CHILDREN’S GARDEN Root Veggie Fridge Pickles

BY BECCA MILLER

As someone who nearly always picks savory foods over sweet ones, there are few snacks I love as much as a pickled vegetable. Quick fridge pickles are the perfect snack or side dish when you’re looking for a crispy addition to your plate, are great tossed into fresh green salads, and add a zesty kick to a bowl of potato salad.

This root veggie pickle recipe is adaptable to whatever vegetables, herbs, and spices you have on hand. I like to use flavors like dill and mustard seeds with turnips, radishes, and beets, and flavors like ginger, star anise, and coriander with carrots. The batch of pickles shown here was made using Chioggia beets—a beautiful, spiralled Italian beet grown by lots of local farms nowadays—and includes red onions, garlic, and dill. Feel free to experiment with a medley of different vegetables, herbs, and spices depending on your family’s preferences and access to ingredients, and don’t worry if you don’t have Mason jars. Any lidded container will do just fine.

Ingredients

The recipe makes 1–2 quarts of pickles depending on the size of your veggie pieces and how tightly you pack your containers.

The brine

1 ¼ cup water

2 tsp salt

2 cups vinegar (either cider vinegar or white vinegar, or any combination of the two you have available)

¹/3 cup sugar

The flexible stuff

1 lb of any combination of the following root vegetables: beets, carrots, radishes, or turnips

The optional stuff

1–2 small red onions, sliced thin

2–4 cloves garlic, quartered

1 tsp dried dill or 3 fresh dill sprigs

½ tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp whole black peppercorns

2 star anise pods

¼ tsp coriander seeds

½ tsp fresh ginger, chopped

Directions

1. Peel the vegetables if desired. Slice off the ends and cut roots into ¼-inch sticks, rounds, or half-rounds.

2. Mix the root veggie pieces with any ginger, onion, or garlic you are using

3. Tightly pack all the veggies into a quart-sized jar or container. Leave an inch of space at the top.

4. Combine water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt.

5. Lower liquid to a simmer and add seeds and peppercorns. Simmer for a few minutes, then remove from heat and add in fresh or dried herbs.

6. Ladle the hot liquid into the vegetable container until it covers your vegetables by a ¼ inch.

7. Cover the container and allow it to cool on the counter. When the pickles have reached room temperature, label your container with the date and move it to the fridge. Your pickles will be ready to eat after a few days, and will last several months in the fridge.

Note: If you have any leftover brine— the liquid that turns your vegetables into pickles—you can store it in a jar in the fridge to make another batch of pickles in the future (just heat it through again). You can also use it as a vinegar replacement in homemade salad dressings or potato salads.