This homemade pickling spice recipe is a flavorful all-purpose spice blend perfect for pickling and brining your favorite foods. Craft the recipe as written, or customize it to feature your favorite seasonings.
Homemade Pickling Spice
If you do any pickling, canning, or brining I firmly believe you should craft your own homemade pickling spice recipe, or use mine for starters. Pickling spice blends can easily be customized to feature more of the spices you love and less of those you don't. This recipe is perfect for making a ready-made batch stored in airtight spice jars, or simply quickly crafted in a pinch when you run out of store-bought pickling spices.
What is Pickling Spice
Pickling spice is a flavorful blend of many spices used for flavoring a brine when pickling. The flavor of the spice blend is slowly taken on by the food soaking in the brine, often over a period of days or weeks.
What is in Pickling Spice
My homemade pickling spice features black peppercorns, mustard seed, allspice, clove, coriander, ginger, crushed red pepper, cinnamon, and bay leaf. However, the recipe can be modified to remove any of the listed ingredients that you may not like, or add more of your favorites.
How to Use This Recipe
There are many ways to use pickling spice. Some recipes, such as homemade corned beef, call for it specifically. While other recipes, like refrigerator pickles, would welcome it in place of other flavorings, like dill. You can add it to the brine in any of the recipes below:
Homemade Pickling Spice
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
- 1 ½ tablespoon black peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
- 1 tablespoon allspice berries
- 6 bay leaves (crumbled)
- 3 inches cinnamon sticks (crushed or broken into pieces)
- 1 teaspoon cloves
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
Instructions
- Mix all seasonings together and store in an airtight container.
Cheryl
1 teaspoon of ground cloves or whole? Thank you
Fox Valley Foodie
Whole cloves.
Jimmy Kersh
I can save money making my own