Quick pickled vegetables are ingenious - you can use almost any vegetable, play around with the spices and herbs you add to the brine, and although they don’t develop quite the deep flavour of fermented pickles, they are ready much quicker and can be kept in the fridge for a couple of weeks so you can keep nibbling away at them.
Radishes are one of my favourite vegetables to pickle - they’re so easy to grow yourself and they add a splash of colour and zing to salads, sandwiches, tacos, or elevate a humble avocado on toast dish to the next level. But you can use this exact recipe to pickle so many other vegetables too - thinly sliced carrots, beetroot, cucumber, red onion, and green beans are all favourites in our house.
Quick Pickled Radish Recipe
Ingredients (makes one jar):
One bunch of radishes (approx 15 medium-sized radishes)
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
Optional spices/herbs: black peppercorns, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, lemon or lime juice and zest, mustard seeds, chilli flakes, garlic cloves, thinly sliced ginger, thyme, rosemary, dill, bay leaves (here I used coriander seed, fennel seed, and peppercorns, but be experimental and use flavours you enjoy!)
Method:
Start by preparing your jar and lid - wash them thoroughly in warm soapy water, rinse well, then allow to dry.
Meanwhile, prepare the pickling liquid: simply add the vinegar, water, sugar and salt to a pan and heat gently to a simmer to dissolve the sugar. Take off the heat, add whichever spices you like, and allow to sit while you prepare the radishes.
Wash and trim your radishes, then thinly slice them and pack them into the clean dry jar.
Carefully pour the hot pickling liquid over the radishes, leaving around 1 cm at the top. Gently tap the jar on the counter top to remove any air bubbles, then screw on the lid.
Allow to cool to room temperature then store the radishes in the fridge for up to two weeks. They’ll taste great after just half an hour but the flavours will develop and be best after a day, and will be at their crispest and freshest when eaten within five days.
Nutrition (per 2 Tbsp radishes with 1 tsp pickling liquid):
Protein: 0.3g (Women: 0.6% / Men: 0.5%)
Iron: 0mg (Women: 0% / Men: 0%)
Calories: 10 (Women: 0.5% / Men: 0.4%)
Sugar: 2.0g (Women: 2.2% / Men: 1.7%)
Total Fats: 0g (Women: 0% / Men: 0%)
Saturated Fat: 0g (Women: 0% / Men: 0%)
Salt: 0.2g (Women: 3.3% / Men: 3.3%)
Fibre: 0.3g (Women: 1.0% / Men: 1.0%)
See the Nutrition Info page for more details on % of Dietary Reference Values for men and women.