Pickled Carrots Recipe
Published August 10, 2022. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
These easy-to-make, tasty, pickled carrots are a wonderful snack or served alongside your favorite dish or even on a charcuterie board. I absolutely love eating these right out of the jar.
Pickled carrots are trimmed and cut carrots that are covered in a hot brine to help season them and add flavor, as well as extend their shelf-life. Pickling has been around for millennia and is extremely easy to do while being versatile enough in the flavor department to be customized to your liking.
Pickling is a great way to add flavor to vegetables, especially if you have an abundance of produce from your garden. While my version of pickled carrots is to be eaten in a certain time period while being stored in the refrigerator, be sure to watch my video below on how to can them and keep them at room temperature before you’re ready to eat them.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Carrots – You can use any cut of fresh carrot that you’d like.
- Sugar – This will help add flavor as well as preservation.
- Salt – I always use sea salt in my recipes, and this is used to help season the carrots and for preservation.
- Water – You will need cold water to help cut down the vinegar flavor.
- Vinegar – I used white distilled vinegar in my recipe.
- Mustard Seeds – These add awesome flavor and texture to the recipe.
- Garlic – A few cloves will give a huge flavor boost to the pickled carrots.
- Peppers – I used seeded and pithed, sliced Fresno peppers, but you can add whatever level of pepper spice you can handle or like to this.
- Herbs – A few fresh thyme sprigs go great with this, but you can also experiment and try other fresh herbs.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Prepare the carrots in whatever shape you’d like.
Place the cut carrots in a jar along with a few garlic cloves, thyme, and sliced peppers.
Next, make the brine and bring it to a boil over high heat. Ensure the salt and sugar are completely dissolved before removing them from the burner.
Pour the brine over the carrots in the jar and submerge them.
Cool to room temperature before adding on the seal and lid and placing in the refrigerator.
Flavor Variations
There are many other ingredients you can add to this existing recipe to enhance the flavor, or you can simply create your own brine. Here are some things that would go well in a brine.
- Cider Vinegar
- Red Wine Vinegar
- Ginger
- Coriander Seeds
- Cumin Seeds
- Celery Seeds
- Onion
- Jalapeños
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Rosemary
What to Serve It With
While pickled carrots are wonderful to eat alone, they go great alongside specific dishes or even in them. Here is what I like to serve them.
- Charcuterie
- Salads
- Crudité
- Antipasto
Make-Ahead and Storage
Make-Ahead: You can make these pickled carrots up to 1 week ahead of time.
How to Store: Place sealed in the jar with the lid in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 weeks. These will not freeze.
Chef Notes + Tips
- For best flavor results, wait at least 24 hours before eating the pickled carrots. The longer you wait, the more intense in flavor they will get.
- Make sure your jars are completely clean and sterilized before using them.
- Depending on the size of your carrots, you may need more or less to fill the jars.
- When stuffing the jars with the carrots and peppers, it does not have to be perfect or look perfect. The goal is to get as many ingredients throughout the jar as possible.
- Sometimes when adding the brine to the top, a lot of the seeds and additional ingredients don’t make it from the pot, so be sure to scoop them up with a spoon and divide them amongst the jars.
More Vegetable Recipes
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Video
Pickled Carrots Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 garlic cloves
- 8 carrots, cut into roughly 5” spears
- 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 1 seeded, pithed, and thinly sliced Fresno pepper
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 ½ cups distilled vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Instructions
- Place the garlic cloves to the bottom into 2 16 ounce clean and sterilized jars.
- Divide the cut carrots and place them into each jar along with 2 sprigs of thyme, and sliced peppers. See notes on stuffing.
- Next, add the water, vinegar, sugar, salt, and mustard seeds to a large pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Make sure the salt and sugar are completely dissolved before removing it from the burner.
- Pour the brine over the carrots in the jar making sure to submerge them.
- Cool to room temperature before adding on the seal and lid and placing in the refrigerator. Wait 24 hours before eating them for the best flavor. See notes on shelf life.
Served on a charcuterie board!
I just made this with two changes. I did slices of carrots on a mandolin and added one seeded jalapeño per jar. This gave it some heat without to much heat. It is very much like a relish dish that is served at some Mexican restaurants. I will probably slice the carrots a little thinner next time. I set it on its max thickness.
We once had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in Monterey, CA. Instead of chips and salsa, on the table, while we waited, was a serving of marinated jalapeño carrot pennies. They were yummy and I haven’t found a recipe for them quite that tasty. These are not that but they look delicious and I can’t wait to try them.
Yes, I’ve seen that at many high end Mexican restaurants.
Yummy. I want to do this once the carrots in the garden are ready. I make a delicious carrot and ginger marmalade which i created for my mother who can not have any fruit, not even lemon juice.
To extend preservation for longer than 6 weeks…Do you can/water bath your recipe for 15 mins?
You can
Can I make the pickled carrots in a glass jar that I saved from pickles I bought , or must I buy special jars for this?
that’s fine
Do the carrots get soft in the brine, or do they stay crunchy?
crispy
Can I use this same for asparagus and green beans?
sure
Your pickled veggies sound wonderful. I have a question about the salt. My hubby has a heart condition that requires extremely low sodium intake. Can I substitute potassium chloride (i.e. NoSalt) for the sodium chloride (i.e. regular salt?
I’m honestly not sure when it comes to diet restricted substitutions.
Great recipe
thanks for giving it a shot!!
can i cut sugar or not use sugar?