Pickle Juice

Pickle Juice is juice that has been used to pickle a food item.

Though it’s usually presumed to be juice that cucumbers in one form or another were pickled in, that’s not strictly true: the juice can be from beets, pickled peppers, etc..

It can be re-used to make pickled eggs and pickled bologna. It is probably best, though, not to re-use it though for anything you are going to store on shelves, as water from previous vegetables in the pickle juice may have diluted the acidity making it less capable of staving off botulism. Consequently, re-use it for refrigerated pickled items only.

In fact, there are so many uses for Pickle Juice once the pickles are gone, that you’ll wonder why people just pout it down the drain:

• • Many people like to drink Pickle Juice. In fact, so many people, that you can buy pickle juice for drinking in jars or in individual portion clear plastic bottles (one brand is Goldin Pickle Juice);
  • Some people add a tablespoonful or two to their cole slaw or potato salads, and swear by it;
  • Make an antipasto mix of raw carrot pieces (or “baby” carrots), celery sticks, sliced onion, raw zucchini, few peeled cloves of garlic, few slices of peppers, and raw cauliflower pieces;
  • Use as the liquid in making bread dough in place of water, particularly rye bread;
  • In a jar of leftover pickle juice, put a tin of drained, sliced, cooked beets, with a slice or two of onions, let stand in fridge for 3 to 5 days.
  • Spray onto popcorn;
  • Cooking corned beef brisket in;
  • Use a spoonful when mixing up a tin of tuna for tuna salad;
  • Use as a marinade for meats (then discard the juice)
  • Sprinkle on fresh strawberries with a twist or two of black pepper.
    

    Cooking Tips

    Lightly Soured Cucumber: Put cucumber (peeled: sliced or in spears) in pickling juice, put in fridge and let stand for 2 to 3 days, then serve the cucumbers slices. You can add sliced onion to the mix.