Sweet Pickled Onions

Sweet pickled onions have five ingredients and a whole lot of flavor. You’ll be pleasantly surprised just how easy this pickled recipe is to follow and how well the ingredients lead to a savory treat. The only herb you need here is dried thyme, with the vinegar and onions doing the rest of the work in terms of flavor.

If you have wanted to get into canning but have always been a bit intimidated, this easy sweet pickled onions recipe will have you preserving your foodstuffs like a champ the very first time.

Ingredients for Sweet Pickled Onions

• Sweet onions: While this recipe specifies using sweet onions, you can also use red onion and keep all the other steps the same.
• Canning salt: Be generous with the canning salt, as it’s both about an infusion of flavor and preservation.
• White vinegar: Choose a decent quality white vinegar, as it will slowly infuse its flavor into these onions for weeks or even months.
• Sugar: The entire cup of sugar adds some sweetness, of course, but it is also an essential preservative ingredient.
• Dried thyme: Just 1 teaspoon of dried thyme is all it takes to add savory, herbal goodness to pickled onions.

Directions

Step 1: Salt the onions

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Place the onions in a colander over a plate, sprinkle them with canning salt and toss, then let them stand for one hour. After that time, rinse and drain the onions, squeezing them to remove any excess liquid.

Step 2: Boil the herbs, then simmer the onions

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In a Dutch oven, combine the vinegar, sugar and thyme; bring the mixture to a boil.

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Next, add the onions and return the heat to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the onions, uncovered, for 10 minutes before removing the Dutch oven from the heat.

Step 3: Transfer the mixture to jars

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Carefully ladle the hot mixture into four hot half-pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace in each. Remove the air bubbles and adjust the headspace, if necessary, by adding more hot mixture. Wipe the rims, then center the lids on the jars and screw on the bands until they’re fingertip tight.

Step 4: Simmer the jars, then cool

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Place the sealed jars into a canner with simmering water, ensuring that they’re completely covered with the water. Bring things to a boil and process for 10 minutes, then remove the jars and let them cool.

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Sweet Pickled Onion Variations

• Mix up the herbs: You can add many different herbs to this canning recipe, just don’t use too many at the same time. Beyond thyme, other options are rosemary, sage or coriander.
• Add some cabbage: To make a DIY sauerkraut, substitute cabbage for the onions or go half and half.
• Include some heat: Adding a generous 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes into the mix (not into each jar!) will spice things up.

How to Store Sweet Pickled Onions

If you store these jarred pickled sweet onions in a cool, dark, dry place, they can easily last a year.

Do canned pickles need to be stored in the fridge?

Only after they’ve been opened. Once a jar is cracked open, keep it in the fridge and consume the onions within two weeks.

Sweet Pickled Onion Tips

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Does processing time depend on altitude?

The processing time listed is for altitudes of 1,000 feet or less. For altitudes up to 3,000 feet, add five minutes; 6,000 feet, add 10 minutes; 8,000 feet, add 15 minutes; 10,000 feet, add 20 minutes.

What is canning salt?

Canning salt, also known as pickling salt or preserving salt, is pure salt without additives or anti-caking agents. It’s the best salt to use for canning, pickling and sauerkraut because it dissolves easily into brines and produces a clear liquid thanks to its small, even grains.

What’s the best way to thinly slice onions?

To thinly slice an onion, cut along the lines of longitude, which run from the “North Pole” (top) to the “South Pole” (root), with your knife pointed inward toward the center of the onion or cutting all the way across it.