Honey Habanero Pickles. Say it over and over because you are about to fall in love with these sweet and spicy morsels. You will also fall in love with how easy it is to make homemade pickles!
Honey Habanero Pickles are the best of both worlds, spicy and sweet. Eat them as a snack or pair them your favorite burger or hot dog.
Pickles have never been my thing. I wish they were. Relatively low calorie and low fat with vinegar that has loads of health benefits, they just hadn’t been.
Make sure you PIN Honey Habanero Pickles before leaving!
Although I’m willing to try new flavors on the off-chance I will fall in love. I soon realized that I just don’t care for store-bought pickles, but good, ole, homemade pickles were fantastic! Specifically spicy pickles.
After having a similar sweet and spicy pickle chip on a burger and from a seller at a Farmer’s Market and then again at a local hamburger joint, I decided to try and make my own refrigerator pickles with honey and habanero. Sweet and spicy- YUM!
Full disclosure…. I have never canned or pickled anything, so making Honey Habanero Pickles was a new experience for me.
The instructions I found online for refrigerator pickles seemed to be fairly straight forward, so I just decided to play with the ingredients a little to make them my own craving of sweet and spicy, honey and habanero.
My first question was, of course, what are the best cucumbers for making pickles? I learned to skip the same type of cucumber I would use for a salad, like hothouse or English cukes.
And instead opt for a medium skinned pickle that is a little smaller. The skins hold up better to pickling ingredients and they just fit better into a mason jar. In fact, my grocer has a package that is specifically labeled “Cucumber Pickles”.
The I used the ingredients I thought would be best for reaching the sweet and spicy concoction I was aiming for including fresh garlic, honey, whole mustard seeds, whole peppercorns and of course habanero.
PRO TIP: The potency of your garlic depends on how many of its fibers are ruptured to release the flavor. Minced garlic will provide more garlic flavor than simply smashed or sliced. If you want more garlic essence, minced or press it. If you want less, slice or smash.
Most people think the orange in the picture is carrot, but its not, it is the habanero pepper. You can certainly add carrots and pickle them alongside cucumbers or just do carrots alone.
I had no clue how my Honey Habanero Pickles would turn out. Every day hubby would look in the fridge and ask “are they ready yet?” and on the 8th day, I let him try one. Poof! I did it!
FACT: Pickling is just a process of fermenting, similar to making kimchi or kombucha. This process creates a brine that is good for you gut and digestive tract.
Sweet and spicy, honey habanero pickle chips for all! The two mason jars in my fridge were gone in two days! Other than the foresight to prepare Honey Habanero Pickles ahead of time, they are very simple to make and even tasty to eat!
If you want, you can also add beets, asparagus cabbage to your pickle jar for a medley of sweet and spicy goodness! Perfect for charcuterie platters or a cool (but spicy) summer treat! Even though they are spicy, they still seem to be refreshing.
Tools for making Honey Habanero Pickles:
Mason Jars
– even if you don’t plan to make a big batch, get a bigger jar than you think you need.
Funnel
– You’ll want this to control the pour of brine into the mason jar.
Mandolin Slicer
– If you want fun chips with grooves, you’ll need to cut them with this bad boy!
You’ll also love these easy snack recipes!
- 3 Pepper Smoked Hickory Wings
- Nashville Hot Chicken Sliders
- Cheesy Garlic Meatball Bombs
- Cheeseburger Pizza
- Pulled Pork Pork Potato Chip Nachos
Questions you might have about how to make homemade pickles:
Are pickles healthy? This questions always makes me cringe. Mainly because everyone’s definition of “healthy” is different and I am NOT a nutotiona professional nor a physician. You can scroll on down to look at the nutritional information and make a judgement call all on your own.
How long are homemade pickles good for? Homemade pickles don’t contain the same preservatives as mass produced pickles, but the fermentation process does naturally preserve them. If kept in the refrigerator, they should be good for up to 2 weeks after being initially opened.
Do homemade pickles need to be refrigerated? Yes, pickles need to be refrigerated.
Can I make pickles faster? Unfortunately, no. There aren’t any tips or tricks for speeding up the fermentation process.
What happens during the pickling process? For the pickling process to get started, vegetable sugars need to metabolize to prevent the growth of bad bacteria. Cucumbers naturally have good bacteria already in them (don’t worry, it is harmless).
