How to Make Bread and Butter Pickles in Canada

Bread-and-butter pickles are the sweet, sour, mustard-spiced cousin of dill pickles. They’re the church-supper pickle. The grilled-cheese pickle. The “I-don’t-actually-like-dill” pickle. Canadian Depression-era home-canners spread them across the country and they’ve been a fixture ever since.

This is a from-scratch recipe, not Bernardin’s — both of theirs use their own pickle mix. It is written for the fridge. See the note in the Process section before you plan on shelf-stable jars.

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Corrected 31 Aug 2026: this page called its sugar-to-vinegar ratio “Bernardin’s tested ratio”. Bernardin publishes two bread-and-butter recipes and both require their proprietary Bread and Butter Pickle Mix — there is no from-scratch version in their catalogue, and the recipe below is from-scratch. So the ratio is ours, even though it happens to match theirs at roughly equal sugar to vinegar. The reason not to trim the sugar is unchanged, and it is the honest one: we have no source for a floor you could safely stop at.

What you need

• 2 kg pickling cucumbers (Kirby — see the pickling-cucumber variety guide) — yields about 6 × 500 mL jars
• 2 medium yellow onions — or 1 large
• ¼ cup pickling salt (non-iodized) — for the salt-soak
• 2 cups white vinegar (5% acidity) — apple cider also works
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
• 1 tsp celery seeds
• 1 tsp ground turmeric — gives the iconic golden colour
• Optional: ¼ tsp red pepper flakes for mild heat
• Ball Pickle Crisp (calcium chloride) — ¼ tsp per 500 mL jar for crispness
• Bernardin 500 mL regular-mouth jars, fresh SNAP lids, bands
• Standard canning kit — jar lifter, headspace tool, funnel, water-bath canner, ladle, large bowl for the salt-soak, large pot for the brine

Corrected 20 September 2026: this page gave ⅛ teaspoon of Pickle Crisp per 500 mL jar. Our crunchy pickles guide gives ¼ teaspoon, taken from the package, and an earlier correction standardised on that figure without reaching this page. Calcium chloride is a texture aid either way: it does not change the acid that keeps the jar safe.

Method

Step 1: Salt-soak (3 hours minimum)

1. Wash cucumbers under cool water. Trim 1-2 mm off the blossom end of each (see the soft pickles article for why this matters).
2. Slice cucumbers into 4-6 mm rounds. Use a mandoline for uniformity or a sharp knife. Don’t go thinner than 3 mm or they get limp.
3. Slice onions into half-rings of similar thickness.
4. Layer in a large bowl: cucumber slices, onion slices, sprinkle pickling salt, repeat.
5. Press down with a heavy plate to compress the layers and bring up brine.
6. Refrigerate 3 hours (or up to overnight; longer is fine but not necessary).

During the soak the cucumbers release water and develop a slightly translucent, firmer texture. The water pooled at the bottom is what you want OUT of the cucumbers before pickling.

Step 2: Rinse and drain

1. Transfer the cucumber-onion mixture to a colander.
2. Rinse thoroughly under cool water — at least 1 minute, agitating to wash off all the surface salt.
3. Drain well. Press gently to squeeze out excess water but don’t crush the slices.

Step 3: Make the brine

1. In a large pot combine:
   • 2 cups white vinegar
   • 2 cups granulated sugar
   • 1 tbsp mustard seeds
   • 1 tsp celery seeds
   • 1 tsp ground turmeric
   • Optional: ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
2. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves.

Step 4: Add cucumbers, bring back to boil

1. Add the drained cucumber-onion slices to the boiling brine.
2. Stir gently to coat.
3. Bring back to a boil — this happens fast, about 2-3 minutes. Do NOT boil long or the slices go soft.
4. As soon as the brine returns to a full boil, remove from heat and start jarring.

Step 5: Pack the jars

1. Have your water-bath canner simmering with enough water to cover jars by 2.5 cm.
2. Have hot jars ready, fresh SNAP lids on the counter.
3. Add ¼ tsp Pickle Crisp to each hot jar.
4. Use a slotted spoon to pack hot cucumber-onion slices into hot jars. Pack snugly, leaving 2 cm of room at the top.
5. Pour hot brine over the slices, covering them completely and leaving 1 cm (½ inch) headspace.
6. Run the headspace tool down inside each jar to release air bubbles. Top up brine if needed.
7. Wipe rims clean. Apply fresh SNAP lids fingertip-tight.

Step 6: Process

1. Lower jars into the canner. Water should cover by 2.5 cm.
2. Bring water back to a rolling boil.
3. Process for the time your tested recipe gives — see the note below. We do not publish one for this version.
4. Adjust for altitude per our altitude-adjustments guide.
5. Cool 24 hours undisturbed on a towel.

