Spicing Up Store Bought Pickles

Take standard store bought pickles, whether they are dill, sweet, sliced, spears, or whole – doesn’t matter.  Then as, Emeril would say, kick it up a notch. Go to your spice rack and start pouring spices in your jar of pickles. You can add pretty much any flavor you like. I would stay with one main flavor or a combo of two. If you go strong with too many at once the flavor will just get muddy. Here is a list to get you going:

Heat – whole dried peppers, red pepper flakes, cayenne, black pepper corns, prepared horseradish, or hot sauce.
Garlic – jarred minced garlic or garlic powder, stay away from fresh garlic because of the bacteria issues they can cause.
Saltiness – salt, any kind, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce
Sweetness – sugar, agave syrup, golden syrup
Spiciness – mustard seed, celery seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon sticks
Tangy – Different vinegar like white, red wine, rice, or cider

Once your done put the lid back on tightly and shake to mix all your added ingredients into the pickle juice. Pop it back into the fridge and wait about 8 hours, or an entire day if you can. If you use sugar or something else that doesn’t dissolve well in the cold, give the jar a shake whenever you grab something out of the fridge or once a day for the first couple days. The flavors will increase the longer it sits. When you finish off the pickles keep the juice and when you get a new jar dump some of it’s juice out and add yours. From what I understand you can do this indefinitely. The only time I think I would not do this “continuous pickle juice transfer” is if you use minced garlic.