Directions: |
Directions:Make the Brine
Making brine is super easy. All you must do is bring the water, vinegar, and salt to a boil, and simmer it until the salt dissolves, and then turn off the heat.
Note that you can add the garlic to the brine mixture, and then remove the garlic after you’ve boiled the brine. I prefer to put the raw garlic directly in each jar, for a more intense garlic flavor.
Preparing Cherry Peppers for Pickling
Now it’s time to prepare the peppers for pickling!
Start off by washing your cherry peppers
You can pickle hot cherry peppers whole or sliced or cut in half. You can also remove the seeds if you want the delicious pepper flavor, without as much heat. See the images below for the different ways to prepare the cherry peppers for pickling.
If using whole cherry peppers, remove the stems.
If you have a lot of cherry peppers you want to pickle, and don’t have a ton of jars or a ton of space to store the jars, if you slice the cherry peppers, you’ll be able to fit more peppers into each jar.
I personally like the way that whole cherry peppers look in the jar. Plus, I didn’t have a ton of cherry peppers, so keeping them whole worked well for me.
Add Hot Cherry Peppers to the Canning Jars
While the brine is heating, add one clove of garlic to each pint jar, along with the prepared cherry peppers. Pack them in tightly, without crushing them. If desired, add 1/8 teaspoon Pickle Crisp to each pint.
Pour the Brine over the Peppers
Now it’s time to pour the brine over your peppers. Be sure to cover the peppers completely with brine.
When canning cherry peppers, be sure to leave 1/2″ of headspace. To learn more about headspace, read my article, What is Headspace in Canning?
Debubble the jars, using a plastic knife, plastic chopstick, or a debubbling tool like this one that you can get on Amazon.
Wipe the rims, and put on canning lids.
Process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. |
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Notes: |
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Notes: Pro tip: Ball Pickle Crisp (Amazon) is a great way to keep your cherry peppers crisp even if you decide to can your pickled cherry peppers
The canning process will soften the peppers quite a bit. If you like your peppers crisp rather than soggy, Pickle Crisp will help with that.
Basic Calculations Based on the Weight of the Cherry Peppers You Want to Pickle
Remember that the brine ingredients for pickling 3 pounds of cherry peppers called for 6 cups white vinegar, 2 cups water, and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt.
To calculate how much I needed for one pound of peppers, I multiplied each of the ingredients by 1/3 or .33. Therefore, 6 cups of vinegar x .33 = 1.98 (round up to 2 cups), 2 cups water x .33 = .66 cups (1/2 cup plus 2.5 tablespoons) water, 2 teaspoons kosher salt = .66 teaspoons (or a scant 3/4 teaspoon) salt.
Trust me, I’m not a math person, so it took me a bit of thinking to figure it out! To make it easier on you, I’ve done some calculations for you in the table below.
Peppers White Vinegar (5%) Water Kosher Salt
5 lbs of peppers 10 cups white vinegar 3 1/3 cups water 3 1/3 teaspoons salt
3 lbs of peppers 6 cups white vinegar 2 cups water 2 teaspoons salt
2 lbs of peppers 4 cups white vinegar 1 1/3 cups water 1 1/3 teaspoons salt
1 lb of peppers 2 cups white vinegar 1/2 cup plus 2.5 tablespoons Scant 3/4 teaspoon salt
That’s all there is to it! Pickling cherry peppers is a great way to preserve them. If you put them into the fridge without canning, they should last a couple of months. If you opt to can them, they’ll last a year or longer.
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This recipe for cherry hot peppers is from