Canning: Zucchini Dill Pickles

If you grow zucchini, you have to get creative. I wanted to try pickles, so I asked Wayne his preference, “dill of course.”

I looked in my cookbooks and chose a recipe for cucumbers and substituted small zucchini that would fit in my pint canning jars. Here's the recipe. I will tell you how I modified it using italics in the directions.

Zucchini Dill Pickles

Published Ingredients List:

4 lbs. of 4” pickling cucumbers (36-58)
1/2 cup dill seeds
24 whole peppercorns
2 cups 5% acid strength cider vinegar
4 1/2 cups water
1/3 cup canning/pickling salt

Directions:

Wash cucumbers and cut 1/16” slice off blossom ends. Pack raw into 8 sterilized hot pint jars. I trimmed my zucchini in length to fit into pint jars and sliced them in half. I only had enough to fill three pints, so I cut the recipe in half.

Add 1 tablespoon dill seeds and 3 peppercorns to each jar. Instead of dill seeds I used fresh dill and instead of peppercorns I used 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed in each jar. I also added two cloves of garlic to each jar.

Combine vinegar (I used white pickling vinegar), water and salt, and bring to a boil. I also added 1 tablespoon of sugar to my half recipe. Quite a few dill pickle recipes called for some sugars in the mix. Pour over cucumbers (zucchinis in my case), filling to within 1/4” of jar top. Wipe jar rim, remove air bubbles from the jar, and adjust lids.

Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes. Start to count processing time when water in the canner returns to a boil. Remove jars and complete seals unless closures are self-sealing type. The original recipe makes 8 pints, mine only made three.

Allow the pickles to rest for 4-6 weeks before opening to allow them to absorb the flavours. This was the hardest part of the recipe.

Reference: Farm Journal’s Freezing and Canning Cookbook (Ballantine Books, 1978). -- Margy