This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy.
Virginia Chunk Sweet Pickles are crisp, sweet, tangy, and perfectly delicious. A real childhood favorite of mine, and you’ll love them too!
Featured with this recipe
These Virginia Chunk Sweet Pickles are truly a taste of my childhood. Anytime we would visit my Aunt Echo and Uncle Larry, they always served these pickles along with dinner (my favorite was when they served them with roast and potatoes). They were always sweet, crisp, and perfectly delicious. In my honest opinion, no other sweet pickle even compares. A special “THANK YOU” to our Aunt Echo for sharing this recipe with us! I am so excited to share it now with you.
Perfect Pickles Take Time
If you take a look at this recipe, you can see these little babies take about two weeks to make from start to finish. But that’s what makes them so good! You can’t rush perfection. The good news is, for one whole week you don’t even touch them, and the next week you only need to spend a few minutes a day working on them. The actual time you actively spend making the pickles really isn’t that much. Trust me, they’re totally worth it!
Tips for Making Sweet Pickles
- Use four to five inch size pickling cucumbers. You’ll need about 75 for this batch.
- You are going to need something big to put the ingredients in while brining. A large food storage bucket works great.
- If you’re making these pickles in hot weather, you’ll need to skim the top of the bucket daily.
- Follow the steps listed in the recipe card carefully. We will hold your hand through the whole process and I promise they’ll turn out perfectly!
- If you plan on canning these pickles, make sure to process the bottles in a hot water bath for ten minutes after the whole process is through.
Ingredients
- Pickling cucumbers
- Salt
- Alum powder
- Vinegar
- Sugar
- Pickling spice
- Celery seed
Read More: 35+ Best BBQ Side Dishes
What to Serve with Sweet Pickles
Eat these plain right out of the jar (no judgement) or alongside any of these recipes. We hope you enjoy these little tangy sweet bites!
- Slice these pickles on top of these Chili Cheese Dogs.
- Dice them up and mix into our Best Potato Salad.
- Serve alongside our Perfect Tuna Melt Sandwich.
- Slice onto this Corned Beef Sandwich.
- Use them in our Ham Roll-ups with Pickles Recipe.
How to Make Virginia Chunk Sweet Pickles
Virginia Chunk Sweet Pickles
Ingredients
- 75 pickling cucumbers 4-5″ long or 2 gallons smaller sized
- 2 cups salt
- 3 tablespoons alum powder
- 6 cups vinegar
- 5 cups sugar
- 1/3 cup pickling spice
- 1 tablespoons celery seed
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup sugar for a different day
Instructions
- Make brine with 2 cups salt and one gallon of water. Boil mixture and pour over cucumbers while still boiling hot. Weigh down cucumbers to keep them under the brine (don't let them float to the top). Let stand for one week. In hot weather, skim daily.
- Drain and cut cucumbers into chunks.
- For the next 3 mornings make a boiling hot solution of one gallon water and one tablespoon alum powder and pour over the pickles. Make this fresh hot bath each day for three mornings (draining each day and giving a new solution each day).
- On the fourth morning, drain and discard alum water.
- Heat 6 cups vinegar, 5 cups sugar, ⅓ cup pickling spice, and 1 tablespoon celery seed to boiling and pour over the pickles– allow to sit overnight.
- On the fifth morning, drain this liquid off, reserving it, and add to it 2 cups more sugar, heat again to boiling point and pour over the pickles.
- On the sixth morning, drain liquid, reserving it again, add one more cup of sugar, and heat to boiling.
- At this time, pack pickles into sterilized canning jars and fill within 1/2-inch of top of jar with the boiling liquid, seal at once.
- If you are wanting to can and store for long-term, process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
Fabulous pickles! I had never made sweet pickles before; I followed the directions and the pickles turned out better than expected. My family loves them, and another batch is already in progress:)
My mother made these. I’ve started a batch. The 1 gallon of brine was not enough to cover the pickles so I did 1/2 gal more. I probably have too many pickles? Can I also increase everything else by 1/2 as much more to complete ?
That sounds like it should work fine, but we haven’t tried it that way so I can’t guarantee it will turn out. Let us know how it goes!
If it takes a gallon of brine, why only 6 cups of vinegar solution? It’s not enough to cover the pickles.
My mother made these every summer recipe from 1950 kerr canning book im 83 and srill make them.
I’m making this recipe but very small batch. Can we eat them immediately after the last step or do they need to age at all? I’d like to just put them in the fridge so we can snack on them.
You can eat them right away – I like to let them cool in the fridge after their last boil.
Perfect. Thank you so much! I’m adding the pickling spices, vinegar and sugar today. I can’t wait!
My father made them every year, and I carried on the tradition. The same exact recipe, and they are my family favorite. They are so good! The only difference is our recipe said to add 4 drops green food coloring into the brine on step 5. These are the best!
I love these pickles…just like my aunt would make.
Thank you for this recipe. My son had a word of mouth recipe from his wife’s grandmother without exact measurements. His pickles were always delicious. I wanted to make some, but being OCD and worried about safety, I needed exact amounts. Your recipe is the exact same recipe with the added bonus of exact amounts! I’m so happy! They are soaking in the vinegar sugar solution and will be ready to can tomorrow!!!!!
So you drain after 7 days and cut the cucs into chunks. Do you cover with a brine then or? What do you do after you drain and cut into chunks?
You go straight to step three and put the pickles in that solution.
Then this recipe takes more than 7 days to complete – closer to 2 weeks!
Yep that is right!