The Best Pickles

An assortment of pickle jars—including brands like Suckerpunch, Grillo's, Trader Joe's, Majestic, and Bubbies—arranged on a green tablecloth alongside fresh cucumbers, garlic, olives, an onion, and green and yellow floral arrangements. In the background, a person in a striped shirt reaches down to pull a pickle spear from an open jar.

A sheet of ominous black clouds hung low over Teaneck, New Jersey, as bone-chilling rain came pouring down. It was a dismal spring day, but that didn’t stop some 2,000 pickle enthusiasts from showing up to Pickle Palooza in celebration of the lip-puckering snack.

“Can I take a picture of your drink?” a girl in an “I Love Pickles” hoodie implored as I sipped on a “Dr Pickle,” a Dr Pepper spiked with brine and garnished with thick, crinkle-cut chips. On stage, the lead singer of a cover band — clad in a full-body pickle costume — belted out, “Sugar, we’re goin’ down pickling,” in a cheeky rendition of the Fall Out Boy anthem. Meanwhile, festivalgoers queued up at The Pickle Guys booth for horseradish pickles and small-batch sours.

The pickle lore runs deep in this corner of the country. It was here, just a few miles across the Hudson River, where Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought the art of kosher pickling ashore in the late 19th century. The Lower East Side became a pickling epicenter, where brine-filled wooden barrels and pushcarts lined the streets. Where high-rises now stand in Brooklyn, cucumber farms once flourished, thanks to high demand for the veg.

That passion has only grown over the past century, bringing us to this moment, when we seem to have reached peak pickle. Not only do jars of all kinds dominate grocery store shelves, but brands continue to unveil pickle everything: chips, mayonnaise, electrolyte shots, and even beer. At bars across the country, picklebacks, pickletinis, and pickle lemonade have become menu mainstays.

To determine the best jars with the right amount of acidity, spice, and crunch, our team tasted 47 variations of dill (including koshers) and sour pickles in our test kitchen, braving palate fatigue and sore taste buds along the way. A few were crowd-pleasers, including a fresh and garlicky spear, a juicy whole sour with a salty kick, and a budget-friendly chip that kept up with the pack.

But there were also a few more-polarizing pickles, including a spear with warming spices and a nostalgic BBQ-style chip, that at least one of our panelists fell in love with and enthusiastically recommends — if you happen to have a similar palate. These are our top 10 pickles for every occasion.

 

Chris Carfolite/NYT Wirecutter and Ruthie Darling/NYT Wirecutter


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