Why there is no number in step 3. Bernardin publishes two bread-and-butter pickle recipes and both require their own Bread and Butter Pickle Mix — there is no from-scratch version in their catalogue. Their Traditional Bread and Butter Pickles processes 500 mL jars for 15 minutes; the mix is what their time was calculated around, so it is not a number we can hand to a different recipe. This page used to say 10 minutes, which came from nowhere we could trace and was five minutes under the closest published figure.

What to do: make this recipe and refrigerate it — it keeps about three months, and that is how most people eat bread-and-butter pickles anyway. If you want jars for the pantry, buy the mix and follow Bernardin’s recipe exactly.

6. Check seals.

If a jar doesn’t seal: the 24-hour rule applies.

Wait 2 weeks before eating

Like all pickles, bread-and-butter pickles need time. Two weeks is the minimum; four weeks gets peak flavour.

Storage

• Cool, dark, dry place at room temperature
• Best quality 12 months — Bernardin’s guidance is to use home-canned food within one year. That is a quality window, not an expiry: the jar is as safe as the process made it. Colour, flavour and texture fade.
• After opening: refrigerate, use within one week (HealthLink BC)
• Inspect before opening — turmeric makes the brine slightly cloudy by design, but excessive cloudiness with off smell means spoilage

Corrected 31 Aug 2026: this page previously gave an after-opening window of 1-2 months. HealthLink BC File #22 publishes one week for any opened home-canned container — “Once the container has been opened, refrigerate leftovers, and use within one week.” Our longer figure was never attributed to anyone. The shelf life of the sealed jar is unchanged.

Variations

Bread-and-butter pickles with peppers

Add 1 thinly sliced green or red bell pepper to the salt-soak step. Adds colour variety and slight sweetness.

Spicy bread-and-butter

Increase red pepper flakes to 1 tsp per batch, or add 2-3 thinly sliced jalapeños to the salt-soak. The mustard-sweet base balances the heat well.

Zucchini bread-and-butter pickles

Substitute 2 kg of small zucchini (under 4 cm diameter) for the cucumbers. Salt-soak the same way. Zucchini holds shape better than people expect.

Mustard pickles (Maritime variant)

Add 2 tbsp prepared yellow mustard to the brine. Brine becomes yellow-orange and thicker. The classic Maritime Canadian church-supper version.

Refrigerator bread-and-butter pickles

Skip the water-bath processing entirely. Pack the cooked-and-jarred pickles into the fridge after step 5. Keeps 6-8 weeks refrigerated. This window is ours. No authority we could find publishes a keeping time for a home-made refrigerated preserve. Past it, Québec’s rule applies: “When in doubt, throw it out!” Same flavour development timeline.

How to use

• On grilled cheese — the canonical pairing
• On burgers instead of dill pickle slices — sweeter and tangier
• In ham sandwiches with mustard and butter on rye bread
• In tuna or chicken salad — chopped fine
• Beside Sunday roast turkey or ham
• As a hot dog topping — sweeter than relish
• In potato salad — chopped, replaces relish
• In meatloaf glazes — sweet acidic counterpoint
• Straight from the jar — the standard Canadian-grandmother snack

Common problems

• Soft pickles. See why pickles go soft — five causes apply. For bread-and-butter specifically, the most common are: skipped salt-soak, sliced too thin, or boiled too long in step 4.
• Brine is dark / muddy. Old turmeric or too much turmeric. The colour should be golden-yellow not brown.
• Pickles are too sweet. The sugar is part of the ratio this page publishes — ours, not Bernardin’s — and we have no source for a floor you could safely stop at, so the honest answer is to use a Bernardin-tested reduced-sugar recipe rather than trimming this one. In a vinegar pickle the acid is what keeps the jar safe; the sugar is doing flavour, texture and keeping quality.
• Brine separated in the jar. The mustard seeds and turmeric can settle. Shake gently before opening.
• Onion turned pink. Reaction between onion enzymes and acid; harmless.
• Jars didn’t seal. 24-hour rule.

Why they’re worth making

• Best gift pickle — even people who don’t like dill pickles love bread-and-butters
• Keeps a full year — Bernardin’s guidance is to use home-canned food within one year; the jar is as safe as the process made it past that, and it just loses crunch and colour
• Uses end-of-summer cucumbers when you can’t face another fresh-cucumber salad
• Heritage Canadian recipe — passed down through generations, especially in rural Ontario, the Maritimes, and Saskatchewan

Next steps

• How to make dill pickles in Canada — the savoury counterpart
• How to make dilly beans — same August harvest window
• Why pickles go soft — texture troubleshooting
• Canning altitude adjustments — required reading
• Best water-bath canner — equipment
• Water-bath canning pillar — broader method
• Corn relish and pickled jalapeños.