Quite possibly THE BEST way to use up excess cucumbers, this bread & butter pickle is delicious served alongside meats, in a sandwich or burger, with cheese or pate. This recipe provides a shelf stable pickle with minimal processing that will last for at least 12 months in your pantry.

Use whatever cucumbers you have - pickling or standard varieties. Smaller cucumbers will give you a crisper result and you are best to pickle the cucumbers within a few days of picking.

You will need to pop a full ice tray into the freezer the night before making this if you don’t always have a ready supply. If you don’t have ice, use cold water and pop the cucumber and onions in the fridge during the brining step.

I've used the water bath canning method in this recipe. If you prefer to use the traditional open kettle / hot fill method, see the notes below.

Makes: 4x 500 mL jars

Ingredients:

• 1 kg fresh cucumber
• 250 g sliced onion
• 75 g sea salt
• water
• ice

Pickling liquid

• 2 ½ cups sugar
• 2 ½ cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 ¼ tsp celery seed
• 2 ½ tbsp mustard seed

Method:

1. Wash the cucumber and use a soft brush to scrub off any spikes or dirt. Remove any bruised or damaged areas. Trim off the ends and discard. Slice the cucumber to approx. 3-4 mm thick. Peel and slice the onion as thinly as possible. Combine the cucumber and onion in a non-reactive bowl, sprinkle over the salt and then cover with water (stirring through the salt gently). Cover with ice. Leave to soak for at least 2 h.
2. Prepare the water bath canner. Bring the water to a gentle boil.
3. Wash jars and lids in warm, soapy water, rinse and let drain on a clean tea towel. Place the jars into a low oven (~ 100°C) until ready to fill. The lids can be left on the clean tea towel until ready to use.
4. In a stainless steel saucepan, combine all the pickling liquid ingredients, heat gently to dissolve the sugar then bring to a very gentle boil.
5. Drain the liquid from the cucumber and onion, rinse with fresh water and drain again. Pack the cucumber and onions into the hot jars (tightly but without crushing) to 10 mm (½”) from the top of the jar. Ladle over the hot pickling liquid to the same point. Remove air bubbles. Clean the rims. Place the lids on the jars and screw on band until finger tight.
6. Place the jars on a rack in the water bath canner. Once the water has come back to the boil, heat process the jars for 10 min for jars up to 500 mL size. At the end of the heat processing, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, and leave the jars in the water for a further 5 min before removing the jars.
7. Leave the jars undisturbed for at least 12 h before checking they have sealed. Remove screw bands, wipe down the outsides of the jars, allow to dry then label and date.

Notes:

• Fresh, smaller cucumbers will give you the best results – they will stay crunchier after heat processing.
• The peel is left on when preparing the cucumbers. Avoid using large cucumbers that have a tough peel however, if that is all you have available, you can remove the peel if necessary.
• If you don’t have quite enough cucumbers to make a full batch, you could make that amount up with more onion. Alternatively, you could reduce the batch size down.
• Any leftover pickling liquid can be put into a glass jar and kept in the fridge for your next batch. 
• To make using the traditional open kettle / hot fill method, after brining, add the cucumber and onion to the pickling liquid, bring back to a boil then fill hot sterilised jars, wipe rims, apply hot sterilised lids and screw down tight.