Small-Batch Garlic Dill Pickles Canning Recipe

19. August 2026

Guest Blog Post. Amy is the Director of Marketing and Communications for Joe Lamp’l (AKA joegardener®). In her spare time she gardens and practices her nature photography in a small suburban backyard in Northeastern Oklahoma with her dog Scarecrow. Amy’s new website and blog Toad and Sage Garden is where she features her garden photography and writes about ecological gardening and growing herbs, vegetables, flowers, and native plants in a suburban backyard.

Who says pickles have to be green? When most people picture a dill pickle, they imagine a dark green pickling cucumber. But one of my favorite takeaways from gardening and preserving over the past decade is discovering that pickles can be yellow, cream-colored, pale green, round, long, or anything in between.

Decorate your pickle jars with Custom Watercolor Pickle canning labels or Custom Apothecary canning labels .

Every year I grow a mix of cucumbers, and I pickle whatever is ready. Yellow, white, or green all make wonderful dill pickles. For example, this year I am growing Lime Crisp , Martini, Bushy , Double Yield, and Boothby’s Blonde from seeds I have saved in the past. And most of these will end up being dill pickles.

The Pros of Growing Lighter Colored Cukes

They're easy to spot. If you've ever crawled through a tangle of cucumber vines looking for one perfectly sized cuke, you know how quickly green cucumbers disappear into green leaves. Yellow, cream, and pale green varieties practically glow against the foliage, making harvest much easier.
You can grow more interesting varieties. Heirloom cucumbers come in an incredible range of colors, shapes, and flavors. Varieties like Boothby's Blonde, Lime Crisp, and many others produce crisp, flavorful pickles that are every bit as good as traditional pickling cucumbers.
They're just plain fun. Opening the pantry to jars filled with buttery yellow, ivory, and light green pickles is a little reminder that the garden doesn't have to follow grocery store rules.

The Cons

There are a couple of downsides to pickling cucumbers that aren’t bred and sold as “pickling” varieties.

The biggest one is that they don't trigger that classic pickle nostalgia. Most of us grew up seeing deep green dill pickles, so when someone sees a pale yellow pickle, they often pause for a second and give me a funny look.

I've lost count of how many times someone has looked at a jar and asked, "Is that pickled squash?" Nope, they're not. They're cucumbers.

I even had one person tell me they weren’t sure they could eat a pickle that wasn’t green. But once people taste them, the color stops mattering pretty quickly to most folks.

The other challenge is simply expectations. If you're giving jars away as gifts or taking them to a potluck, don't be surprised if people initially wonder whether something went wrong. It's just unfamiliar.

Personally, I think that's part of the fun. Gardening is full of opportunities to grow foods that most people never see at the grocery store, and pickling non-green cucumbers is one more way to celebrate that diversity. The jars may not look traditional, but they're every bit as delicious as their green counterparts.

My Small-Batch Garlic Dill Pickle

This recipe is adapted from Stephanie Thurow's Can It & Ferment It, specifically her Perfect Garlic Dill Pickle recipe. I've simply scaled it down to better fit the reality of my backyard garden.

One thing I've learned after years of growing cucumbers is that they rarely all ripen at once, especially early in the season. A full-sized canning batch from the book calls for 8 cups of vinegar and 8 cups of water, which works well for a large harvest.

My garden usually produces cucumbers a handful at a time. If I wait until I have enough for a huge batch, the earliest-picked cucumbers begin losing quality in the refrigerator. Harvested cucumbers become soft surprisingly fast, but if left too long on the vine, they quickly grow oversized, tough, and sometimes bitter.

Making a half batch lets me preserve them while they're still at their best.

Mason jars filled with sliced yellow pickles for our Small-Batch Garlic Dill Pickles Canning Recipe. Jars are decorated with our custom Watercolor Pickle and Apothecary canning labels | CanningCrafts.com

Decorate your pickle jars with Custom Watercolor Pickle canning labels or Custom Apothecary canning labels .

Small-Batch Garlic Dill Pickles Recipe

Recipe adapted from the Perfect Garlic Dill Pickle recipe in Can It & Ferment It by Stephanie Thurow. This recipe is a “Small-Batch” version of Stephanie’s original recipe that makes about half the quantity.

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Preservation method: Water bath canning (or steam canning)
Difficulty level: Easy
YIELD: Makes about 6-7 pint jars (yield will vary depending on how you slice & pack jars)
Head space: 1/2 inch (1.27 cm)
Processing Time: 10 minutes

My Pickle Brine

4 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
4 cups water
1/4 cup pickling salt plus 2 tablespoons

Bring the water, vinegar, and salt to a boil, stirring until the salt dissolves completely. By the way, I love this recipe because it’s easy for me to remember a one-to-one ratio on the vinegar and water. That ratio also makes the brine very sour and I love a potent pickle!

