Easy Icicle Pickles

What are icicle pickles?

Icicle pickles are a sweet, crisp pickle traditionally made from long, thin cucumber spears. They are a regional and family-recipe favorite, often handed down on recipe cards, and the version most people know is sweet, cinnamon- or clove-spiced, and sometimes tinted green with food coloring. They sit somewhere between a dill and a bread-and-butter pickle in flavor, leaning sweet.

The catch is that the classic recipes are slow. Popular versions run for 8, 12, or 14 days, with a daily routine of draining, rinsing, and re-pouring hot liquid over the cucumbers. This article explains why, and then gives a much easier refrigerator version.

Why are they called icicle pickles?

There is no single authoritative answer. The most common explanation is the shape: long, narrow spears that look something like icicles. Some people also connect the name to the cold, crisp texture. The name is used loosely, so you may find “icicle pickles” applied to different recipes.

Why the old recipes take so long

If you read the long recipes, the pattern is similar:

1. Salt brine for several days. Cucumbers sit in a strong salt solution, drawing out water and firming up.
2. Rinse and plain hot water soaks. Removing the excess salt.
3. A hot soak with alum (in many versions) to keep the cucumbers crisp.
4. A sweet vinegar syrup with sugar and pickling spice, reheated and poured back over the cucumbers on successive days, so the cucumbers slowly take up sweetness without going soft.
5. Canning in jars at the end.

The slow build is the point: it gives a dense, candy-sweet, crunchy pickle. It also demands daily attention and a lot of room, since many recipes call for a crock or bucket of cucumbers.

Alum, food coloring, and other heirloom steps

Some of the old steps are worth questioning:

• Alum. Many heirloom recipes add alum for crispness. According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP), alum is not needed to make crisp pickles, and fresh cucumbers, correct trimming, and not overcooking matter more. We would not add it.
• Food coloring. Purely cosmetic and optional.
• Canning at the end. Family recipes were often written before processing times were tested. If you want shelf-stable jars, use a current tested recipe and its times instead of the number on an old recipe card.

Easy refrigerator icicle-style pickles

This is our shortcut. It gives you sweet, crisp spears in about a week, but it is a refrigerator recipe only.

Ingredients for about 2 quart jars

• 2 pounds small pickling cucumbers, cut lengthwise into long spears
• 2 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon canning or pickling salt
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 teaspoon whole pickling spice
• 1 small cinnamon stick, optional

Steps

1. Wash the cucumbers, trim both ends, and cut into spears that fit your jars with a little room at the top.
2. Soak the spears in ice water for 20 to 30 minutes, then drain well.
3. Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and spices in a pot. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for a few minutes, then cool to room temperature.
4. Pack the spears into clean jars. Pour the cooled brine over them until they are fully covered.
5. Cap, refrigerate, and wait at least 3 to 5 days. They taste better after about a week.

Keep them refrigerated at all times. For best quality, plan on finishing them within a month or two. Discard if you see mold, smell something off, or the brine turns slimy.

If you want them shelf-stable

Do not can the refrigerator recipe above. It has not been tested for processing.

For shelf-stable sweet pickles, choose a recipe from NCHFP or USDA and follow its vinegar, sugar, and processing time exactly. Our guide to sweet and spicy pickles for canning walks through one such sweet pickle and explains what you can and cannot change. For general canning basics, see easy pickle recipes for canning.

Tips

• Use fresh, firm cucumbers, and trim the blossom end.
• Cooling the brine before pouring keeps the spears crisp.
• If you like a bucket method for a bigger batch, see ice cream pail pickles.
• Bigger, seedier cucumbers give a mushier result; smaller ones work best.

FAQ

What is the best recipe for old-fashioned icicle pickles? It depends on your priorities. The long heirloom recipes give a very sweet, firm pickle but take 8 to 14 days. The refrigerator version above gets close in flavor in about a week.

What is the best recipe for quick pickles? Any simple vinegar, water, salt, and sugar brine poured over fresh cucumbers works.

What is the 3-2-1 rule for pickles? A popular shorthand for a refrigerator brine of 3 parts vinegar, 2 parts sugar, and 1 part water. It is not a tested canning formula.