Pickled Turnips
These bright pink Pickled Turnips are colored naturally with beets. They make a great pair with Middle Eastern foods or on their own.
My family doesn’t eat out super often, but we do have a few restaurants that we go to on a regular rotation. One of those is a fast-casual Middle Eastern restaurant called Jerusalem Shawarma. It serves wraps, bowls, platters, and more, many featuring chicken or beef shawarma as their name would suggest, but the falafel wraps are my menu item of choice.
Most of the dishes come with bright pink Pickled Turnips, which are well-loved by my family. When these pickles are served on the side of a dish, they get snatched up pretty quickly. While store-bought versions of these pickles can be found relatively easily where I live, I still wanted to try my hand at making them. After a few tries, I found a method and recipe that I’m happy with, and happy to share.
How to make Pickled Turnips
The first time I tried to make these pickles, I was less than happy with the result. The turnips came out tough, and the flavor was a little too sweet, but also too vinegary. I reviewed the recipes for other pickles I had made, and decided on a couple of other methods to try, as well as adjust the recipe for the brine to cut down on the sugar.
I opted to try salting the turnips before adding them to the brine, similar to the method I use in my Pickled Daikon recipe. If this didn’t work, I planned to try blanching the turnips before pickling, like in my Quick Pickled Carrot recipe. Salting the turnips worked perfectly, and this is the method I decided to go with.
To start making these colorful pickles, first prep the turnips and beets. Peel both, and cut the turnips into ½ inch sticks (similar to fries), and the beets into ½ inch cubes. Toss the turnip sticks with some kosher salt in a medium bowl, and set aside for 1-2 hours.
Meanwhile, go ahead and make the brine by adding the vinegar, water, salt, sugar, allspice, and peppercorns to a small saucepan and bringing it to a boil. Remove the pot from the heat and let it sit for at least 10 minutes. Strain out the allspice and peppercorns.
Rinse the salt from the turnips and drain well. Pack the turnips into a clean jar with the crushed garlic and cubed beets. Reheat the brine to a boil, then carefully pour it into the jar, filling it to the top. If desired, use a glass pickle weight to keep the turnips submerged in the brine. Put the lid on the jar, and let it sit at room temperature until cool.
Transfer the jar to the fridge, and let it sit, undisturbed, for at least 2 days before serving. At this time, you can remove the pickle weight (if using). The pickles will keep well in the fridge for up to a month.
Pickled Turnips Ingredients
- Fresh turnip – find fresh turnips in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores. They look a little like large radishes, with a white or white-to-pink/purplish ombre color. They may be sold with or without their tops (greens), and might sometimes be confused with rutabaga. Rutabaga looks similar to turnips but has more of a yellow/orange color. Make sure you use turnips, not rutabaga, for this recipe.
- Small beet – you only need a small beet for this recipe, and you really only need it to provide color, though you certainly can eat them as well once the pickles are ready.
- Kosher salt
- White vinegar
- Water – use whatever water you normally drink. Cold tap water is fine.
- Granulated sugar – This recipe uses just enough sugar to enhance the flavor of the turnips. The pickles will not taste sweet.
- Garlic – make sure to use fresh garlic here, not jarred. Feel free to reduce to one clove or omit if you don’t want your pickled turnips to be garlicky.
- Whole allspice berries – I recommend keeping whole allspice on hand instead of ground, as it holds flavor much longer than ground. You’ll be using them whole in this recipe, but you can also grind them as needed with a clean coffee grinder.
- Whole black peppercorns
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Pickled Turnips Nutrition Notes
The sodium content of the pickles in the nutrition information below is an estimation. The amount of sodium the turnips will absorb is based on multiple factors, including how long they have been in the brine etc. The longer you leave them in the brine, the more sodium they will absorb, up to the total concentration of the brine. The sodium content in the nutrition information does not account for consuming the brine.
The nutrition information in the recipe below is for approximately one ounce (28 grams) of pickled turnips, about 4 medium pieces.
These pickles are gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan as written.
Pickled Turnips
Equipment
Ingredients
Instructions
- Cut 1 pound turnip into about ½-inch wide sticks (they will look like French fries). Cut 1 small beet into about ½-inch cubes.
- Toss the turnip sticks with 1 teaspoons kosher salt in a medium bowl. Set aside for approximately 1-2 hours, tossing occasionally. During that time, you will notice that the turnips lose some water and become softer.
- Add 1 cup white vinegar, 1 cup water, the remaining 3 teaspoons kosher salt, 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon whole allspice berries, and ½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Turn off the heat, cover the saucepan, and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes.
- In the meantime, rinse the salt from the turnip sticks. Pack them into a clean 1-quart jar with the cubed beets and crushed garlic.
- Pour the vinegar mixture through a strainer into a bowl or measuring cup. Discard the spices and pour the vinegar mixture back into the saucepan. Bring to a boil again over high heat, then carefully pour the hot vinegar into the jar to cover the turnips.
Nutrition
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