Do you love pickles (or even pickle juice) and hate carrying them in your lunch? Dehydrated pickles are the answer, but be warned. They are for serious pickle lovers ONLY!
I have a friend that loves pickle juice. In fact, she loves it so much that she drinks pickle juice and pours it over shaved ice, ala Sonic Slushy. I guess pickle juice is a thing!
Recently, we were talking and she mentioned that her family was not eating the pickles fast enough. She was drinking the juice and there were always extra pickles being left in the jar. I offered to dehydrate her pickles so she could have an easily portable, salty snack, full of pickle flavor, to take to work.
It worked wonderfully. The finished chips are quite salty and intensely pickle flavored.
I think that pickle chips are most likely an adult snack, due to the high salt content. Because here’s the thing – a large pickle will cut into about 10 slices. That means it is entirely possible that you could munch on 20 to 40 of these ships in one sitting if you are not paying attention, and consume the equivalent of two to four fresh pickles.
Would you really eat that many fresh pickles in one sitting?
Dehydrated Pickle Chips
Dry at 135°F for 4 to 6 hours
Ingredients: a jar of pickles; whole, spear, or chip cut. Experiment with using kosher dill, sweet dill, or homemade pickles for this project.
Directions:
- Take pickle slices out of the jar, pat until slightly damp. If you are using whole pickles, cut them into evenly sized slices (to aid with even drying).
- Arrange the chips on dehydrator trays. They can touch but should not overlap.
- If you have a bottom-heating dehydrator, you may need to rearrange the trays halfway through the drying cycle. Check the chips after 2 to 3 hours, and rotate the trays if necessary.
Related Dehydrating Articles from Rockin W Homestead
How to Make and Use Homemade Tomato Powder
Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather
Can you rehydrate pickle chips?
Why yes you can!
There is one catch. In order to get the chips tasting like pickles again, they must be rehydrated in pickle brine. You would think that the intense flavor of the pickle chips would be enough to permeate water and make pickle juice. But it doesn’t work that way.
Rehydrating pickles in plain water makes the dehydrated pickle look and crunch exactly like a fresh pickle, but it loses its pickle power.
It tastes like nothing unless your rehydrating solution is flavored. Follow this recipe to make pickle brine when rehydrating your chips – or even making fresh pickles.
Ingredients for 1 pint of pickling brine:
16 ounces of water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoons pickling salt
3 ounces distilled white vinegar (5% acidity)
2 tablespoons Pickling Spice
1 tablespoon Dill Seed
- Place pickling spice and dill in the bottom of a 1-quart canning jar.
- In a medium pot, combine water, sugar, salt, and vinegar. Bring pickling juice to a boil.
- Pour the hot over the spices in the jar. Allow to cool, cap and store the brine in the refrigerator for 2 days to allow the spices to infuse with the brine. Use it to rehydrate pickle chips for making relish or snacking. (OR you could even drink it like my friend.)
Here’s something to think about. We don’t often get the chance to change the way something tastes. How would you flavor your pickle if you had the chance?
This sounds really interesting. My older son loves pickles so I bet he’d happily tuck into pickle chips.
Love this idea – especially for lunch boxes! I am going to have to try this!
Could you use your oven and if so, what temp and how long? Thx
You could use your oven but you have to keep a really good eye on the process. Here’s what I would do – pat the pickles dry, so there is no extra moisture. Place your oven on the lowest setting possible and place the pickles on a cookie sheet. Leave the oven door ajar while the pickles are drying. Check them after 15 minutes and then every 15 minutes until they are done. Once they start crisping up, you might want to turn them over and check more frequently. Have you ever smelled burned pickles? It’s not pleasant!
Wow this looks really interesting! I can’t wait to try it out. I just got a dehydrator and it’s like a science experiment in my kitchen every day! Thanks for the idea 🙂
I often do dehydrate pickles. I love snacking on the bread and butter pickles plain. The dill pickles are added to salad dressing, tuna salad, potato salad, chicken salad etc. We’ve even put them on burgers.