Does your family go through pickles the way mine does? We eat them on sandwiches, burgers, BBQ, and even just plain for an after school snack. The question lies…what can you do with leftover pickle juice? It seems like such a waste to pitch such glorious flavor down the drain! And today I am here to share with you what my mom has been doing since I was a little kid to reuse pickle juice. This is the most delicious way to reuse pickle juice and also a great way to get your kids eating more of the healthy things you hope they do….
What can you do with leftover pickle juice?
Your kids love pickles…you have the juice leftover. How can you reuse your pickle juice? Take a healthy option like carrot sticks and dump them into the jar and let them sit for 3-4 days…
Once they’ve sat refrigerated for a few days they take on that great pickled flavor. My kids LOVE them and we serve them with sandwiches and school lunches. You can reuse the pickle juice only about one time using this trick as the brine starts to dilute and stop flavoring the pickles after one use.
My mom used this pickled carrots trick for years when I was a kid growing up and when I became a mom, that’s the first thing I started doing when the pickle jar was empty. Now we have a jar of pickled carrots and actual pickles on hand at all times for a quick after school snack!
I prefer the refrigerated pickle brands over the non-refrigerated because they just taste fresher and crisper, but any brand of pickles will work! You do need to refrigerate your carrots for the best flavor regardless of the brand of pickles that you choose.
We can’t keep pickled carrots around in our house very long…my kids love them and I love that I can sneak a veggie into their diets with this simple trick!!
What ways do you use leftover pickle juice?!
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I put drained canned beets into the juice. I buy the whole beets and slice them myself as we like thinner slices than the already sliced ones. And they soak up the flavor better.
We make “pickle sauce” out of the juice (as well as your trick to pickle other things like carrots. To make pickle sauce you chop up an onion, saute it in a bit of oil, add some flour to make a roux, then add the pickle juice and a lot of paprika. It will be the consistency of gravy. Sorry I do not have measurements as I was taught to make it from my dad just by doing. We dip bread in it. So good, likely something that comes from our Hungarian heritage I guess but have no idea really, maybe my grandma just made it up to reuse pickle juice.