Zucchini- Hot Pepper Pickles: For the Love of Canning

This post is sponsored by the makers of Ball® home canning products.*

I was a stubborn child, and because of that I tended to hold grudges over things that were slightly ridiculous. One of the silliest of these incidents was over a zucchini. I don’t know if your primary school was anything like mine, but we had a day that everyone brought a vegetable to school; and for some unknown reason, said vegetable needed to be dressed up in a costume. I had been very excited and selected the biggest zucchini from my mother’s garden and dressed it up elaborately in my doll’s clothes. This zucchini was wearing a dress, a beret, a jacket, and even had googly eyes- but the pièce de résistance was one of my prized possessions, a very sought-after (in the second grade) doll’s messenger bag full of schoolbooks. I was very proud of myself and my well-dressed zucchini.

Then disaster struck- I somehow managed to lose the messenger bag, never to be seen again. Instead of blaming myself, I blamed the zucchini. I was livid, and this is where my stubbornness came into play- I wanted ABSOLOUTELY nothing to do with zucchinis for years to come. So long in fact that as an adult I didn’t think I liked the taste of zucchini. Now, as I’m sharing a Zucchini-Hot Pepper Pickle recipe, you know that I’ve gotten over my childhood grudge, and zucchini is now a staple in both my garden and my pantry!

I slowly started loving zucchini again as I started my garden in Colorado. After moving here from New England, I wanted to plant things that I knew were relatively fool proof! And zucchini is both hardy and prolific. While honing my new ‘high desert’ gardening skills the zucchini overflowed! I needed to start canning my bounty, and my love of canning brought back my love for this versatile squash so much so that my pantry shelves are lined with Ball Canning Jars full of a variety of zucchini recipes! This particular recipe is from the 38th Edition Ball® Blue Book Guide to Preserving!

Zucchini-Hot Pepper Pickle Ingredients

Zucchini- Hot Pepper Pickles Method

Choosing Your Produce

One issue I’ve heard people talk about (and have had myself!) while canning zucchini is the zucchini losing its bite, so the texture ends up mushier than the crisp snap we like with a pickle! There are a few ways to combat that unwanted texture (more on this later), starting with choosing specific zucchinis. You know from my zucchini that wore doll’s clothes that zucchinis can get massive, but those over-large squashes are the ones to get the most mushy! So, I recommend choosing zucchinis that are small, but ripe. Think around six to eight inches- large enough that they’ve developed flavor but still small enough that the seeds haven’t started to mature which can cause textural issues. This also makes sure that the circumference of the peppers is small enough that the rounds fit well into jars- having a circle of skin keeps the pickles firmer!

The taste of the pickles can vary greatly based on the types of hot peppers you choose! I chose relatively mild peppers (Anaheim, jalapeño, and serrano) but if you want an extra kick, you can choose peppers higher up the Scoville Scale- just remember if you’re chopping peppers with high levels of capsaicin, you might want to use gloves to make sure you don’t burn your hands!

Prep Zucchini-Hot Pepper Pickles

Wash zucchini under cold running water; drain.
Remove the stem and blossom end from the zucchinis. Cut crosswise into ½ inch slices.

Remove the stem end from hot peppers. Cut the peppers crosswise into ½ inch slices.

Peel the onion, then cut into quarters, and each quarter into ½ inch slices.
Combine zucchini, peppers, and onion in a large bowl and sprinkle with salt.
Pour cold water over vegetables just to cover. Let stand two hours. Drain vegetables, then rinse under cold running water and drain again.

Texture Tip: Soaking squash in saltwater before pickling helps ensure that the pickles are firm and crisp. If you’re a food nerd like I am, and want to know more, there’s a scientific reason!  Soaking in salt water slightly dehydrates the zucchini. I know it seems rather counterintuitive, dehydrating by soaking in water, but when the fresh water in vegetables is exposed to a solution of salt water the two ‘types’ of water want to equalize their salt levels. So, through a process called osmosis, fresh water is drawn out of the vegetables and into the saltwater solution, diluting it. Removing this water keeps the veggies firmer. Fun fact: this process in reverse (meaning the inside of the ‘saltier’ organism takes in fresh water to cure the osmotic imbalance) is why most sharks that live in saltwater cannot venture into freshwater! Their cells cannot handle the influx and have issues with buoyancy and bursting. Sharks, zucchini. Same, same. (Proving my self-proclaiming nerd status here.)

