Christine Johnson's Recipe

30 Easy Clueless Pickled Eggs

Category: Recipes

I don't do things halfway--if I could make six pickled eggs, I figure with very little extra effort I can make a lot more. So this is for 30 eggs (2-1/2 dozen). Like all recipes for which there are dozens of different versions, measuring is pretty much not necessary. I didn't.

30 hard boiled peeled eggs (very fresh eggs do not peel easily, so I bought mine instead of raiding the chicken coop)
2 cups pickle juice (I used the pretty yellow juice from banana pickles)
2 cups water
1 cup white sugar
0.04 ounces (looks like 2-3 tablespoons) dry pickling spice mix

Mix everything but the eggs, stirring the sugar until it is dissolved. Taste the liquid, expect it to be sour, sweet and salty. If it is disgusting or you don't like it, dump it out, start over and just use vinegar instead of pickle juice. I put it all into a large plastic bowl with a handle and spout, put the whole thing into the microwave and heated it on high for five minutes. You don't want to boil it over, but you do want to try to get the pickling spices to share some of their lovely flavor and scent with the liquid.

Boil the eggs. I use an egg steamer (because I like predictable results), six eggs at a time. If you have a good way to make hard boiled eggs, go for it. Put the eggs in a bowl of cool water to cover, and keep putting more water in so that the eggs cool to room temp or at least enough to handle easily. Peel them by holding them under cool running water and squeezing the egg all over until the shell just slides off. Ideally the eggs will be whole and intact, but the last batch I did I used eggs laid that morning, they were horrible to peel and several had breaks in the white that exposed the yolks. They tasted every bit as good as the intact eggs did. So don't throw them out if they aren't pretty, just handle them very gently to prevent further "damage."

Put the eggs into a gallon sized jar with a wide mouth. I used (surprise!) the pickled banana pepper jar, which could have held 3 dozen eggs easily. Remember you want room for the pickling solution. I just dropped them into the jar one by one as they were shelled. Pour off any water that might have gotten into the jar as you dropped in the eggs. Maybe that's not important, I don't know. It's what I did....

Pour the warm pickling solution over the eggs in the jar. I wanted to leave air space at the top (not sure why) but I had a little too much solution for that and cannot bear to throw it out, so I topped it off. Secure the lid (which is probably not water tight), and holding it firmly over the sink, gently rotate the jar to distribute the spices and solution around the eggs. Wait five or six days and then taste one. Actually you can taste one any time you want, but by five or six days, the flavor will be more developed.

Enjoy!