When you finish a jar of pickles, don’t throw away the juice. It’s so incredibly easy to make homemade pickles from leftover pickle juice. Find out how here.
For more ideas, check out all of our recipes.
Years ago, when Pete and I first moved to North Carolina, I learned a hack about making pickles from jarred pickles from the grocery store. It’s a great way to extend your grocery budget and reduce your food waste.
My grandma was obsessed with pickles, so I was super excited to tell her after I made my first batch.
And you know what she told me? “I was doing that 20 years ago.” She was not impressed.
I was like, “Well why didn’t you tell me 20 years ago?”
So in case you don’t know, I’m gonna tell you.
If you bought too extra cucumbers for this recipe and need some more ideas, we have a bunch of other Budget-Friendly Cucumber Recipes you can make.
Homemade Pickles From Leftover Pickle Juice Recipe
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Homemade Pickles From Leftover Pickle Juice Ingredients:
- Pickle juice from store-bought pickles
- 1 to 2 fresh cucumbers
How To Make Homemade Pickles From Leftover Pickle Juice:
Slice a cucumber lengthwise.
Slice it in half, then into quarters. You can also slice those in half, if you want thinner spears.
Quick note: It’s a personal preference, but I prefer to cut my pickles into spears because we eat them as a side dish for hamburgers. But, if you’d rather, you can cut them into slices instead. Either method works.
If you do decide to cut the pickles into slices, I would suggest making them about a quarter inch thick.
Place the spears into the leftover brine the pickle jar.
You can keep adding cucumber slices as long as they’re fully submerged in the leftover juice.
Close the top and put the jar in the fridge for four days.
I usually put a note that says, “Do Not Open Until” with the date on it so that we remember when the pickles will be ready.
After four days, you have pickles. Granted, they’re lazy pickles, but they’re still pickles.
You can do this again a second time, but add a pinch of salt to “wake” the pickling liquid back up.
Homemade Quick Pickles: Frequently Asked Questions
Homemade pickles have a long shelf life. They’ll be good for about three weeks in the fridge. After that, the cucumber starts to get pretty soft. But, to be honest, we’ve kept ours a long time and they taste good.
Pickle juice will last up to three months in the fridge after it has been open. So, you can keep reusing the leftover brine up to three months. After then, you’ll either want to buy another jar of pickles or make your own homemade brine.
You don’t need to boil the original jar to sanitize it. The company has already done that and you’re just reusing it, so don’t worry about that.
The best type of cucumber to pickle are kirby cucumbers. The only trouble with that is I can only find them at one local farmstand in our area. Our local grocery stores don’t carry them. So, whatever you can find in store works best.
Or, honestly, garden cucumbers work too. When I have a bunch of cucumbers growing in the garden, this is a great way to use some up.
If you have a cucumber that you need to use, and you still have some pickles in the pickle jar, it’s fine to just add some cucumber slices into the jar with the pickle.
Any variety of pickles works for this recipe. So if you like dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, half sour pickles … it doesn’t matter. The cucumbers will take on whatever flavor is already in the jar. So purchase your favorite variety and then try this recipe.
Our Facebook friend Amy said that her mother pickles green beans this way. I asked her what they taste like and she said “like little dill pickles.” That sounds amazing and is definitely something I want to try in the future.
You can also pickle hard-boiled eggs this way, although I’ve never tried that.
Most people use pickle juice to do a pickleback shot (which yes, is a shot of pickle juice that usually follows a shot of whiskey).
You can chop chicken and add it to pickle juice before breading and frying, which is the hack to make chicken nuggets that taste like Chick-fil-A nuggets.
If you really want to, you can freeze pickle juice in a plastic, airtight container. Don’t freeze it in the original jar because it could crack in the freezer and make a really big mess.
Homemade Refrigerator Pickles:
If you don’t have leftover pickle brine, but you still want pickles, you can make your own homemade brine from garlic cloves, apple cider vinegar, and spices. Find out how in our Refrigerator Pickles recipe.
Homemade Pickles From Leftover Pickle Juice
When you finish a jar of pickles, don’t throw away the juice. It’s so incredibly easy to make homemade pickles from leftover pickle juice. Find out how here.
Ingredients
- Pickle juice from store-bought pickles
- 1 to 2 fresh cucumbers
Instructions
- Slice a cucumber lengthwise.
- Slice it in half, then into quarters. You can also slice those in half, if you want thinner spears.If you do decide to cut the pickles into slices, I would suggest making them about a quarter inch thick.
- Place the spears into the leftover brine the pickle jar. You can keep adding cucumber slices as long as they’re fully submerged in the leftover juice.
- Close the top and put the jar in the fridge for four days.
- After four days, you have pickles.
Have you made homemade pickles from leftover pickle juice? Let us know how it went in the comments.
Jackie
Monday 11th of November 2024
This is so smart! I am going to have to give it a try. We are having a fence installed around our garden and once that is done I will have to grab some cucumbers to make some pickles. Thanks for sharing!
Jennifer Wise
Saturday 7th of September 2024
What??? I had no idea you could do this! How cool is this?!
Joanne
Thursday 5th of September 2024
This is a great way to cut down on food waste!
Laura S.
Friday 28th of June 2013
WOW! I can't believe how much I am paying for one cucumber! I love my claussen pickles though...I need to try this out.