Quick Red Onion Pickle
My quick red onion pickle recipe is one you can fit into a mid-week meal prep. There is no such thing as a boring salad when there are homemade red onion pickles in the fridge. I use red wine vinegar in my quick pickled red onion recipe as it helps the onions keep their lovely pink blush. If you don’t have red wine vinegar in your pantry, feel free to swap in apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar. Certainly white vinegar would do in a pinch but it’s going to make a sharper pickle.
Equipment
- One litre sealable glass or plastic container
Ingredients
- 3 large red onions
- 325 ml water
- 325 ml red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 3 tablespoons raw sugar
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
- ½ teaspoon black peppercorns
Instructions
- Using a microwave, heat 250ml of water to the boil in 1 litre measuring jug.
- Add the salt and sugar as well as half the mustard seeds, coriander seeds and black peppercorns, stirring to dissolve the crystals. Set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile, peel and slice onions into desired shapes.
- Add the remaining water and red wine vinegar to the measuring jug.
- Fill the 1 litre sealable container with the sliced onions, packing them together and leaving as little unfilled space as possible.
- Add the remaining mustard seeds, coriander seeds and peppercorns as you pack in the onions.
- Slowly fill the container with the vinegar mixture, leaving about one centimetre at the top (you may have some vinegar mixture leftover).
- Seal the container and store in the fridge.
- Turn the container over occasionally to ensure all the onions are evenly pickled.
- The pickles can be used straight away and last 10-14 days in the fridge.
Just before you cook with abandon…
Should I sterilise the storage container? As the pickles are meant to be refrigerated and consumed withing 10-14 days it’s perfectly fine just to use a clean glass or plastic container with a lid. If I am not in a rush I do usually sterilise the container in my steamer.
How to cut the onions. There are no rules about how to cut up the onions! It’s mainly about how you would like to present them on your dishes. But I find if you slice them too thin (less than 5mm thick) they end up being very thin once pickled. Also if you leave them too thick (more than 1.5cm) the pickling liquid may not reach the centre of the slices.
How quickly do the red onions pickle? The red onion pickles are ready to eat within about 15 minutes of hitting the vinegar. They won’t be fully pickled and will be really crunchy. But I am happy with that result on day one and then go on to enjoy them over the next seven days as they soften up and finish pickling in the fridge.
How long will the pickles last in the fridge? These pickles will be happy in the fridge for more than 7 days. But I do find at around 2 weeks they lose their brightness and can start to taste bitter. I tend to only make as much as I anticipate needing over the next week.