Homemade Quick Pickled Jalapenos Recipe

This homemade quick pickled jalapenos recipe takes about 15 minutes to cook and makes some very tasty and very spicy hot peppers for you to enjoy. Seriously, the longest part of this pickling process is prepping your hot peppers and other ingredients.

This pickled jalapenos recipe is different than other recipes you can find online, because these will look just like the pickled jalapenos you can buy at the store (instead of staying bright green and super crispy…which is nice, but that’s not what I want). The awesome difference, however, is that you can make these homemade quick pickled jalepenos actually taste spicy, instead of being mild and bland like store-bought ones.

I LOVE Spicy Food!

It’s no secret that I LOVE spicy food. I’ve got my chili recipe and my homemade salsa recipe to prove it. And I’ve also written about the varieties of peppers that I grow in my garden. 

I grow as many varieties of hot peppers that I can. Usually the list includes: habaneros, serranos, jalapenos, ancho poblanos, one type of sweet bell pepper, one type of spicy bell pepper, and one other type of spicy pepper that I change up every year.

Mmm…I just adore heat in my food. I’m one of those people who pull out the pickled jalapenos jar from the fridge whenever I’m eating pizza, burgers, nachos, and subs. I’ll order a sub with jalapenos on it, take it home, and then add another huge spoonful of them to the sub to improve the spiciness. 

One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that pickled jalapenos, unless I spend extra money on fancy brands, can be quite bland at the store and at restauraunts. It really bums me out when my food is topped with jalapenos and it’s not spicy. Grr….

However, now that I grow my own hot peppers, I can make MY OWN pickled jalapenos and oh man, they are so flavorful and spicy, I’ll never go back to store-bought ones again.

This year, tragically, my jalapeno plants (all four of them!) were damaged by slugs and they still haven’t made much of a comeback (which prompted me to reread my post on how to recover from a poor gardening season for some encouragement). 

To balance things out, my garden decided to give me a surplus of serrano peppers. I seriously have never SEEN this many serrano peppers come from my garden before! I’m overflowing with them, and, in case you didn’t know, they might look like jalapenos, but they are much spicier!

Why I made this Quick Pickled Jalapenos Recipe…

When I saw my overflowing basket of serrano peppers, I went right to work figuring out how to preserve them. I LOVE it when my garden blesses me with a bountiful harvest, and I don’t want to waste a single bit of it.

However, I immediately ran into some problems: I wanted to can my peppers, but you can only water-bath can peppers if they are pickled. Otherwise, you have to use a pressure-canner, and I don’t own one (yet). 

Since I LOVE pickled jalapenos/hot peppers, I was fine with the idea of making pickled peppers. Then, when I was researching recipe ideas, I learned that pickling peppers are already kinda preserved, and they will keep for at LEAST two months, but possibly up to 6 months if you just keep them in the fridge. Since I go through so many pickled hot peppers, I decided not to bother doing water-bath canning on my peppers at all. 

I doubled my recipe, and got 2 quarts of pickled jalapenos out of it. I’m giving one jar to my spicy-food-loving friend and keeping the other jar for myself. I’m a firm believer in sharing the harvest with loved ones. 🙂

If you don’t go through as many quick pickled jalapenos as me, you can water-bath can this recipe in whatever size mason jars that you want. I have info in the notes section below. 

Quick Pickled Jalapenos Recipe

This recipe fills 1 quart mason jar.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sliced jalapeno peppers (or hot peppers of choice, like serranos)
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup filtered water
• 1 tbsp. sea salt
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. dried oregano (optional) (you could also use cumin, black peppercorns, or any other spices and herbs you like!)
• 1 tbsp. sugar (optional: use only if you don’t want it too spicy)

Directions:

1. Make sure you wear gloves! For real, this is no joke. Gloves are NEEDED. Be careful and avoid touching your eyes.
2. Wash and slice your hot peppers. Discard the stem, but keep the seeds in for that spicy kick.
3. Bring water and vinegar to a boil. 
4. Add the remaining ingredients: your jalapeno/hot pepper slices, sea salt, garlic, oregano (or other spices/herbs), and sugar (ONLY add sugar if you want a milder pickled jalapenos recipe!!!).
5. Once the ingredients are all added, turn the heat off, and let the ingredients cool off in the brine for 10 minutes. Occasionally mix your pickled jalapenos mixture, in order to get all of the peppers under the brine at some point. It will be easy to see which ones haven’t been submerged in the brine because they will still be bright green.
6. Pour both your peppers and the brine into a clean quart mason jar (or smaller jars) and store in the refrigerator. It will stay good for at least 2 months. 

Notes:

**As a spicy pepper lover, let me just repeat this incredibly useful tip: make sure you wear gloves! Not only that, be aware of everything you touch while you’re wearing the gloves. The spoon handle. The saucepan handle. The sink faucet handle. The knife handle. Etc. After you put the homemade quick pickled jalapenos in a jar and into the fridge (which you should do while still wearing the gloves!!), keep your gloves on. It’s time to clean up. First, wash your hands IN the gloves. Now, with the gloves still on, clean all the handles (don’t forget the fridge handle!), wash the cutting board and saucepan, etc. After cleaning up everything, wash your hands in the gloves again. THEN you can safely take your gloves off. 

**I mention all of the above because I have made these mistakes before. No need for you to go through it like I did! Heed my tips! Wear gloves and be smart with hot peppers. The burning feeling on your skin/eyes is no joke! And you feel extra bad if, for example, your hubby comes in the room, opens the fridge, and then his hands are burning hot because you forgot to wipe the fridge handle….trust me.

**You can use smaller jars and water-bath can them. Water canning is super easy. It helps to get a water canning kit, which comes with everything you need besides the jars. Sterilize your jars, add the pickled jalapenos and brine, and water-bath can them for 10 minutes. 

Do YOU love spicy food? What’s your favorite way to use jalapenos and/or serranos from your garden? I’d love some new ideas and I also love hearing from you. 🙂 Respond in the comments!

I hope you enjoy my quick pickled jalapenos recipe as much as I do! 

More Preserving Food Recipes:

• 4 Ways to Preserve Green Beans
• Crockpot Peach Butter with Honey
• Honey-Sweetened Strawberry Chia Seed Jam Recipe
• Homemade Herbs de Provence Salt Recipe
• Sleepytime Brandied Berries and Cherries Recipe