Prepping the Canning Jars

Before we start to cook the Zucchini- Hot Pepper Pickles, let’s get our clean jars prepped for water bath canning! I am using the Ball® EasyCanner Electric Water Bath Canner, which is so easy, just set and forget! However, if you are using a traditional canning pot, we’ll preheat our jars the same way. Place a canning rack on the bottom of your pot and fill the canning pot about halfway with water. Then using a jar lifter, fill the bottom of the pot with half-pint jars. We are using six jars for this recipe but be sure to fill the entirety of your pot with jars so they don’t shift while canning- this can lead to chips!

Once all jars are in place, fill the canning pot until there is one to two inches of water completely covering the jars.

Preheat the jars to a simmer (about 180ºF.) Tip: an easy way to know when your jars are getting close to a simmering temperature is to look for the jars to be covered with tiny bubbles! As these are pre-heating, cook the pickles. Why? Rule of thumb when it comes to canning is that hot ingredients go in hot jars and cold ingredients go in cold jars. This prevents thermal shock and chipping!

Cook Zucchini- Hot Pepper Pickles

Combine sugar, mustard seed, peppercorns, crushed red pepper, vinegar, and water in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn off the heat.

Add the zucchini, hot peppers, and onion. Let stand two hours then bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer for five minutes.

Fill Canning Jars with Zucchini- Hot Pepper Pickles

First, prep your canning station! We want to avoid hard, cold surfaces (think your marble countertop) and instead create a space where we can be gentle with the jars. I use a wooden cutting board with a clean kitchen towel on top to soak up any water droplets or spilled pickling brine.

Wash the canning rings and lids with hot, soapy water and inspect for any defects, then place them near your canning station on a clean surface. Also, make sure your canning tools are clean- I used the Ball® Utensil Set that comes with a jar lifter, funnel, and dual bubble remover and headspace tool.

Working with one jar at a time, fill the preheated pint jars with the hot pickles leaving ½ inch of headspace. (Also, you can add 1/8^th tsp of Ball Pickle Crisp to each jar, if desired.)

Using a bubble remover tool, remove bubbles. (Even if you can’t see them, they are there!) and wipe the rim of the jar clean with a clean, dry towel.

Center a jar lid on the jar’s rim and secure with a canning ring, tightened to finger-tight! (Note: sometimes people think that finger tight is ‘loose,’ this is incorrect! While we don’t want to use tools to tighten the lid, do tighten it as much as possible while still just using your fingertips!)

Use a jar lifter to place the filled jar back in the canning pot and repeat with jars two through six.

Once all jars are secured in the boiling-water canner, make sure that there is at least an inch of water covering the tops of the jars and bring the water to a rolling boil. Once the water has come to a boil, start your processing time timer. At sea level and up to 1000 feet the processing time is fifteen minutes, but this needs to be adjusted for altitude if you’re higher! Here in Denver at 5280 feet I need to add an extra ten minutes. I’ll pop the Ball® Home Canning altitude chart below:

Altitude Feet	Increase Processing Time
1,001- 3,000	5 Minutes
3,001- 6,000	10 Minutes
6,001- 8,000	15 Minutes
8,001-10,000	20 Minutes

After the jars are finished processing, turn off the heat and remove the canning pot’s cover. Let jars rest for five minutes. (If you are using the Ball® EasyCanner, this countdown starts on its own!) Then carefully, one by one, use the jar lifter to place the jars on another, clean cutting board covered with a kitchen towel to rest for twelve hours. As you are pulling the jars out of the pot, be sure to keep them upright (they may even have water on the lid) to not disturb the lid seals.

You’ll start to hear the ‘pop’ of the lids sealing themselves as the jars cool. If you watch carefully, you’ll be able to see the jar lids ‘pop’ from convex to concave!

After twelve hours, check the jar seals. I start this process by looking for any lids that are not concave, then gently tapping the lids with a fingertip. Properly sealed jars will have a clean, ringing sound. Jars that have not sealed properly will sound hollow. The hollow-sounding jar lids will also pop up and down. Gently try to remove the lids with your fingertips- concave, vacuum-sealed jar lids cannot be removed with your fingertips alone.

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post that is part of an ongoing partnership with the Fresh Preserving Division of Newell Brands. They have provided jars, equipment and monetary compensation. All thoughts and opinions expressed remain my own. Ball® and Ball logotype TMs Ball Corporation, used under license.

Photography by Becky Duffyhill