NOTE: You may have leftover brine. Store in fridge for later use.

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What Goes Into Each Jar First

For every pint jar, I add:

1 lightly crushed, peeled garlic clove
1 teaspoon dill seed or a sprig of fresh dill leaf or flower

If fresh dill is available, you can substitute several sprigs of dill weed or one flowering dill head instead of the seed.

My dill doesn't always cooperate with my pickling schedule. Sometimes it's still too small to harvest, and other years it's covered with black swallowtail caterpillars and eggs. Those years, I happily leave the plants for the butterflies and reach for dill seed or dried dill that I saved from a previous season.

Preparing the Cucumbers

You’ll need around 6 pounds of cucumbers for this small batch recipe. One of the nice things about this recipe is that it works with almost any shape of cucumber.

You can:

Slice them thin with a mandolin for sandwich and hamburger pickles.
Leave them as spears by trimming the ends so they'll fit neatly into the jars.
Or do what I usually do: cut them into chunky pieces and stack them into the jars like a game of pickle Tetris. I find a spot for every odd shape.

Pro-Tip: Wide mouth jars are much easier to pack pickles in!

Basic Water Bath Canning Instructions

Wash your jars, lids, and bands. Prepare water bath canner, lids, and jars. Put jars in hot water bath, cover, and simmer over medium heat until ready to use.

Pack each hot jar tightly with prepared cucumbers, garlic, and dill.

Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace.

Remove trapped air bubbles using a debubbler tool or wooden skewer. Readjust headspace by adding more brine if needed. Wipe jar rims and threads with a moistened towel. Cover with two-piece lids. Screw bands to finger-tip tight.

Place jars onto a rack in the canner. Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Cover, bring water to a boil. Once boiling, process pickles for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude* if needed (see chart below). Turn off heat and let jars sit in the canner for an additional 5 minutes. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely.

Let jars stand at room temperature untouched for 12-24 hours. After the jars cool, remove bands and check seals by pressing the centers of lids with your finger. If the lid springs back, the lid is not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.

Clean and wipe down jars. Decorate and date final jars with CanningCrafts’ labels. Store unopened jar in a cool, dry place for up to 1 year.

For the best flavor, let the pickles rest for a week or two before opening, although they're even better after about a month.

Tip: Store the pickles with the bands off until it’s time to open them. This helps ensure that no rust or mold develops between the band and the lid. Storing without the bands also allows you to see if a seal has gone bad while in storage.

Decorate your pickle jars with Custom Watercolor Pickle canning labels or Custom Apothecary canning labels .

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*Altitude

Living at a higher altitude affects home canning recipes, just as it does baking recipes. Many people are unaware that they live at a high altitude. If you live at a high altitude, you’ll need to increase either your processing time or processing pressure. Most canning recipes state this info for elevations of 0 to 1,000 feet above sea level. If you aren’t sure what your elevation is, get more info from the National Center for Food Preservation. Or call your local extension office if unsure.

Still Curious About Non-Green Cukes or Those Not Labeled for “Pickling”?

Here are a few questions I have gotten over the years.

Why do some cucumbers say they're "pickling cucumbers?"
Those varieties were bred to produce smaller fruits with firmer flesh, thinner seed cavities, and a size that's convenient for canning. But in my experience, they're not the only cucumbers that make delicious pickles.

Will my pickles taste different if they're yellow or white or lime green?
Not because of the color. Flavor depends on the specific variety, when it was harvested, and the brine. Not whether the cucumber is green, cream, or yellow.

Can you make pickles from regular cucumbers?
Yes. I like to get adventurous and work with varieties not labeled "pickling cucumbers." Many slicing cucumbers produce crisp, flavorful pickles when harvested at the right size. The best way to find your favorite is to experiment with several varieties.

Will pickles made from slicing cucumbers stay crisp?
They can. Crispness depends more on freshness than the variety. Pick cucumbers when they're young and firm, process them as soon as possible, and avoid overgrown fruits.

Can I mix different cucumber varieties in the same jar?
Yes! I do this all the time. As long as they're all fresh and harvested at a similar size, they can be packed together in the same jar.

Every jar of pickles is a little different depending on which cucumbers happened to be ready that day. Some are buttery yellow, some are pale green, some are long, and some are smaller and more chunky.

To me, they all taste like summer, and they remind me that the best pickles don't have to look like the ones at the grocery store. I hope this inspires you to think beyond the classic green pickle and try something new.