Canning bread and butter pickles is a water-bath process, not a pressure-canning project. The vinegar in a tested recipe supplies the acidity that makes the jars shelf-stable. The work that actually decides whether the pickles stay crisp and whether the jars stay safe happens before the lid goes on: cucumber choice, blossom-end trim, salt-and-ice soak, vinegar strength, headspace, and processing time for your altitude.
This guide uses the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) bread-and-butter pickle formula as the base. Spices can be adjusted. Vinegar volume, vinegar strength, and processing time cannot.
What bread and butter pickles are
Bread and butter pickles are thin cucumber slices packed with onion in a sweet-sour vinegar brine. Mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric give the familiar flavor and the golden color. They are a quick-process pickle, not a fermented one. The brine is added the same day, then the jars are heat-processed.
The name is not a recipe instruction. Illinois cucumber farmers Omar and Cora Fanning trademarked “Fanning’s Bread and Butter Pickles” in 1923. One well-documented account is that they traded surplus pickled cucumbers to a grocer for staples, including bread and butter. Another explanation is that the pickles were eaten on buttered bread when meat was scarce. Either way, the name stuck to a sweet-tangy slice, not a dill spear.
What you need before you start
Produce that will actually stay firm
Use pickling cucumbers 4 to 5 inches long, harvested the same day if you can. Kirby-type cukes have thinner skins and denser flesh. Large slicing cucumbers turn soft after processing. Soft, yellowing, or waxed supermarket cucumbers are a poor bet.
Trim 1/16 inch off the blossom end of every cucumber and discard it. That end carries enzymes that break down pectin and soften the pickle. The stem end can stay. Slice 3/16 inch thick for the official recipe; a mandoline keeps the slices even so they pack and heat evenly.
Onions belong in this pickle. The NCHFP recipe uses a lot of them—about 3 pounds, or 8 cups thinly sliced. Yellow or white onions keep the brine color clean. Red onions work but tint the syrup.
Ingredients that affect safety
- Vinegar labeled 5% acidity. Distilled white vinegar keeps the color bright. Apple cider vinegar at 5% is also acceptable and tastes rounder, but the brine will be darker and can look cloudy. Homemade vinegar and unlabeled vinegar are not safe for canning because the acid strength is unknown.
- Canning or pickling salt. Table salt contains anti-caking agents that cloud brine. Iodized salt can darken pickles.
- Granulated sugar. In this recipe sugar is mostly flavor and texture, not the preservative. Vinegar is the safety ingredient.
- Whole mustard seed, celery seed, and ground turmeric. These are the classic trio. Whole spices keep the brine clearer than ground versions, except turmeric, which is ground on purpose for color.
Equipment
Water-bath canner or a deep stockpot with a rack, pint or quart canning jars, new lids, bands, jar lifter, funnel, bubble remover, and a ruler or headspace tool. For the optional low-temperature method you also need a reliable candy or jelly thermometer.
Wash jars in hot soapy water. Keep them hot until filling. You do not need to pre-sterilize jars when processing 10 minutes or longer, which this recipe does at every altitude.
The tested canning recipe
This is the NCHFP bread-and-butter pickle formula. Yield is about 8 pints.
Vegetables and soak
- 6 pounds pickling cucumbers, 4 to 5 inches long
- 8 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 pounds)
- 1/2 cup canning or pickling salt
- Crushed or cubed ice
Brine
- 4 cups vinegar (5 percent acidity)
- 4 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons mustard seed
- 1 1/2 tablespoons celery seed
- 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
Optional firming agents are covered later. They are not required for a safe jar.
How to can bread and butter pickles, step by step
1. Wash, trim, and slice
Wash cucumbers well. Cut off the blossom end. Slice into 3/16-inch rounds. Slice onions thin so they match the cucumber coins.
2. Salt and ice for 3 to 4 hours
Combine cucumbers, onions, and the 1/2 cup canning salt in a large bowl. Cover with 2 inches of crushed or cubed ice. Refrigerate 3 to 4 hours, adding ice as it melts.
This step is not decoration. Salt and cold pull water out of the slices so they take up brine instead of watering it down. Skipping it is one of the main reasons canned bread and butter pickles taste dull and turn limp.
