Pickle juice rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 10 recipes to cook with it.

What is pickle juice?

Pickle juice is the leftover brine in a jar of dill pickles, a salty, sour, garlicky liquid most people pour down the drain. It is mostly vinegar (or salt water for fermented pickles) and salt, carrying the dill and garlic and whole peppercorns the pickles soaked in.

Treat it as a free flavor base rather than waste. That brine is concentrated acid and salt, which is exactly what a lot of dishes are missing.

It has also picked up a reputation as a quick fix for muscle cramps, which is part of why a once-discarded liquid now shows up bottled on store shelves.

Ways to Use It

The two best uses are brining and acidifying. As a brine, the salt and acid season meat all the way through and help it hold moisture, which is the whole idea behind pickle-brined fried chicken: soak the chicken in dill brine for a few hours before breading.

As an acid, a splash sharpens anything that tastes flat, adding tang and a little salt at once. Stir it into potato salad in place of some vinegar, the way American Potato Salad and Brigitte's Real German Potato Salad lean on that tang.

The salad wakes right up.

It also belongs in salad dressings, coleslaw, deviled-egg filling, and a pot of beans. Granny Fearing's Kentucky Baked Beans uses it for a sharp counterpoint to all that sweetness.

You can even reuse it to pickle again. Drop hard-boiled eggs straight into a finished jar, as Rosy Pickled Eggs does, and they take on color and flavor within a day or two.

Then there are drinks. A measure of brine goes into a bloody mary, while a chilled shot called a pickleback chases a shot of whiskey, and athletes sip it for the cramp-fighting reputation.

Cooking and Common Mistakes

Pickle juice loves fatty, rich foods that need cutting: fried chicken, pork, potatoes, eggs, and creamy mayo-based salads. It plays especially well with mustard and raw onion.

The biggest mistake is forgetting how salty it is. Brine carries a lot of sodium, so when you add it, pull back on the other salt in the recipe and taste as you go.

The second mistake is treating sweet bread-and-butter brine like dill brine. The sweet kind will throw off a savory dish, so match the brine to the job and reserve dill brine for savory cooking.

Do not boil it hard either. A long hard boil drives off the bright vinegar aroma and dulls the fresh, sharp flavor you wanted in the first place. Add it near the end or off the heat.

Substitutes

If a recipe calls for pickle juice and you have none, mix vinegar with water and salt. Start with equal parts vinegar and water, a good pinch of salt, and a little dried dill and garlic powder to mimic the seasoning.

Plain white or cider vinegar covers the acid alone when the dish has its own salt and seasoning. Brine from other jarred goods, such as sauerkraut or olives, also works, though each carries its own flavor.

For the cramp-relief use specifically, a sports drink or a pinch of salt in water is the usual stand-in, since the working part is largely the salt and fluid.

Buying and Storing

The cheapest source is the jar already in your fridge. Save the brine when the pickles are gone, or buy it bottled on its own in the condiment aisle, where it is now sold for cooking and for drinking.

Keep leftover brine refrigerated in a sealed jar. Because it is acidic and salty, it lasts a long time, easily a few months, though it slowly loses punch as the aroma fades.

One caution about raw meat. If you have soaked raw chicken or pork in brine, throw that batch out afterward rather than reusing it, the same as any raw-meat marinade.

Brine kept only for vegetables or eggs stays fine to reuse.

Quick facts

In Chinese

泡菜汁

British (UK) term

Pickle juice

en français

jus de cornichon

en español

jugo de pepinillos

Recipes using pickle juice

There are 10 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 10 recipes