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Pickling Spice Recipe

pickling spices including cinnamon sticks and bay leaves, on a black background
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This versatile spice mix has a variety of seeds from your spice rack. It is often used for pickling.
Course:
Sauces and Condiments
Cuisine:
American
difficulty scale

Makes:

Takes:

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
  • 3 inches cinnamon sticks, total length
  • 2 tablespoon dill seeds
  • 1 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon mustard seeds, any color
  • 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
  • 1 tablespoon celery seeds
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 2 teaspoons whole allspice berries
  • 1 teaspoon whole cloves

Optional Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon mace powder
  • ½ teaspoon cardamom seeds
  • 1 tablespoon juniper berries
  • 2 star anise pods
Notes:
About the salt. Remember, Morton's coarse kosher salt is half the concentration of table salt so if you use table salt, use half as much. Click here to read more about salt and how it works.
Metric conversion:

These recipes were created in US Customary measurements and the conversion to metric is being done by calculations. They should be accurate, but it is possible there could be an error. If you find one, please let us know in the comments at the bottom of the page

Method

  • Put the cinnamon sticks and peppercorns (and the juniper berries and star anise pods, if you're using those options) in a plastic bag and smash them with a meat tenderizer or a hammer. Crumble the bay leaves into flakes about ⅛ inch (6.4 mm) in size. Mix all the ingredients together and store in a tight jar.