Quick Pickle Red Cabbage Recipe

So…I have been ‘quick pickling’ for awhile now. I usually like to pickle anything that I am trying to use over an extended period of time (duh) mostly because everything I grow fruits all at once - always remember nature is not on your schedule! I have pickled my Jamaican scotch bonnets in the past, now if only there was a ‘pickling’ method to take care of the 200+ lemons that are about to become ripe (maybe a lemon honey preserve? for a hot toddy on those upcoming winter days?).

Ok back to pickling and red cabbage!

I LOVE pickled red cabbage - think falafel/Mediterranean anything with a mess of pickled red cabbage somewhere. I also had it as a side multiple times when I was in Hungary as well (sold!). In any case there are a variety of pickled red cabbage recipes online and I have tried a lot of them. The recipe below is when I had time and didn’t mind chopping stuff up but now I usually just do a lazy version that consists of cabbage, apple cider vinegar (ACV), water, salt and red pepper flakes.

Ingredients

  • 32oz Mason Jar

  • Plastic Wrap

  • Half of a red cabbage

  • half of a red, yellow or white onion

  • 5 garlic cloves

  • Rock salt (regular salt works fine as well)

  • Black Peppercorns (6 or so)

  • Red Pepper Flakes

  • Apple Cider Vinegar or whatever vinegar you prefer!

Directions

  1. Thin-to-medium-size chop the red cabbage and onion. I usually like to thin slice my garlic cloves.

  2. Heat two cups of water to boiling and mix it with two cups of ACV

  3. Mix in (2-3tsp+) of rock salt. Dissolve salt as much as possible.

  4. Layer in mason jar a third of the cloves, red cabbage, onions, red pepper flakes and peppercorns, then repeat two more times.

  5. Pour in ACV, water and salt mixture over the ingredients in the mason jar. Mixture should cover the top of the ingredients. The ACV mixture should ideally reach the very top of the mason jar rim. If you still have space, just top it off with more ACV.

  6. Put layer of plastic wrap over mouth of mason jar and then seal with cap. This helps protect the metal cap from rusting.

  7. Place in fridge and enjoy after 3 or more hours of soaking

Notes

  • Some recipes say to warm ACV and water together or separate, but I prefer to heat the water only because I don’t want to burn off the ACV too much

  • Rebatching: I DO rebatch my brine, but only ONE time. After finishing the first batch of cabbage I drain out the brine, warm it up a little bit, add more salt and pour it back over some fresh red cabbage in my mason jar and add more ACV to top it off. If your brine looks suspect, do not rebatch it.

  • Do eat with tacos, as a side for anything salt heavy (my family’s modus operandi) and spinach salads with just some olive oil, salt and cracked black pepper.

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