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Pickled Celery

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Using just a few ingredients, you can create a tasty snack that is pickled celery. It’s tangy, crunchy, and the perfect addition to egg salad, potato salad, and your charcuterie board array. 

Image, taken from above, shows a small mason jar open with sliced pickled celery in it. Nearby are several more jars with the lids still on.

If you’ve never heard of pickled celery before, you’re not alone – depending on where you’re from. In Japan, it’s a popular condiment, served beside seafood, fish, and many other dishes. 

For me, it’s a great addition to cheese and crackers as a snack. I also like to add it to classic potato salad for more flavor. 

Why pickle celery? 

As a gardener, you never want your hard-earned produce to go to waste, so you need a way to preserve everything. Pickled vegetables are an excellent way to do that. 

While celery can be frozen, there’s only so much freezer space to be had, which leaves us with canning. 

Since you don’t need electricity or to buy another freezer, you are able to can an almost infinite amount of food.

However, you don’t want to end up with mushy canned celery either. 

Thus, pickling. The vinegar preserves the celery without using the excessive amount of heat that would turn it into mush. 

Ingredients for quick pickled celery

Image, taken from above, shows several bowls laid out on a white surface full of the ingredients needed to pickle celery. Onions, celery, spices and vineager.

All you need for making pickled celery is a few stalks of celery, some spices, and vinegar.

Here is the ingredient list:

  • Celery
  • Onion
  • garlic
  • dill weed
  • mustard seed
  • peppercorns
  • celery seed
  • granulated sugar
  • vinegar
  • Canning salt
  • water

Some of these ingredients depend on the flavors you want. 

For instance, you can sap distilled white vinegar to apple cider vinegar or granulated sugar to brown sugar to change the flavor of the vinegar brine.

You can also alter the quantity or completely omit some of the other ingredients, such as dill, mustard, and peppercorn. 

One thing you should not do, however, is change the vinegar, salt, and water ratios. 

Those are the ingredients you depend on to preserve your celery. 

Image shows a small plate with several saltine crackers on it, a piece of pickled celery sits on one cracked. Nearby are several jars of pickled celery, one with the lid off.

How to cut celery for pickling

This all depends on how you want your celery to be cut. 

If you plan to use it in things like tuna salad or on hot dogs, you may want to dice it fairly small – maybe 1/4-inch squares. 

Or if you want to add it to your charcuterie board s bread, you may want to slice it into wider pieces. 

It’s really up to you. 

The only real difference it makes is in how long it takes to pickle. Smaller chunks will be permeated with flavors more quickly than larger pieces. 

Quick pickled celery recipe

The method for making pickled celery is very simple. If you can cook at all, you can do this! 

  1. You’ll fill your jars with celery, onion, and garlic. 
    Image, taken from above, shows 5 small mason jars with sliced celery in each. The lid for one jar sits nearby.
  2. Then heat the vinegar, water, mustard seed, celery seed, peppercorns, dill, and salt together to boiling, and pour over the celery, etc. in the jars. 
    Image, taken from above, shows a saucepan on a burner with the spices for pickling in the bottom of the pan.
  3. Fit with lids and rings, and water bath can for 5 minutes. 

That’s it. 

Making pickled celery really couldn’t be more simple. 

Tips and tricks for making pickled celery

There honestly aren’t a lot of tricks here. It’s so simple you almost can’t mess up. 

So these are more reminders than tips. 

  • Follow the recipes. Don’t try to wing it or water down the brine. As you’ll see in the troubleshooting guide below, almost every problem with pickles can be traced back to not enough vinegar or salt or the wrong kind of salt. Don’t risk watering it down! 
  • Don’t skip the sugar. I know you’re tempted to. I know every modern health article tells you sugar is the enemy. But it’s also a powerful preservative. So maybe it’s the enemy if you’re eating copious amounts per day but leave the three tablespoons here alone. 
  • Keep your surfaces and tools clean. This goes without saying, but when you’re canning, cleanliness is next to godliness. Don’t introduce extra bacteria that could end up spoiling our food into your jars!
  • Sterilize your jars and lids. In the same vein as cleanliness, make sure your jars are sterilized by boiling them or heating them in the oven before using them. 

Image, taken from above, shows several jars of diced celery sitting on a cutting board, with pickling brine poured into the jars.

Troubleshooting pickled celery

My pickling brine has a film on top, what do I do? It depends on the film. Is it from using hard water? If so, not a big deal. Just skim it off. If it’s slimy looking or growing anything, this likely means that your brine was not strong enough to stop the growth of bad bacteria. Throw it out.

My brine is cloudy, and/or there’s white sediment in the bottom. This can happen from using table salt rather than canning/pickling salt and may be a yeast development. If the pickles are soft, they’re likely spoiled, so throw them out. 

My pickled celery is soft and slimy. Your brine was probably too weak, or you introduced most to the jar (moldy garlic can sometimes be the culprit here). Again, these should not be consumed. Throw them out. 

My jar didn’t seal. Open the jar and check the lid for blemishes. Check the rim for blemishes, cracks, or debris. Reseal with a new lid/jar if desired, or store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. 

How to store pickled celery

Simply store sealed jars in a cool place out of direct sunlight. If you have a pantry or cabinet you keep canned goods in, that’s perfect. 

I also keep boxes of pickles and jam (or anything canned in pints or smaller) under beds because we live in a small house and don’t have a lot of pantry space. 

After opening a jar, you can store it in your refrigerator for up to a month. 

Other Recipes You Might Enjoy

Print

Pickled Celery

Tangy pickled celery with black peppercorns, mustard seed, and dill weed.

  • Author: Elise

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 bunch celery
  • 1 onion
  • 4 cloves garlic 
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 cup vinegar
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon dill weed
  • 1 teaspoon mustard seed
  • 1 teaspoon peppercorns
  • 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
  • 1 Tablespoon canning salt

Instructions

  1. Prepare water bath canner, and heat over medium heat until almost boiling
  2. Cut celery into desired pieces (diced, sliced, etc.)
  3. Slice onion and garlic into thin slices
  4. Pack with sliced celery and onion
  5. Divide garlic between jars
  6. In a small saucepan, bring vinegar, water, dill weed, mustard seed, peppercorns, celery seed, and canning salt to a boil
  7. Fill jars to within 1/2 inch of headspace
  8. Wipe rims, making sure they are free of debris
  9. Fit jars with rings and lids, and screw down firmly
  10. Place in water bath canner, and bring the canner to a boil
  11. Process for 5 minutes
  12. Remove from heat
  13. Open the lid, and carefully remove jars from the water, insulating against drafts with a  towel
  14. Let cool completely
  15. Store in a cool place out of direct sunlight

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6 Comments

  1. Spend some time playing. I’m interested in finding out more because I have strong views about it. Would you please provide more details to your blog post? We will all actually gain from it.

  2. I just pickled some celery myself using a similar recipe. It’s such an easy way to add a tangy crunch to salads and sandwiches.

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