The Beverage Aisle Holds The Secret
To Making Crispy Pickles
NEWS
By JULIA MULLANEY
While homemade pickles are already hard to beat, there's one common ingredient that you can use to ensure that you end up with the crispiest cucumbers: tea leaves.
When you add tea leaves to the pickles brine, it will work alongside ingredients like water and salt in the brine to crisp the veggies, resulting in delicious, crunchy pickles.
Tea leaves have tannin, which counteract the enzymes in the cucumbers that make them soft. To try this for yourself, first pre-salt the veggies so they lose some moisture.
Do this for about 30 minutes before it's time to brine. Then, add some loose-leaf tea to the jar and let the pickles brine and absorb the liquid for at least an hour.
