Called “Bread and Butter” Pickles?

Use What You’ve Got

How I Slice Them

What If Your Cucumbers Are the Size of Baseball Bats?