5 Ways to Repurpose the Leftover Ingredients in Your Pickle Jars
Nothing is better than digging into a fresh jar of your favorite pickles. From the minute you hear the "pop" as you untwist the lid, you start salivating. Then, one day, you grab your pickle jar from the fridge and open it only to discover that there is one spear left. The horror! While, we agree, the best part of pickle jars is, of course, the pickles, once the pickle spears are gone, you are left with an array of exciting byproducts that can be repurposed into all sorts of culinary treats.
To start, let us discuss the anatomy of a pickle jar. First, you have the cucumbers, which turn into pickles once they are covered in brine and canned in a water bath to make them shelf stable. Next, you have a brine, which is made up of salt, water, vinegar, a sweetener, and spices. Lastly, there are the spices and garnishes in the jar, which make for a beautiful presentation and add loads of flavor to the final product.
Unlike other pickle brands, we use a unique pickle brine, spice blend, and jar garnishes for each of our pickle flavors. Most pickle producers have one base pickle brine that they add heat to for spicy pickles, dill to for dill pickles, and sweetener to for sweet pickles. We pride ourselves on developing individual brine recipes for each of our pickle flavors. This pickle juice becomes a magic potion that can be used as a secret weapon in the kitchen. Of course, you can drink it straight up for a healthy dose of minerals if that tickles your fancy.
When we pack our pickle jars, we focus on creating an aesthetically pleasing presentation, which revolves around packing the jars with as many cucumber spears as possible and adding fresh garnishes to the jar. For example, we garnish our Habanero Horseradish Dills with a piece of fresh horseradish, a fresh habanero pepper, garlic, and loads of fresh dill. For our Caraway Garlic Dills, our take on a traditional dill pickle, we garnish the jar with tons of garlic and fresh dill. All of these ingredients are beautifully flavored with the same notes as the pickles in your pickle jar, so there is no reason to let them go to waste. In fact, some of the most flavor-packed components in the jar are the garnishes.
Waste not, want not is a proverb that we take to heart at The Real Dill, and we challenge everyone to reduce your food waste by reusing all of the ingredients in your pickle jar before throwing it away. You will be surprised by all of the amazing things you can create, not to mention, you can do something sustainable at the same time.
Here is a list of our favorite ways to repurpose the leftover ingredients in your pickle jars. Trust us, after you try these tips and recipes, you will never throw away a pickle-less pickle jar again until it is truly empty.
Caraway Garlic Dills brine is ideal for a dressing that has a lot of different flavors going on; it is the perfect foundational pickle brine that will not outshine the other ingredients in the recipe. For example, our Pickle Brine Chimichurri recipe uses pickle brine from Caraway Garlic Dills in place of vinegar, and it melds seamlessly with the fragrant, fresh herbs, bright lemon juice, and spices in the condiment. Chimichurri is Argentina's crown jewel dressing. The colorful sauce is full of fresh herbs, bright acidity, and a bit of spice. In addition to being an incredible dipping sauce, chimichurri also doubles as an excellent marinade for meats and fish, as does pickle brine in general.
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