A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to a cooking class featuring Mesopotamian recipes. It was an interesting menu that night, with kabobs, yogurt dip, lavosh bread and a lovely Persian dessert called Ranginak, made with dates, walnuts and pistachios. One thing we made for an appetizer was some Arabic pickled turnips. They were easy to make, quite tasty, and I was thinking, “that would be good with radishes”.
ingredients for quick radish pickles (click on any image to enlarge)
So here we are in late spring with a lot of radishes ready to harvest. It sounded like a good time to make some pickles! I made these with homegrown Daikon radishes, but they would be good with any type radish you happen to have available. Red radishes or Chinese Beauty Heart types (aka watermelon radishes) would be especially pretty.
jars of radish pickles ready to be refrigerated
With these quick and easy radish pickles, you don’t need to wait more than a couple of hours to have something crunchy to munch on. Most of the ingredients are likely to already be in your pantry. The pickles will keep for several days stored in the refrigerator.
Quick Radish Pickles
Print This Recipe
adapted from several sources
1 lb radishes, sliced or cut into chunks
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tbsp kosher salt
2 tsp sugar(optional)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1. Pack radishes into your favorite heat proof pickle jar.
2. Heat vinegar, water salt and sugar(if using) to a boil in small saucepan. Pour over radishes in jar.
3. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.
4. Let sit for several hours before eating, or even better let sit overnight.
Makes about one quart of pickles.
I have never heard of pickled turnips or radishes. I bet they are quite tasty!
The pickled turnips had one cooked beet in there to give them a nice pinkish color. I’ll make some of them this fall when we have turnips.
Now I wish we still had some radishes. I didn’t think to pickle them, as we usually end up eating them fresh in salads, or sauteed. I will plant a fall crop of watermelon radishes though, and I’ll have to come back and try your recipe! It looks like the Daikon radish grew really well for you!
I want to try it with the watermelon radishes too this fall. Daikons were what I happened to have, and even though they’re not real colorful, they are crunchy and tasty!
I have made pickles using a sweet pickle recipe and didn’t care much for them. This recipe sounds MUCH better. I have grown a radish called Pink Summercicle that would be perfect. It is a long red radish, not as big as Daikon, but bigger than White Icicle. Now I wish I had some growing in my garden so I could try this recipe.
The brine in that recipe is very similar to the base brine I use for my refrigerator dill pickles. I love my refrigerator dills and I bet I will really like the pickled radishes too. I am still waiting for my radishes to give me some sized up roots but I am snagging this recipe to use later when they do.
They are even better after a couple of days in the brine!
That looks great! We’re always wondering what to do with radishes! This is a keeper.
You have daikon already? How long will the pickle keep in the fridge?
Norma, the daikon varieties are April Cross and SaiSai. Both have done well this spring.
I really don’t know how long the pickles will keep in the frig, but I am guessing for several weeks – if they last that long!