The process produces antibacterial substances, carbon dioxide and alcohol, without changing the vitamin content of the vegetable. This is known as lactic acid.
Can I cut my pickles into spears instead of chips? Sure you can! Smaller pieces will pickle faster, so spears might need an additional day or two to fully ferment.
Honey Habanero Pickles
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4-5 pickling cucumbers approximately .75 pounds
- 3 cups water
- 3/4 cups distilled white vinegar
- 3/4 cup honey
- 1 teaspoon whole mustard seed
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 2 habanero peppers stem removed, cut into fourths (remove seeds for less heat)
- 2 garlic cloves peeled
- 2 teaspoons whole white peppercorn
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pot, combine water through Kosher salt. Bring to a low simmer, stirring until all ingredients (except mustard seed) are dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- In the bottom of two 16 ounce mason jars, place habanero, garlic and peppercorns, dividing evenly.
- Cut cucumbers according to preference, either sliced with a mandolin slicer or into spears. Divide evenly in mason jars.
- When cooled, divide liquid into jars. You might have more than you need, that is fine, just discard it.
- Screw on tops and place in refrigerator.
- The amount of time it will take for them to “pickle” depends a lot on the size of your pickle. Mine were rather thin and cut into 1/2 inch disks, which took 10 days. Thick pickles could take closer to one month.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, come back and let us know how you liked it!
I was buying these at the local farmers market but the vendor was not making enough money to make it worthwhile. So I found this recipe and it is identical and amazing.
Thanks
Can these be canned or refrigerated only?
Hi Shannon, they can be canned, but I am not a canning expert so I did not include instructions on how to do this.
These were fantastic! The hardest part was waiting for them to be ready. Served on burgers with rave reviews.
Amazingly easy to make and oh, so good. The hardest part is waiting for them to be ready.
Can I do a water bath and store these for a long time
Yep! Just like you would any other pickle.
I am going to make tomorrow. But how long if not opened can they stay in refrig.
As long as they are submerged, then up to a month.
The Honey Habanero pickles are the best!! Everyone that tried one, had to have more!! I am making my second recipe now!!
Thanks! We love to hear great feedback. Enjoy!
Gonna try making these tonight. They sound interesting.
Just an FYI about the “remove the seeds for less heat” comment. Seeds in all pepper types do not contain capsacin, which is what makes the heat. It’s a wide spread belief that they are hottest part of a pepper because they tend to get stuck in your teeth, so you dig them out with your tongue. The capsacin is stored in the white “membrane” that runs down the four sides of any pepper. The seeds sometime press against these membranes getting capsacin on them, but it’s really the rubbing of your tongue on the capsacin affected seed that starts the burn. This is what leads to that belief. If you want less heat, cut any pepper in half lengthwise and then slice off the white vein running the length and dispose.
Good to know! Thanks, Wes. Let us know how you like the recipe!
So, i finished making them about 15 hours ago, so they haven’t marinated long enough, but you can tell they are going to be delicious. My grocery store was out of standard habaneros so I had to use Carolina Reaper peppers. These pickles are super hot which is great. I made some Jalapeño Cilantro Basil pickles at the same time and I had to chase a honey pickle with jalapeño one to alleviate some of the heat, lol. I’ll definitely make these again, but to suit my personal taste better I think I will up the vinegar and honey a bit. I might even replace some of the water with lime juice.
Thanks, Jessica!
Thank you for the feedback!
I made these for some friends for their birthday and they LOVED them! You can’t really taste the honey but they were hot and delicious! I just picked up some more ingredients to make another batch! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!!
Yay! And thank you for stopping by to let us know!
So, so good, though I did modify it slightly for my needs. I was going to water bath can them, so I upped the vinegar to a cup and a half just to be safe. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. We *love* them! I made them late last fall with the last of my cucumbers and habaneros, and we’ve been enjoying them since! I’ll be making again this summer for sure! 🙂
Can these be processed in a water bath for shelf storage?
Hi Carolyn, I really wish I could answer this question, but I am not an expert canner, in fact, I’ve never canned anything! I wouldn’t want to send you in the wrong direction, so I generally send folks over to the BALL site for instructions. However, I do beleive that this is something would can very well. https://www.freshpreserving.com/canning-101-getting-started.html