Drain well. Do not skip the drain. Water clinging to the slices dilutes the syrup.
3. Make the brine and hot-pack the vegetables
Combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric in a large pot. Boil 10 minutes so the sugar dissolves and the spices bloom.
Add the drained cucumbers and onions. Reheat slowly to a boil. Rushing this step can leave cold pockets in the center of the pot.
This is a hot pack. The vegetables go into the jars already heated in the syrup. That is the method the process times below are written for.
4. Fill jars
Pack hot slices and cooking syrup into hot jars. Leave 1/2-inch headspace.
Remove air bubbles with a plastic or wooden tool. Recheck headspace and add more hot syrup if needed. Wipe rims. Center lids. Screw bands to fingertip tight—snug, not cranked down. Over-tightening is a common cause of buckle lids and siphoning.
5. Process in a boiling-water canner
Place jars on the rack. Cover with 1 to 2 inches of water. Bring to a rolling boil, then start the timer.
| Jar size | 0–1,000 ft | 1,001–6,000 ft | Above 6,000 ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pints or quarts, hot pack | 10 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 minutes |
Those times come from the NCHFP table for this recipe. Pints and quarts use the same boiling-water times here. Half-pints should use the pint time.
When time is up, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, and leave the jars in the water for 5 minutes before lifting them out. That pause reduces siphoning—the loss of brine that leaves slices exposed at the top.
Cool jars 12 to 24 hours. Do not tighten bands during cooling. Check seals, remove bands for storage, wash the jars, label, and store in a cool, dark place.
NCHFP recommends waiting 4 to 5 weeks before opening a jar. The flavor is harsh on day two and settled after a month.
The low-temperature method if crunch matters more than speed
Boiling water works and is simpler. It also softens pectin. NCHFP allows a second process for this recipe: low-temperature pasteurization.
Place filled jars in a canner with warm water at 120–140°F. Add hot water to cover the jars by 1 inch. Bring the water to 180–185°F and hold it there for 30 minutes for pints or quarts. Use a thermometer the whole time. Below 180°F the process is not reliable. Above 185°F you lose the texture benefit and start cooking the pickles again.
This method needs attention. If you cannot hold the temperature band, use the boiling-water times instead.
How to keep canned bread and butter pickles crisp
Canned pickles will never match refrigerator pickles. Heat changes texture. You can still avoid mush.
Start with the right cucumber. Fresh pickling cukes beat day-old slicers every time.
Cut the blossom end. That single trim does more than grape leaves, which are unnecessary once the blossom end is gone.
Use the ice-and-salt soak. Do not shorten it to 30 minutes because you are in a hurry.
Do not overprocess. Start the timer only after the water returns to a boil. Do not add “a few extra minutes to be safe.” Extra heat only softens slices.
Add calcium chloride if you want a shortcut. Food-grade calcium chloride sold as Pickle Crisp or similar products firms pectin without changing acidity. A common Ball direction is 1/8 teaspoon per pint. Follow the label on the jar you bought. Unlike pickling lime, it goes into the jar and does not need a long rinse cycle.
Use pickling lime only if you will rinse it correctly. The official firmness variation soaks cucumber slices (not onions) for 12 to 24 hours in 1 cup food-grade pickling lime plus 1/2 cup salt in 1 gallon of water. Then you must rinse and resoak in fresh cold water for 1 hour, and repeat that rinse-and-soak two more times. Leftover lime raises pH and can make an otherwise acidic pickle unsafe. Do not use garden lime, builder’s lime, or aluminum containers. Do not use the lime variation with the squash version of this recipe.
What you can change and what you cannot
Home-canning safety is about acid and heat, not about “it looks like last year’s batch.”
