Best Pickled Onions Recipe

This super easy Pickled Onions Recipe uses only 3 ingredients. The perfect condiment for tacos, burgers, salads, and sandwiches.

A simple method to make onion pickles in a jar. Beginner-friendly, fail-proof, perfect results without canning.

Do you like pickling and canning? I am not into all the work involved in traditional canning. This shortcut method is right up my alley. A great way to make pickled zucchini too! Speedy, made easy pickles in minutes.

Quick pickle recipes are great to have in the fridge during grilling season. The perfect topping to lots of great burgers, like in this homemade burger roundup.

RECIPE and INSTRUCTIONS for these quick pickled onions can be found at the bottom of this post.

Recently I shared a cucumber and onion salad recipe, and I had a visitor comment that they would like the recipe for the onions I used in the post. This is it, the perfect pickled onions for salads.

If you are like me, for the most part, I love things to be relatively simple when it comes to cooking. Yes, I do experiment and spend hours in the kitchen sometimes. Those are the days that I am trying out a new cuisine or technique.

My mom was all about pickling and canning. The cold room was full of glass jars. Fruit, jams, pickles, sauerkraut, and even pickled eggs. It was quite the ordeal watching her get everything ready. Wash and sterilize the jars, make the brine, fill the jars and then seal them.

Weeks of work during harvest kept the shelves stocked all winter long with delicious, homemade preserves. Canned tomatoes for pasta sauce and soups, jam for your toast, and my hubby’s favourite, pickled beets to eat with a meal.

3 Ingredient Pickled Onions

This shortcut pickled red onions recipe is super fast, and you can even eat the onions in about 15 minutes if you like. The longer you keep them, the vinegar will turn a beautiful pink colour, and the onions will soften slightly. They will always be crisp and have a nice tang to them, even after weeks in the fridge (if they last that long).

You will need:

• red onion
• rice wine vinegar
• sugar

You can even turn this into 2 ingredients if you omit the sugar. I like to balance out the flavour a bit, so adding sugar helps with that.

My husband’s family was from England, and as you know they do love their pickled foods. My first experience was a store-bought variety of traditional English pickled onions. I am not a fan of malt vinegar, so although he liked these very much, they were not my cup of tea.

Raw onions can be a bit hard to eat, even red ones. Hubby does not like raw onions at all, so I wanted a quick and easy way to pickle onions. I didn’t want to involve any special equipment.

He does however LOVE my Crispy Air Fryer Onion Rings.

Stress-Free Pickled Onions Process

These pickled red onions are made in minutes, I am not kidding. I just use a plain old sharp knife to slice the onions. If you want perfect slices, by all means, use a mandolin. I am all about the simple here. No equipment, no cooking brine, no fuss!

• thinly slice the onion
• pack the slices in a glass jar
• mix the rice vinegar and sugar in a measuring cup
• pour over the onion slices
• put on the lid
• DONE!

Quick Pickling Tips/Suggestions

Be sure to thinly slice the onions. The easiest way is with a (affiliate) mandoline. You can also use a very sharp knife. Thinner slices will absorb the vinegar quickly. The thicker the slices, the more time it will take to fast pickle the onions.

I need to try these in my Snap Pea Salad Recipe. I bet they would be awesome.

Choosing different kinds of vinegar. For this recipe, I used rice wine vinegar. Feel free to experiment. Other choices could be distilled white vinegar, sherry vinegar or apple cider vinegar.

I used red wine vinegar in this Smoked Salmon Plate to quickly pickle a cucumber.

Ways to sweeten pickles: In this recipe, I used white sugar. You can also use maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar. Again have a little fun in the kitchen and see what you like best.

Best onions for pickling: I like red onions. Other great choices would be White onions, Spanish, Vidalia, or Sweet onions. You can even use little pearl onions.

OMG, have you tried my homemade onion gravy from scratch? Seriously it is the best onion gravy in town. Move over HP Sauce, this is the NEW steak topper.

You can see why this quick and easy homemade onion pickle recipe has become a staple. With BBQ season here, they are flying out of the fridge into salads and burgers all summer long.

Do you have a herb garden? Give Fresh Herb Salt a try. A fun way to make homemade seasoning salt. Great as a meat rub, finishing salt and an awesome food gift too.

If you happen to be growing some mint, this flavoured simple syrup is perfect for adding to drinks, ice cream and more.

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You may also like these pickle recipes:

• Ginger Baby Carrots
• Cucumber Kimchi
• Spicy Asparagus Spears