Grandma’s Quick Pickled Cucumbers – Refrigerator Pickles
on Jul 08, 2017, Updated Apr 08, 2025
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
These Quick Pickled Cucumbers with green onion are made in the refrigerator for a simple summer snack or quick side dish!
My grandma was a wiz in the kitchen and always created the most incredible recipes for her family of 13 kids (11 of whom were boys!). I got this recipe for quick pickled cucumbers from her. She is an incredible woman, and thinking about her makes me happy. She’d create a simple brine and throw anything from the garden in—not just cucumbers, but onions, bell peppers, and whole cherry tomatoes.
It tastes like summer in a jar, and whether you’re an avid gardener or more of a grocery store frequenter, anyone can make these easy refrigerator pickles in no time.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Quick Pickled Cucumbers Recipe
- Quick & Easy: One of the best things about Refrigerator Pickles is that you can make them quickly and then let them sit in the fridge.
- No Special Equipment: Unlike traditional canning, this recipe doesn’t require any special equipment.
- Garden Abundance: If you have an abundance of fresh cucumbers, this recipe is a fantastic way to preserve them and enjoy them longer.
- Versatile Recipe: I love tossing in other veggies just like my Grandma did. Use whatever onions you have, add garlic or peppers, and whatever fresh or dried herbs and seasonings to get the flavor of pickles your family likes best. There’s no wrong way to do it!
🥒 For maximum use of the flavored liquid, reuse it a time or two! Just add more cucumbers or other vegetables to the brine!
Recipe Ingredients
- Vinegar — Apple cider, white, and rice wine are all good options.
- Sugar — This is optional, but it takes a little of the “bite” out of the vinegar.
- Garden Cucumbers — Kirby cucumbers or a similar thick-skinned variety is best!
- Onion or Green Onion
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Refrigerator Pickles
- Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt.
- Add the cucumber and onion, cut into slices.
- Cover all the vegetables with the brine.
- Place in the refrigerator until ready to eat!
Recipe FAQs
Most recipes call for distilled white vinegar — it’s clear, colorless, and has a mellow aroma and tart acidic flavor. But you can really use whatever vinegar you like and have on hand, like apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar. This recipe is flexible!
If you ask my grandma, you can pickle any vegetables you like! A few common ones to pickle are cucumbers (of course!), radishes, carrots, red onions, asparagus, jalapeños, cauliflower, and green beans. The recipe will work for any of these veggies!
To pickle something, you must soak the vegetables in a vinegar brine. My brine calls for water, vinegar, sugar (optional), and salt. You let the cucumbers rest in the brine in the fridge until you’re ready to eat them. Letting them sit longer helps the flavors develop more, so an overnight soak is ideal, but they’re also okay to eat right away!
You want to choose a cucumber with thicker skin, like Kirby cucumbers as the thick skin helps the cucumber stay crunchy. Stay away from the English cucumber, like Persian cucumbers, as the skin is too thin.
Expert Tips
- Vinegar Options: White vinegar is the traditional vinegar for this recipe and a great place to start. Apple cider or rice wine vinegar are also good.
- Spice It Up: Want to add a little spice? Toss in a jalapeño cut in half (delicious!) or add some red pepper flakes.
- Pickle Jars: I love these glass containers with lids to have things like this in my fridge. I also use a mason jar and one of these reusable lids really often.
- Other Seasoning Options: If you love dill pickles, add some fresh dill, or even dried, to get that classic flavor! You can also add mustard seeds or garlic cloves to kick up the flavor.
The Best Jars For Pickles
Whether you’re making quick refrigerator pickles like in this recipe or water-bath canning your garden’s bumper crop harvest of cucumbers into pickles, the jars I always recommend are still the classic Ball Wide Mouth Mason Jars.
Available in a pack of 12, they’re affordable and top-quality thanks to the extra tight lids and durable glass. The 32-ounce size also holds plenty of cucumbers, and you can also use them for other recipes like my and my hot water bath canned .
Favorite Easy Pickle Recipes
Try these recipes if you’re looking for more pickling options:
- Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickled Banana Peppers
- Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Onions
- Sweet and Spicy Cucumbers and Vinegar
- Pickled Red Onions
- How To Pickle Peppers (Hot Water Bath Canning Method)
More Preserving Recipes to Consider
Preserving Guide
How To Preserve Asparagus
Preserving Guide
How To Preserve Apricots
Preserving Guide
How To Preserve Apples
Canning Recipes
How to Can Food: Learn the Basics
Did you make this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review and share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest!
