Easy Homemade Quick-Pickled Jalapeños
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This quick-pickled jalapeños recipe is ready in 5 minutes! The homemade pickle jalapeño brine uses 4 simple ingredients: equal parts water and vinegar, plus a little salt and sugar. You’ll find these sliced jalapeños to be the perfect crunchy, tangy topping for everything from pizza to tacos. Once prepared, store in the fridge for best results.
A few weeks ago I mentioned I was on a Detroit-style pizza kick. I’m still on that kick, and I’ve just shared that recipe, but first: pickled jalapeños.
One of my favorite pizzas from Emmy Squared, a Brooklyn-based Detroit-style pizza restaurant, is The Colony, a red sauce pie topped with pepperoni, pickled jalapeños, and honey. It hits all the sweet-spicy-savory notes, and the combination, as you might imagine, is heavenly.
I’ve been making this pizza at home using pickled jalapeños from the grocery store, which work just fine, but when two jalapeños arrived in our farm share last week, I knew their fate.
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I use one and only one pickle recipe, originating from David Lebovitz. It’s the recipe I use in this simple pickled crudité, and I’ve simplified it over the years in that I now never bother adding garlic or peppercorns or any additional seasonings, but the 4-ingredient base brine is still the same: equal parts water and vinegar plus a little salt and sugar.
It takes no time to make: heat the brine until the sugar and salt dissolve; then pour it over the vegetables. That’s it. It doubles, triples, and halves well, so you can adjust the recipe easily to whatever amount of vegetables you have on hand — often I make 4 or 6 times the recipe depending on the amount of vegetables I plan on pickling.
How to Use Pickled Jalapeños
In two words: on everything! Pickles are so nice to have on hand — what sandwich isn’t instantly transformed with the addition of a briney bite? What taco doesn’t shine a little brighter when peppered with tangy spheres?
No sandwich. No taco. I hope these pickled jalapeños find their way into your condiment collection soon. Your sandwiches and tacos (and pizza!) will thank you. Here are a few ideas:
- Detroit-Syle Pizza
- Simple Weeknight Tacos
- Chicken Tinga Tacos
- Chickpea Taco Bowls
- Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos
- Vegetarian Bean and Cheese Enchiladas
Other Vegetables to Quick Pickle
ALL the vegetables. Over the years I’ve used this brine to pickle beets, turnips, carrots, radishes, peppers, onions, fennel, kohlrabi, cauliflower … everything.
If you subscribe to a weekly farm share, I find pickling to be as helpful a technique to turn to when I am overloaded with certain vegetables (radishes! turnips!) as when I am underloaded with vegetables (a single fennel bulb, for example, or two small peppers).
How to Make Pickled Jalapeños, Step by Step
Slice up 3 to 4 jalapeños (or as many as you wish). There is no need to remove the seeds! Simply slice straight down to create spheres.
Transfer them to a glass jar. Then combine: 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt in a small saucepan, and bring it to a simmer.
Pour the hot brine over the sliced jalapeños. Let the peppers cool completely in the brine.
Store in the fridge for months.
Sprinkle the pickled jalapeños over tacos or bake them atop pizza:
PrintEasy Homemade Quick-Pickled Jalapeños
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This quick-pickled jalapeños recipe is ready within 5 minutes! The homemade pickle jalapeño brine uses 4 simple ingredients: equal parts water and vinegar, plus a little salt and sugar. You’ll find that these sliced jalapeños are the perfect crunchy, tangy topping for everything from pizza to tacos. Once prepared, store in the fridge for best results.
Adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe, which I’ve written about previously, this pickle recipe is the only one I use.
Salt: I always use Diamond Crystal kosher salt, but any kind of salt will work just fine in this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup vinegar, such as distilled white, rice, white balsamic, or apple cider
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt, see notes above
- 3–4 jalapeños, sliced thinly, no need to remove the seeds
Instructions
- Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer and stir to ensure the sugar and salt are dissolved.
- Place the jalapeños into a glass jar, such as a 2-cup Mason jar. Pour the hot pickle brine over top. Use a spoon to push the peppers down to ensure they are submerged. Let cool completely; then cover and stash in the fridge for many months.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Pickle
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American, Mexican
Keywords: quick, pickled, jalapenos
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
32 Comments on “Easy Homemade Quick-Pickled Jalapeños”
This is just the recipe I needed. We have tons of jalapeños and Thai chilies growing right now that I give them away to the neighbors. It’s funny I just came across this as your famous No Knead Bread is rising as I type this…. And I went for cheddar jalapeño this time to take to my daughter and one for ourselves. Thank you daily for such wonderful recipes that fit our lifestyle so much. You are very much adored by my entire family 😊
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Oh my goodness, Liane, thank you 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 So nice to read all of this! I am jealous of your Thai chilies, as I love them so much in cold, summer, noodle salads. Yay for cheddar-jalapeño bread. Thanks so much for writing 🙂 🙂 🙂
These look so good and we love pickled jalapeños in so many things! The brine is great in salsas and guac too. May I ask where you purchased the adorable little saucepan? What a great size for small jobs!
