Pickled Carrots with Dill

This small-batch recipe for pickled carrots with dill packs a great dilly crunch! Add them as a quick side-vegetable on a busy night, pack a few to snack on during the day, or chop them and throw them in a tuna, egg, or salmon salad.

What is Hot Pack Preserving

This method of preserving is the act of putting food that is warm or cooked into jars and then processing them. For this pickled carrots with dill recipe, the carrots are blanched before putting into the jar. Other hot pack preserving recipes would include things like tomato sauce, salsa, BBQ sauce, even jam, and jelly are hot pack preserves. Find more details about hot pack preserving and the pros and cons of this method here.

Blanch the Carrots First

Denser vegetables like asparagus, carrots, green beans, and beets absorb pickle brine better after they’ve had 30-60 seconds in a pot of boiling water. It’s not required, but if you blanch denser vegetables first, it will help them take on the flavors of your brine. Our 4th Burner Pot is a great tool for blanching and easy draining with its straining basket.

Choosing Carrots for Pickling

If you aren’t using your own homegrown carrots for this recipe, try finding some fresh young carrots that are fairly bit slimmer – width-wise.  If you only have larger carrots, that’s fine, you’ll just need to do a bit more chopping. Try your best to keep the spears similar in size, that will help with consistency in cooking and crunch.

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Pickled Carrots with Dill

Makes 2 (12-ounce/360 ml) jars

Course: Side Dish

Ingredients

• 1 pound/460 g carrots
• 1 cup/240 ml cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon pickling salt divided
• 1 teaspoon dill seeds divided
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns divided
• 2 garlic cloves divided

Instructions

1. Prepare a boiling water bath and 2 (12-ounce/360 ml) jelly jars. Place 2 lids in a small saucepan of water and bring to a gentle simmer.

2. Bring to a boil a separate small saucepan of water in which to blanch the carrots. Peel the carrots and trim to fit the jars. Cut into thin sticks.
3. When the water comes to a boil, drop in the carrots and cook for 90 seconds. Remove the carrots from the water and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Divide the spices and garlic cloves between the jars and pack in the carrot sticks on top of the spices.
4. Combine the vinegar, 1 cup of water, and the salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
5. Pour the boiling brine over the carrots, leaving 1/2 inch/12 mm of headspace. Tap the jars gently to remove any air bubbles. Add more liquid to return the headspace to 1/2 inch/12 mm, if necessary. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

New to Water Bath Canning? Read this first.

Do I Have to Can this Recipe

This recipe will yield about 2 – 12oz. jars. With a small batch recipe like this, it’s easy to modify the recipe so that you can refrigerate and consume it within a couple of weeks. To make these pickled dill carrots without the canning step, just increase the blanching time to 3 minutes. That’s just enough cooking to ensure that they’re tender enough to absorb the brine but still snappy. Refrigerate jars for up to 3 weeks.

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