Grandma’s Quick Pickled Cucumbers – Refrigerator Pickles
on Jul 08, 2017, Updated Jul 19, 2024
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These Quick Pickled Cucumbers with green onion are made in the refrigerator for a simple summer snack!
My grandma was a wiz in the kitchen and always created the most incredible recipes for her family of 13 kids (11 of whom were boys!). I got this recipe for quick pickled cucumbers from her. She is an incredible woman, and thinking about her makes me happy. She’d create a simple brine and throw anything from the garden in—not just cucumbers, but onions, bell peppers, and whole cherry tomatoes.
It tastes like summer in a jar, and whether you’re an avid gardener or more of a grocery store frequenter, anyone can make these easy refrigerator pickles in no time.
Try these recipes if you’re looking for more pickling options: Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickled Banana Peppers, Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Onions, and Sweet and Spicy Cucumbers and Vinegar
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- One of the best things about Refrigerator Pickles is that you can make them quickly and then let them sit in the fridge.
- Unlike traditional canning, this recipe doesn’t require any special equipment.
- If you have an abundance of fresh cucumbers, this recipe is a fantastic way to preserve them and enjoy them longer.
Recipe Ingredients
- Vinegar – apple cider, white, and rice wine are all good options
- Sugar – optional, but it takes a little of the “bite” out of the vinegar
- Garden Cucumbers
- Onion or Green Onion
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Quick Pickled Cucumbers
- Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt.
- Add the cucumber and onion.
- Cover all the cucumbers with the brine.
- Place in the refrigerator until ready to eat!
Recipe FAQs
Most recipes call for distilled white vinegar—it’s clear, colorless, and has a mellow aroma and tart acidic flavor. But you can really use whatever vinegar you like and have on hand, like apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar. This recipe is flexible!
If you ask my grandma, you can pickle any vegetables you like! A few common ones to pickle are cucumbers (of course!), radishes, carrots, red onions, asparagus, jalapenos, cauliflower, and green beans.
To pickle something, you must soak the vegetables in a vinegar brine. My brine calls for water, vinegar, sugar (optional), and salt. You let the cucumbers rest in the brine in the fridge until you’re ready to eat them. Letting them sit longer helps the flavors develop more, so an overnight soak is ideal, but they’re also okay to eat right away!
You want to choose a cucumber with thicker skin, as the thick skin helps the cucumber stay crunchy. Stay away from the English cucumber, as its skin is too thin.
Expert Tips
- White vinegar is the traditional vinegar for this recipe and a great place to start. Apple cider or rice wine vinegar are also good.
- These are delicious on our favorite pulled pork sandwiches (made easy in the slow cooker!), as a side for everything summer, and to eat for a snack. You can’t go wrong with this simple dish all summer long.
- Want to add a little spice? Toss in a jalapeno cut in half (delicious!).
- I love these glass containers with lids to have things like this in my fridge. I also use a mason jar and one of these reusable lids really often.
More Preserving Recipes to Consider
Canning Recipes
How to Can Food: Learn the Basics
Freezing Foods
How to Blanch Green Beans
Freezing Foods
How to Freeze Fruit and Vegetables
Soups, Stews & Chowders
How to Make Chicken or Turkey Broth
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Quick Pickled Cucumbers – Refrigerator Pickles
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup vinegar, (apple cider, white, and rice wine are all good)
- 2 tablespoons sugar, optional
- 1 to 2 teaspoons salt
- sliced garden cucumbers, (about 2 cups)
- sliced onion or green onion, (about 1/2 cup)
- additional vegetables as you like, (bell pepper, whole cherry tomatoes, etc.)
Instructions
- In a small bowl add the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt. Stir to combine and until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Add the cucumber and onion. Taste and adjust the ingredients to your liking.
- All the cucumbers should be covered in the brine, if you have lots of cucumber or are making a big batch, make more brine.
- Let the mixture rest in the fridge until you are ready to eat. The flavors develop over time, so an overnight soak is great but mine are normally gone by dinner.
Video
Notes
- I love adding the sugar and my mom does too, but my grandma doesn’t add that much (she only adds a few teaspoons). I say try it and see what you like.
- White vinegar is a great place to start but if you like apple cider or rice wine vinegar, they are also good. You really can’t mess this up. Just adjust to the taste and enjoy!
- The pickles will last at least a week in the fridge but get less crisp with time.
- You can reuse your brine for a time or two; add more cucumbers!
Thank you! I was searching for a basic base to start for my own recipe and your grandma’s was perfect. I had to tweak it though. For some reason your grandmother forgot the fresh cracked whole black peppercorns! I add pepper to almost everything so I may be biased but the pepper in the brine gives it a real pepper punch! Beyond amazing flavor!
Ohhh that sounds delicious! I’ll try it next time, thank you for the suggestion!
Absolutely Amazing! I tried this just this last summer with my garden veggies and it turned out amazing! I even gifted some and everyone was begging me to give them more! Only thing I need to know is if this is able to be canned? And if so how would one go about doing it? Hot water bath version?
I tried this. I like how it says you can’t mess it up. I followed the instructions. And 24 hours later they are still hard cucumbers, they’re not pickles. I think this recipe is faulty.
They stay crunchy and not mushy, that’s why people love them!
Made it last night and brought it to work to share. Everyone loved it. Some went for second serving. Left the onions out and still came out delicious. Making it again tonight
sounds perfect
going to try it today
I made this tonight and loved it! I increased the apple cider vinegar to 1/2 cup, used kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper in addition to the sugar that I added.
I ate 1/3 of it fresh and think the remainder may not last the night. 🙂
I took these to a church small group party – they were an instant hit!!!!
I made it just the way it says we loved them…
I made this recipe two weeks ago for 3x portion for the quantities and followed the instructions verbatim. I used white vinegar 5%. My cucumbers remained “raw” and they never got pickled. I tossed out the brine and made a fresh brine using a one-to-one ratio of water and white vinegar 8%. This time the cucumbers got pickled and we were able to consume them after 48 hours. I was very happy I was able to salvage the cucumbers from my garden.
Mine also remained raw. Sad.
I just made this recipe (we like sweet, so I put in an additional tablespoon of sugar). I used cucumber, radishes & green onions. Plan on having these with our grilled BOCA burgers tonight for supper. The brine tasted good to me, so I’m sure they will be a hit! They’re chillin in the fridge right now 🙂
Oh my goodness! These are AMAZING!! I made them a couple of days ago and then bought a cucumber on the way to my sister’s house so that I could make them for her too – she also loved them! This is going in The Recipe File – although it’s so easy that I’m making it by heart already. And cheap! Thank you so much 😁
You’ve totally discovered all the reasons to love this! Cheap, easy, and delicious!