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Oh that’s so smart! Love that idea re brine in salsa and guac … will try! It’s called a Dansk butter warmer, and incredibly it’s in stock! It can be hard to find at times, but glad to see it’s available now.
Yikes, the butter warmer is 51% off !! I’ve been eyeing it but couldn’t quite justify at the full price. I just ordered it. And, genius on the pickled jalapenos recipe, thanks!
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Yay!! So great to hear. As I noted in another comment: it can be so hard to find for whatever reason. It’s such a good little pot. Warning: the handle burns! So if you have a gas stovetop, be sure to place the pot off to the side of the flame or be sure to keep the flame low or so that it is contained under only the pot, but not reaching out to the sides. So glad you ordered it! I love it, and just looking at it makes me happy.
Thanks for the tips! I do have gas so I will be careful. Watching you using your pot, has always made me happy and envious! I can’t wait to get my own. And, to make my own pickled jalapenos. I love all your recipes and videos, I’m a big fan.
Awwww… so nice to hear all of this, Cindy 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Truly means so much. Thank you. Can’t wait for you to get your pot! Mine basically lives on my stovetop 💕
I made these pickled jalapeños this morning. I plan to gift this little bottle of tasty joy to a friend next week when she returns from vacation! This recipe couldn’t be any easier. Thanks, Ali.
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Yay! So nice to hear this, Lu 🙂 🙂 🙂 And what a nice gift?! Lucky friend to have you 💕💕💕
Thank you for the link to the butter warmer, I have since ordered it. I have been using your focaccia bread recipe to make a pizza to rave reviews. I had a group of hungry kids to feed and gave it light layers of mozzarella and sauce along with pepperoni. Baked it at 475 on the bottom rack and it was so good! I will be sure to add the pickled jalapeños next time. Thanks for all the excellent recipes!☺️
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So nice to hear all of this, Lisa!! Yay for ordering the butter warmer 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 Love your focaccia pizza idea… sounds very similar to the Detroit-style pizzas I’ve been making. The addition of pickled jalapeños (for the adults at least) has been most welcomed 🙂
Do these stay crunchy?
Yes! Very crunchy 🎉
Simple and tasty! Used brine for thinly sliced red onions. So good.
Is that Detroit style pizza?? Can’t wait!
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Smart!! Love this idea. AND: yes it is 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 This week, with any luck, I’ll get the post out. Thanks for writing 💕
These are great pickles—many pickling brines have too much sugar to salt for my taste, but yours is perfect. I’m adding oregano, garlic and peppercorns into the brine… For 5 minutes of effort (actually less) you get crunchy spicy salty vinegary pickles so much better than store-bought. thx!
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Great to hear, Bri! I couldn’t agree more: I find these to be so much better than the store-bought ones, and they couldn’t be easier to make. Thanks for writing!
Just finished pickling my Chinese 5 color peppers, serranos, and jalapenos I grow in my garden with some home grown garlic! I cannot wait to eat them! Thanks for an easy peasy recipe!
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Great to hear, Paven! I love pickled peppers so much.
Jalapeños, ese ingrediente que encaja en gran cantidad de menús.
You don’t specify what kind of salt. Table? Kosher? Pickling?
I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt. Will make a note!
I have been in search of a good Pickled Jalapeno recipe for a while now. Can’t wait for the peppers to appear in my garden. Can I can these for winter storage? That’s important to me. Oh, and your Sourdough Focaccia recipe is the best. I have been decorating it with veggies and gifting for weeks.
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Hi Cindy! Yes, absolutely you can can these. So Great to hear about the focaccia 🙂 🙂 🙂 What a lovely gift!
How long before you can eat them?
I’d say after an overnight rest in the fridge, so maybe 18 hours?
It would be handy to have a larger quantity, say 20, 30+, that way the other ingredients are already calculated.
I love this recipe, can you reboil the juice once the jalapenos are gone to use in another batch?
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I have never tried! Worth a shot. I worry a teensy bit that some of the acidity might be lost due to time + a re-boil, but I’m just kind of guessing.
Essy recipe! One question. Can you keep adding peppers to the jar as they trickle in from the garden? Or does a new batch need to be made each time?
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Such a good question! I sort of think some magic happens when the hot liquid hits the peppers, but it is worth a shot. Alternatively, I imagine you could re-boil the brine, then pour it over the peppers… more work obviously.