Pickle juice has gone from being something you throw away after drinking pickles to a popular health tonic, whiskey chaser, and cocktail ingredient. You can even use pickle juice to make your deviled eggs (giving you a truly delicious finger food), include it in a marinade, or make pickle juice vodka.
Still, why stick to regular pickle juice when there are so many other types to experiment with, including jalapeno infused pickle juice? This treat gives you all the flavors and benefits of regular pickle juice, with an extra kick from the jalapenos. You could even use this to make pickled eggs with pickle juice.
Once you’ve tried this flavor combo once, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.
You’ve probably guessed the basics already. Regular pickles are made either by fermenting cucumbers in a salt-based brine or by using vinegar to preserve them. After a little while, you end up with delicious pickles and pickle juice.
Jalapeno infused pickle juice can be as simple as adding some jalapenos, whole or sliced, at the same time as the cucumbers. That said, there are some fantastic recipes out that bump the flavor profile up a few notches and provide helpful tips and tricks. You can even find jars of jalapeno pickles and a few jalapeno pickle juice products (in case you don’t want to make the pickles yourself).
Fantastic Jalapeno Infused Pickle Recipes
Refrigerator Dill Pickles
Refrigerator pickles is a term for the pickles that you make with vinegar and store in the fridge (you’ll see these called quick pickles too). While their flavor profile isn’t as complex as fermented pickles, this style certainly wins when it comes to ease of creation. You don’t even need to worry about canning processes or having a water bath.
The recipe from Lisa at delicioustable.com is interesting because it includes cucumbers, dill, jalapenos, and garlic, plus a selection of spices. Her post is fantastic if you’ve never made pickles before, as she offers detailed instructions, along with plenty of tips. She even talks about the best types of cucumber to use.
Spicy Pickle Recipe
This recipe comes from mamalovesfood.com and relies on vinegar as well. There are plenty of similarities to the previous recipe, but enough differences to make this one interesting and worth checking out.
April also includes one unusual optional ingredient – sweet red pepper. The red pepper isn’t there for flavor. Instead, it helps to show that the pickles are spicy. After all, sliced green jalapenos would be easy to miss among sliced cucumber pieces and not everyone wants to eat pickles with jalapenos.
There’s also some onion in the mix. While this isn’t essential, it adds a little flavor and provides interesting texture variation.
Jalapeno And Fennel Infused Pickles
Here’s another version to try out. This one comes from nouveauraw.com and features fennel as an unusual extra ingredient. Amie Sue just uses fennel stalks, but mentions that you could easily add sliced fennel root as well.
There’s also a bit of agave nectar in the recipe. This provides a touch of sweetness that perfectly contrasts the spiciness of the jalapenos. You can also experiment with the amount of agave nectar to get the best balance for your flavor preferences. Do you want just a hint of sweetness or a good balance of sweet and spiciness? The choice is yours.
Killer Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles
This recipe, from foodiecrush.com, doesn’t call for jalapenos specifically. It’s designed for Thai red peppers instead, as these work perfectly with the other ingredients.
However, Heidi mentions that you can easily use another spicy chili pepper. So, why not sub the Thai red peppers for jalapenos? Or, better yet, try using both types of pepper at the same time.
Another interesting thing is that the recipe calls for two types of vinegar (white vinegar and apple cider vinegar). Doing so provides more contrast than you’d get otherwise. Still, the approach isn’t essential. You could easily just stick to your favorite vinegar for quick pickles, if you want.
Vietnamese Inspired Pickled Vegetables
As the name suggests, this recipe doesn’t focus on jalapenos or cucumbers specifically. Instead, it’s a recipe for quick pickled vegetables that includes both jalapenos and cucumbers as key ingredients.
The style is fantastic for anyone who is a bit bored of traditional cucumbers. It’s a versatile recipe too, one that works well with plenty of different vegetables.
The full recipe can be found at goodlifeeats.com and you can easily tweak the vegetables you use. The amount of sugar and salt are easily changed too, so you can really make this recipe your own.
Garlic Jalapeno Dill Refrigerator Pickles
Wendie from butteryourbiscuit.com is another recipe creator who loves the refrigerator pickles style. Her recipe sticks to familiar ingredients, including cucumbers, garlic, dill, and peppercorns, although the addition of mustard seeds and onions provides some extra complexity.
Perhaps my favorite thing is that this isn’t a sweet and spicy recipe. That’s a nice change, as many authors add some sugar to balance out the spiciness of the jalapenos. Doing so works well, but isn’t always needed.
After all, spicy pickle juice is sometimes ideal, particularly if you’re using it as a chaser. The spicy version could also work well in some recipes.
Sweet And Spicy Refrigerator Pickles
Speaking of sweet and spicy pickles, here’s an example of that style. Think of this recipe a little like spicy bread and butter pickles. In particular, bread and butter pickles rely on a decent amount of sugar, which makes them relatively sweet.
These pickles are similar, except that they offer a distinct spiciness from the jalapenos as well. The sugar can also help your pickles to last longer (although you’ll still need to store them in the fridge).
Full recipe details can be found at thetoastykitchen.com – complete with substitution suggestions and other pieces of valuable advice.
Sweet And Spicy Pickles
Here’s another recipe to experiment with, from jerseygirlcooks.com. The style should be familiar by now, but Lisa does change the ingredients selection a little – enough to make things interesting.
While both this and the previous recipe are both referred to as ‘sweet and spicy’ pickles, their balance of heat to sweetness is likely to be quite different. You might need to try both to find the right style for you.