Quick Pickled Cucumbers – Refrigerator Pickles
Equipment
- small bowl : I love these because they have lids and double as serving bowls.
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup vinegar, (apple cider, white, and rice wine are all good)
- 2 tablespoons sugar, optional
- 1 to 2 teaspoons salt
- sliced garden cucumbers, (about 2 cups)
- sliced onion or green onion, (about 1/2 cup)
- additional vegetables as you like, (bell pepper, whole cherry tomatoes, etc.)
Instructions
- In a small bowl add the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt. Stir to combine and until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Add the cucumber and onion. Taste and adjust the ingredients to your liking.
- All the cucumbers should be covered in the brine, if you have lots of cucumber or are making a big batch, make more brine.
- Let the mixture rest in the fridge until you are ready to eat. The flavors develop over time, so an overnight soak is great but mine are normally gone by dinner.
Video
Notes
- I love adding the sugar and my mom does too, but my grandma doesn’t add that much (she only adds a few teaspoons). I say try it and see what you like.
- White vinegar is a great place to start but if you like apple cider or rice wine vinegar, they are also good. You really can’t mess this up. Just adjust to the taste and enjoy!
- The pickles will last at least a week in the fridge but get less crisp with time.
- You can reuse your brine for a time or two; add more cucumbers!
Fab recipe – so simple and so delicious. We have rebranded it “sushi cukes” in our house. Is it really 88 calories for a few slices though?!
Good eye, I fixed the nutrition info, we had it as having 1 cup of sugar which added the calories, so no it’ll be closer to 33 calories for about 1/3 of a cup! I’ve adjusted it on the recipe.
So to serve can you remove the cukes, onions, etc (I’m thinking of adding cherry tomatoes) with a slotted spoon and use it as a side on a plate with other foods? Or do you spear things out of the broth like it shows in the video?
You can serve it however you see fit. I’ll normally use a slotted spoon to put them into a bowl to set on the table for serving so that there’s less liquid involved and less of a likelihood that a kid will stick their used fork in the jar to fish one out.
Perfect, thanks!
How long can these be stored in the fridge? Do they need to be pulled from the brine or can they be left? We have a bunch of cucumbers I’d like to do this too but wonder how long they will keep. Thanks!
They just get softer over time, so they’ll last 10 days or so though I like them the first two days. And leave them in the brine AND you can reuse the brine a few times too, no issues there.
Hi Melissa, I was just wondering if you have mixed any of the vinegars together for a particular taste?
How would you make a bread & butter batch of pickles?
This was an easy recipe to follow thank you.
I haven’t mixed many together. I typically use rice vinegar or white vinegar because I like the vinegar more mild, but by all means, feel free to play with it and report back. I’d love to hear what you came up with!
I was a bit low on white vinegar so I used white wine vinegar instead. I used 2 flat tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of salt. I went with the ‘what’s in your garden theme’ and added parsley leaves and a wee bit of rosemary, a couple of cloves of garlic, as well as some mustard seed and some peppercorns and oh my goodness…I’m super stoked with the flavour!!
Thank you for sharing your recipe with us.
They sounds so good! I’m so glad you had success making the recipe your own!
White vinegar is white wine vinegar.
No it’s not. https://www.recipelion.com/Cooking-Tips/white-wine-vinegar-vs-white-vinegar
nice
I made these tonight. I think I would like them on something. I am made the mistake of just adding ingredients without tasting it. I also used apple cider vinegar. I like apple cider vinegar okay but it wasn’t what I prefer. I added too much salt. I should have stuck with half a teaspoon or 1 teaspoon. None of this was the recipes fault. 😉
The perk of working with a brine like this is you can add water and adjust it to taste, especially if it’s a salt issue!
GREAT recipe! So quick and easy! I added sliced white onion, chopped garlic, dill, mustard seed, coriander, sugar, Manuka honey and some turmeric for bright color! Turned out perfect! I’m going to enjoy these!
We really enjoyed these. We wanted something as good as what my Grandma used to make, and these fit the bill. We’re on our third batch now. FWIW, we prefer the version without sugar. Thanks for the recipe…it’s a keeper!
Thank you for leaving a comment! That’s so helpful! I did the no sugar option all this year and we don’t even notice a difference now too and prefer it also.