Easy Japanese Pickled Cucumber Recipe - Explore Cook Eat (2024)

FAQs

What is the name of the Japanese cucumber pickle? ›

Japanese pickled cucumber is a quick and easy side dish that is extremely healthy and bursting with flavor!

Japanese cucumbers are an excellent source of vitamins K, A, and C, folic acid, potassium, and silica, which is a trace mineral that helps strengthen connective tissue. Japanese cucumbers in pickled form are an essential component in Japanese cuisine.

Toss cucumbers with 3 tablespoons salt, and place in a colander set over a bowl. Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Drain, rinse, and drain again. Divide cucumbers, garlic, and dill among jars.

The next step is to make a saltwater solution and soak your cucumbers for a minimum of 12 hours (up to 7 days). The beauty of soaking your cucumbers is that you don't need to be ready to make pickles right when you pick your cucumbers (or bring them home from the market).

A specialty of Kyoto, shibazuke is a mix of chopped cucumbers and eggplant that has been salted and brined with red shiso. It has a stunning purple-magenta hue that renders the vegetable pieces nearly unrecognizable from their original forms.

Nozawana may be substituted with bitter greens such as turnip, radish or daikon leaves, mustard, or kale.

Sodium in pickled cucumbers

Too much salt in the diet can raise blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease. Sodium can also strip calcium from bones. That can weaken bones and increase the risk of fractures.

As a result, eating too many pickles may be risky for anyone with liver disease or kidney conditions. Diets high in sodium may increase your risk of gastric cancer. High salt intake may damage your stomach directly, leading to cancer, or it may lead to infections and ulcers that eventually become cancerous.

Contain Anti-Inflammatory Properties – Cucumbers are known for their anti-inflammatory properties. Eating cucumber pickles can help to reduce inflammation in the body, which can help to reduce the risk of several health problems, such as arthritis and asthma.

Most pickle recipes call for distilled white vinegar. This is the clear, colorless vinegar made by fermenting grains. It has a mellow aroma, tart acid flavor and does not affect the color of light-colored vegetables or fruits.

Is apple cider vinegar good for pickling cucumbers? ›

I recommend using the more natural apple cider vinegar, which is from apples, instead of other vinegars. Add enough liquid for half the number of jars you have. This is because the pickle brine will fill in the space where the packed pickles are in the jars.

It may be a normal reaction during fermentation caused by bacteria. If the pickles are soft, they are spoiled from the yeast fermentation. Don't use them. Using too weak a salt brine or vinegar solution may cause soft or slippery pickles, as can using moldy garlic or storing the pickles at too warm a temperature.

You will need a recipe, most of which will tell you to salt your sliced cucumbers and let them sit for about 3 hours (more is better). This salt treatment draws water out of the cucumbers and flavors them, so it's critically important.

For a quick and easy way to help ensure crisp pickles: soak cucumbers in ice water for 4 to 5 hours before pickling. This is a safer method for making crisp pickles. Using lime, or calcium hydroxide, in solution for soaking cucumbers changes the amount of acid in the cucumber tissue.

The basic ratio for quick pickles is 1:1 vinegar to water, and includes some combination of salt and sugar. Another ratio that is commonly followed is the 3:2:1 method, using three parts vinegar, two parts water, and 1 part sugar.

Since most of raw vegetables used for tsukemono are cruciferous vegetables, including daikon（radish),hakusai（chinese radish ）, nozawana, takana, and turnips, intake of tsukemono is also expected to help maintaining health functionality.

Japanese pickles (漬物, tsukemono) are an important part of the Japanese diet, served with practically every traditional meal alongside rice and miso soup. They are valued for their unique flavors and commonly used as a garnish, relish, condiment, palate cleanser or digestive.

Sunomono refers to specifically quick pickled cucumbers. Therefore, sunomono is a type of tsukemono.

Takuan, also known as takuwan or takuan-zuke, is dried and pickled daikon. It's a traditional popular tsukemono (Japanese-style pickles).