I was gifted a home canning starter kit by Bernardin. I have never pickled before, so I was excited. There was only one problem that is we cannot have vinegar as both my children get a reaction whenever they consume it. So I decided to substitute lemon juice for vinegar, so this is how I ended up pickling with lemon juice. I used Sweet Sliced Dills recipe as the base and then made necessary adjustments. If you have no problem consuming vinegar, I would recommend using the recipe as is on Bernardin website.

There were some mistakes along the way which I have adjusted in the recipe below. For example, my husband said it was way too salty. My daughter said it is not crunchy, otherwise they were very similar to store bought pickles. This maybe because following the recipe I cooked the onions and cucumbers in the pickling liquid, which of course softened the cucumbers. Also the liquid turned cloudy, I don't know whether it was because of the lemon juice or because of cooking the onions/cucumbers in the liquid. So instead of cooking the cucumbers, next time I will put the cucumbers directly in the jar. I would love to hear what mishaps you had when you made pickles for the first time.

This recipe has two major steps. The first one is to brine the cucumbers in pickling salt for 12 hours or overnight. Then the actual pickling takes place the following day. This recipe roughly makes 6 jars of pickles.