Grandma’s Quick Pickled Cucumbers – Refrigerator Pickles
on Jul 08, 2017, Updated Apr 08, 2025
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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 Apricots
Preserving Guide
How To Preserve Apples
Canning Recipes
How to Can Food: Learn the Basics
Freezing Foods
How to Blanch Green Beans
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!
Some people need to study the ingredients. There is no reason to complain about a basic recipe. Use your head and add what you like. I add fresh dill, a halved garlic clove, pickling spices and fresh dill. Best pickles ever!! Thanks for sharing this recipe. I now love pickles again ❤️
I am from SG, I found your web page online, followed the instructions, I used HEINZ All Natural Distilled white vinegar and slim cucumber.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It’s the same one my wonderful mother-in-law shared with me 50 years ago. We love it and have some kind of pickled vegtable with almost every meal(cucumber & onions, beets, peppers, garden vegetable mix, cauliflower and of course sauerkraut!). I can’t wait to try your other recipes as well. Many Blessings.–Robin
I found this recipe but am anxious to try it. Sounds yummy..
Amazing, I use this recipe all the time now. Thank you.
I used this recipe to make quick pickles for the very first time. They turned out great, and it was very easy for a beginner. Thank you very much.
I think it’s perfect but you’re free to fix it! The onions are amazing, add more vinegar or salt, slice up a jalapeno.
I read some comments from people who don’t seem to know how this type of pickle is supposed to turn out. This isn’t the kind you would can in Mason jars, for long-term storage, like the pickles you buy in the store. This is more like a marinade. I’ve been eating this type of pickled veggies my whole life and they are delicious. Your recipe is exactly what it is supposed to be! Great work!
Thanks for this recipe! I looked and looked for a quick pickle that didn’t require the liquid to be boiled. The name is is a good fit. This is the way my grandma and mom made pickled vegetables. They used cucumbers, sweet onions, and tomato slices. They also put some fresh ground black pepper in. My grandparents had a farm many years ago and the ingredients were those delicious, heirloom varieties of veggies, right out of the field.
One step you aren’t making, but should, is actually the first step after you’ve cut the Cucumber, is to add some salt on top of the slices in a colander, and squeeze all the slices, to get their water content out and the salt in, which is what will give them that real crispy bite that they need, and then let them sit for 30 minutes, before rinsing them, and then continue to add them to the brine 🙂
Also to your brine, you should add a teaspoon of whole pepper corns 🙂
A really old classic recipe is the 1:1:1 ratio of just water, vinegar, sugar, which is also good, but variations are always interesting.
can you put these in pint jars
You don’t even have to use jars, just put them in whatever container fits in your fridge well.
Thank you. I had extra pickle cucumbers ran out of pickle brunette and had no idea what to do with them. This is great as is!! Stay awesome!!
I may or may not have made a jar of these this morning.
And I may or may not have eaten the entire jar this evening.