How To Pickle Cucumbers
Here’s a recipe from Erin at platingsandpairings.com. It’s a little different than the previous examples, as it has a strong teaching focus.
As such, the recipe provides many more details than normal. This includes information about the types of pickles, how you can use homemade pickles, and other approaches. It’s a fantastic recipe for beginners and even expert pickle makers might learn something new.
For this recipe, spicy peppers are included as an optional ingredient. You could easily focus on jalapenos here or perhaps include two different types of peppers in the same recipe.
Quick Pickled Cucumbers
Finally, we have these quick pickled cucumbers from themediterraneandish.com. This is another recipe that takes things slowly – teaching you everything you need to know along the way.
I love how Suzy takes the time to explain the differences between quick pickles and canning, plus why you might choose one over the other. She also offers a simple, yet powerful recipe, along with details about the types of spices you can use.
Her approaches allow you to create simple or complex flavor profiles in your pickles. You can even choose whether to use jalapenos whole, in halves, or in slices. The approach you choose will influence the flavor profile and heat of your pickles.
Jalapeno Infused Pickle Brands
Pickled Pink Gourmet Jalapeno Pickles
Pickled Pink is a relatively small company in Alabama that procures some truly amazing pickles. Their product selection includes Pickled Peaches, Garlic Dill Pickles, Sweet Onion and Peach Relish, and Honey Cinnamon Beets – to name just a few.
Today we’re interested in their Gourmet Jalapeno Pickles. As expected, this is a jar of sliced pickles that gets a kick from jalapenos. Interestingly, the heat comes from jalapeno extract rather than actual jalapenos.
While jalapeno extract isn’t ideal, the ingredient is still sourced from jalapenos and will provide the flavor and spiciness that you’re looking for. Who knows? The style might even taste better than if jalapenos were included in the jar.
The Real Dill Jalapeno Honey Dills
The Real Dill offers these exceptional Jalapeno Honey Dills, which are so popular that they’re often sold out. I love how the company offers long pickle spears, rather than sliced pickles. This style makes the pickles easy to eat and more versatile than normal.
The use of honey creates an interesting and unusual flavor profile. You still get that classic hot-tart-sweet balance that was seen in some of the listed recipes, but there are also some subtle flavors from the honey.
If the pickles are out of stock when you want then, you could always check out some of the other products from The Real Dill. They offer Bloody Mary Mix (extra spicy and regular), Caraway Garlic Dills, Habanero Horseradish Dills, and a handful of other treats.
Jalapeno Dill Pickle Chips
Dickey Farms is another company that offers a variety of interesting canned products, including Pickled Peaches, Moonshine Pickles, BEAR Jam, and Chipotle Peach Salsa (some a branded Dickey Farms, while others use the name Greenway Farms instead). Their products are inexpensive and look amazing, so it’s worth trying some out for yourself.
The company has a long history in Georgia, as they have been growing peaches in the state for more than 125 years. Companies with long histories like this tend to be reliable and an excellent source of delicious food.
As for jalapeno pickles, there are three types to choose from: Jalapeno Dill Pickle Chips, Jalapeno Dill Pickle Spears, and Hot & Crunchy Dill Pickles. The first two are milder and use jalapeno slices to provide plenty of flavor without too much heat.
The Hot & Crunchy version kicks things up by including a whole jalapeno pepper. This version should be spicier, although the product description still puts it on the mild side.
Dynamite Dill Barrel 1
Dynamite Dill takes a different approach, as they don’t just offer jars of pickles. They also provide a small selection of pickle juice products.
The one we’re interested in is called Barrel 1 – Jalapeno Dill Pickle Juice. Dynamite Dill produces this carefully, to ensure that the pickle juice includes a large amount of flavor. Part of doing so involves choosing the best pickle juice, rather than juice that’s left over after other uses.
Wickles Pickles
Now we have Wickles Pickles. This is a larger company that focuses specifically on making pickles. Interestingly, many of their products have a spicy-savory flavor balance, where the spiciness comes from hot red peppers. This makes them a little different than most pickle companies.
Unlike the products we’ve featured thus far, Whickles doesn’t provide many details about the specific peppers they use. These are simply listed as red spicy peppers. They might be red jalapenos or they might be a different type.
Still… if you’re looking for dill pickle juice with a touch of heat, the specific peppers used mightn’t matter all that much. If that’s the case for you, why not experiment with the product selection from Wickles?
McClure’s Pickles Whole Spicy Pickles
McClure’s Pickles is another interesting company to consider. They’re based out of Detroit, Michigan and rely on fresh produce whenever possible to make their pickles.
Their Spicy Pickles live up to the hype, as the pickles themselves have plenty of crunch and the perfect balance of spicy to savory. There’s also a Sweet & Spicy version that brings more sweetness into the equation. Interestingly, the Spicy Pickles are sold whole, while the Sweet & Spicy ones are sliced instead.
As with Wickles, jalapenos aren’t actually the peppers used in these products. But, this distinction won’t matter to everyone.
Pops Pepper Patch Spicy Pickle Brine Juice
Finally, we have this entry from Pops Pepper Patch. We’re including it as gallon jugs of spicy pickle juice are incredibly rare.
Unfortunately, this is another non-jalapeno product. The heat comes from habanero pepper instead. Habaneros are much spicier than jalapenos, so this pickle juice may come with a considerable kick. The juice’s quality mightn’t match the other products either. Still… it’s nice to have options.
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