Pickled veggies are awesome. They will keep for a while in your fridge and are nice additions to salads and sandwiches, or lovely to eat on their own. Moreover, pickling veggies is especially great when you have a lot of leftover vegetables that you will not be able to use up in time. You can try endless variations of pickled veggies, and use whatever you have left to spice it up. This time I made a spicy version with ginger and jalapeño for extra taste, and if you follow this recipe you will be able to fill two 800 ml jars.
Photo: Tess Post
Ingredients
half of a big napa cabbage
6 medium-sized carrots
3 spring onions
1 small jalapeño pepper
3 cm piece of ginger
2 garlic cloves
white vinegar and optionally apple cider vinegar
warm water
sugar or agave syrup
salt and pepper or chili flakes
Note: You can use just white vinegar, but I like to add some apple cider vinegar too for taste. You can also use white wine vinegar or really any vinegar you like, but white vinegar is the cheapest option. More so, I did not specify the exact amount of water and vinegar you need because this depends on how much veggies you end up with. Basically, I use three parts water to two part vinegar, but you can adjust this depending on how sour you want it to be. I ended up using a measuring cup filled with about 700 ml of liquid to be able to fill up the two jars with veggies.
Instructions
Boil the water.
Cut all your vegetables except for the garlic in little strips, you can use a julienne-peeler if you are fancy or just cut everything thinly with a sharp knife. Make sure to cut the jalapeño (with seeds!) and ginger extra finely.
Throw everything together in a big bowl, add a generous amount of salt and pepper or chili flakes and mix this in with your hands, making sure that everything is thoroughly mixed.
Then, take two glass jars and fill them all the way to the top with the vegetable mixture.
Put a little bit of agave or sugar (depending on how sweet you like it, I added only 2 tablespoons or so) in a measuring cup and add your boiling water so that the sugar/agave dissolves. Then, add a generous amount of white vinegar (keeping in mind your preferred ratio) and optionally a little bit of apple cider vinegar. Next, take your garlic cloves and press of finely mince them, and throw that into the water mixture too. Stir everything to properly combine.
Pour the (still hot) water mixture over the vegetables until they are submerged.
Let the jars cool down a bit, put the lid on and put them in your fridge. Or eat them right away.
Depending on your vegetables and the amount of vinegar you used, pickled veggies usually will last for at least a week in your fridge, if not more. But I usually eat them within a few days. Just check when you want to use them if they still smell and look alright, and once you notice that they start to taste a little bit fizzy they are probably at their end. But don’t let that happen!
Photo: Tess Post
I made some last weekend and used them to make amazing vegan bánh mì with bbq tempeh. If you still have some random bbq sauce left in your fridge, definitely make some bbq tempeh because it is the best stuff. Just marinate your sliced tempeh for up to a few hours in the bbq sauce, mixed with some soy sauce and (smoked) paprika for extra goodness. Then bake in the oven until crispy and delicious.