Pickling vegetables in a water-vinegar brine is an easy way to preserve them. Many vegetables can be preserved this way, and you can mix and match different types. One lesser-known option is pickled garlic scapes. If you love pickles and garlic, this recipe is for you!
What Are Garlic Scapes?
If you grow hardneck garlic, you have two harvests. In the summer, the plants produce curly scapes that will eventually become flowers and seed heads. However, if you want large garlic bulbs rather than small bulblets (seeds), it’s important to remove, or “harvest,” those scapes. We cover that process in more depth in the blog post about growing garlic.
You should harvest the scapes while they are young and have a nice curl, as they are tender then.
Preparing Garlic Scapes for Pickling
Garlic scapes can be preserved in different ways. Different parts are suited for different options. The curly middle part is best for pickling, while the flower head can also be partially used. The lower straight part is better suited for chopping into pesto or for dehydrating for herbal salt.
After harvesting—preferably in the morning—cut the scapes to your desired length. If you only use the curly part, it can remain intact, or you can cut the scapes into sticks. You can see a variety of options in the picture above, where I used different options. They all were delicious.
I find it easier to wash the scapes after they are cut, but you can give them a good rinse before. Just make sure they are clean before filling the jars.
Spicing Up the Pickles
Garlic scapes already have a lot of flavor, so they can be pickled in a vinegar brine with just salt. If you think a pickle isn’t complete without dill, feel free to add it. If you like your pickles spicy, consider adding a hot pepper. Mustard seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaves are also great options, and I used them this time. Or, if you have a favorite pickling spice blend, you can use that. Personally, I like to add a bit of sugar to my pickles, but it’s really up to you.
Since the spices are best added first, feel free to experiment and find the combination you enjoy the most. The spices do not affect the safety of the preserve; that’s the role of the vinegar.
How to Use Pickled Garlic Scapes
Pickled garlic scapes can be used just like any other pickles. You can snack on them, add them to salads, or toss them into sandwiches.
Pickling garlic scapes recipe
Note that the garlic scapes will take up more or less space depending on how you cut them. If you don’t care so much about the look, you can fill them in a mix to fit as many scapes as possible into a jar. The more scapes you fill into a jar, the less brine you will ned. So the brine recipe below might be enough for 3 or 4 jars, or something in between. But you’d better have some brine left over than not enough.
- Garlic scapes cut and clean (about 2 pounds)
- 3 cups apple cider or white vinegar
- 3 caps water
- 1 tablespoon canning salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
- Pickling spices
- In a saucepan, combine water, vinegar, salt, and sugar if used
- Bring to a boil, stirring till the salt and sugar dissolve
- Take from the fire
- Start with clean jars
- Put in each jar the pickling spices
- Fill each jar with the scapes, pressing them slightly in
- Top with hot brine, leaving ½ inch headspace
- Cover the jar with a lid, and screw on the band to finger-tight
- Process jars in a water bath or steam canner for 10 minutes
- Adjust the time to your altitude.
Enjoy your pickling adventure!
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This is wonderful! I will give this a try next year. Even though I’m in a Northern growing region this shows the differences in our growing zones. I’m ready to go out and dig my hard-necks’ today but things have been “off” this year. One of the first things I noticed was my winter was so brief and I had blackberry blooms in January. My berry harvest was much smaller this year. 2nd, the Swallows never returned. This was the first time I’ve ever seen this happen and of course the rains we normally get were a “no show”. I did leave most of my Elephant garlic scapes on the garlic for the pollinators and I’ll only harvest the largest and leave all the rest in ground to chop & drop down when the blooms are done. Thanks for sharing this! Gives me something to look forward to next year! Cheers!