Safe to change
- Dry spices: more or less mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, plus whole cloves, peppercorns, or coriander if you like them
- White vinegar versus apple cider vinegar, as long as both are 5%
- Onion amount, within reason, as a flavor choice (some cooks cut the official 8 cups in half so cucumber dominates)
- Jar size among half-pints, pints, and quarts, using the times above
- A small amount of Pickle Crisp in each jar
Not safe to change for shelf-stable jars
- Reducing the vinegar
- Adding water to the official NCHFP brine (that recipe has no water)
- Using vinegar below 5%
- Skipping the process or using an open-kettle “just pour and seal” method
- Making up a new vegetable mix and treating it as this recipe
- Using the lime soak and skipping the triple rinse
Sugar is a flavor ingredient in quick-process pickles. Lowering it does not automatically make the jar unsafe if the vinegar stays at the tested volume and strength. It does change the pickle. Cut too far and you have a sweet-leaning dill, not a bread and butter pickle. If you need a no-sugar or reduced-sodium formula, use a recipe tested for that purpose rather than guessing.
A tested variation exists: substitute slender zucchini or yellow summer squash, 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter, for the cucumbers. Do not combine that swap with the lime soak.
Canning versus refrigerator pickles
If you only want a few pints and will eat them within a couple of months, refrigerator bread and butter pickles are simpler and stay crisper because they never see a boiling-water canner. They are not shelf-stable. Keep them cold.
Canning is the right choice when you have a flush of garden cucumbers and want jars that sit in a pantry. Plan on using sealed jars within a year for best quality. Refrigerate after opening and use within a few months.
Problems that show up after the jars cool
Brine dropped in the jar (siphoning). Usually caused by packing too tight, leaving too little headspace, over-tightening bands, or pulling jars out of boiling water immediately. Sealed jars with some liquid loss are generally considered safe if you followed a tested recipe; slices above the brine may darken. Eat those jars first. Leave jars in the canner 5 minutes after processing to reduce this.
Slices floating above the brine. Common right after packing. Cucumbers are buoyant until they absorb syrup. As long as the jar sealed and headspace was correct, the jar is still a pickle. Exposed slices can fade.
Cloudy brine. Whole spices, turmeric, apple cider vinegar, hard water, and table salt all cloud brine. Cloudiness alone is not proof of spoilage in a sweet vinegar pickle. Watch for a broken seal, fizzing when opened, off smell, slime, or mold. Those jars go in the trash. Never taste a jar you suspect is spoiled.
Soft pickles. Wrong cucumber, untrimmed blossom ends, skipped ice soak, overprocessing, or old cukes. Next batch, fix those first before adding lime.
Unsealed jar. Refrigerate and eat soon, or reprocess within 24 hours with a new lid after checking the rim. Reprocessing cooks the pickles further.
Storage and how to tell a good jar from a bad one
Store sealed jars with the bands off so you can see if a seal fails later. Cool, dark, and dry is enough. Quality holds about a year.
A good lid is concave and does not flex. When you open a jar, it should smell like sweet vinegar and spice, not like yeast, rot, or paint. Discard anything with mold, spurting liquid, or a seal that failed in storage.
Frequently asked questions
Do bread and butter pickles need a pressure canner? No. A tested vinegar pickle is a high-acid food. A boiling-water canner or the low-temperature pasteurization method is the approved heat treatment.
Can I use English cucumbers? You can, but expect softer results. They have more water and thinner cell structure. Pickling cucumbers are the better canning vegetable.
Why does the official recipe use so much onion? Onion is part of the classic flavor, not a garnish. If you prefer more cucumber, reducing onion is a quality choice, not a safety one. Do not replace the missing onion volume with extra low-acid vegetables and then keep the same process.
Can I double the batch? Yes, if your pot can heat the vegetables back to a boil without a long lag. Uneven heating is the risk in huge batches, not the math of the brine.
How soon can I eat them? They are safe after processing and sealing. They taste like vinegar until they rest. Four to five weeks is the flavor window NCHFP gives.
What if I already added water to a blog recipe? If the recipe is not a tested formula, treat the jars as refrigerator pickles. Do not put an untested, diluted brine on a pantry shelf.
A good batch of canned bread and butter pickles is less about a secret spice blend and more about a short list of non-negotiables: 5% vinegar in the tested amount, a real pickling cucumber, the blossom end gone, a long cold salt soak, 1/2-inch headspace, and a process time that matches your altitude. Follow those, and the jars will keep. Give them a month, and they will taste like the pickle the name promised.