Ogórki kiszone - Polish fermented dill pickles - are how I turn a big summer crop of cucumbers into something crunchy and tasty to enjoy all year. It is cucumber season right now, my allotment is giving me far more than I can eat fresh, so the jars are out.
When you have a lot of one thing, pickling (in Polish, kiszenie) is one of the best ways to save the harvest, and this is how Polish families have done it for generations. There is no vinegar and no hot water bath here - just cucumbers, salt, garlic, dill and horseradish, left to ferment naturally in salted water (brine).
Not sure how much salt to use? My fermentation brine calculator works out the exact amount of salt for any size batch, in grams and spoons.
This is a proper traditional Polish recipe, and it gives you a cucumber that stays crunchy and gets a deep, sour, garlicky taste you just cannot buy in a shop jar. Get it right and the jars will happily sit in a cool pantry (spiżarnia) for months. Honestly, they are pyszne - that is Polish for “delicious”. Pickling like this is one of the things Polish cooking is built on, and my guide to Polish food covers the rest of that pantry.
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Pin itWhat Are Ogórki Kiszone?
Ogórki kiszone (say oh-GOOR-kee kee-SHOH-neh) are cucumbers fermented in salted water - the true Polish sour pickle. Instead of vinegar, they use the good bacteria that are naturally there. These bacteria turn the sugars in the cucumbers into lactic acid, which gives the sour taste and keeps the pickles good to eat for a long time.
A good kiszony ogórek stays crunchy and gets a deep, sour, garlicky taste you just cannot buy in a shop jar.
They are not the same as ogórki konserwowe (quick vinegar pickles) or ogórki małosolne (lightly soured “low-salt” cucumbers that are ready in a day or two). Ogórki kiszone are the fully fermented ones - the kind kept down in the cellar (piwniczka) in big jars, brought out for a traditional dinner with potatoes, chopped into salads, or eaten straight from the jar. This is how my babcia (grandma) always made them.
Equipment You Will Need
Barely any kit for this one, but the jars matter.
A Closer Look at the Ingredients
This recipe needs only a few things, and each one has a job to do:
- Cucumbers small, firm pickling cucumbers (more on picking them below). They are the star of the jar.
- Dill with the flower heads this gives much more flavour than the soft leaves on their own.
- Garlic whole cloves, no need to peel. They give the brine a lovely smell as it ferments.
- Horseradish root (chrzan) the secret to a firm, crunchy pickle, plus a little warmth.
- Rock salt (non-iodised) the only thing keeping the pickles safe. Table salt often has iodine and anti-caking bits that can cloud the brine and slow things down, so use rock or pickling salt.
- Water I use 2 litres of water and 4 level tablespoons of salt for 2 kg of cucumbers. If your tap water has a lot of chlorine, let it stand out for a while first, as chlorine can slow the fermenting.
- Optional leaves oak, cherry, blackcurrant or grapevine leaves add a little something extra for even more crunch.
Choosing the Right Cucumbers
Pin itThe cucumber makes or breaks this recipe. Use small, fresh field cucumbers - the short, bumpy kind grown for pickling, not the long salad ones. The fresher the better; the best ones still have the little flower on the end and feel firm at both tips.
Press each one - it should feel hard, with no soft spots or marks. Do not use big, overgrown cucumbers: they have large seeds and often go hollow and soft after fermenting, which is the most common reason a batch goes wrong. Two kilograms of small cucumbers will easily fill four one-litre jars.
The Secret to Crunchy, Tasty Pickles
Most of what decides whether a jar comes out crunchy is settled before you reach the kitchen. Three things do the work, and the fourth, keeping the jars cool once they are packed, comes later in the method.
- The cucumber, more than anything else. Small field cucumbers grown for pickling have a thin skin, and that is the whole point of them rather than a detail: the brine has to get through it. A big salad cucumber has a thicker skin, more seed and more water in it, and it is the one that comes out hollow and slippery.
- Unrefined salt. Rock or pickling salt carries calcium and magnesium, and those minerals cross-link the pectin that holds the cell walls together, so the cucumber stays firmer. That, and not anything to do with iodine, is the real reason a Polish kitchen reaches for sól kamienna. Plenty of Polish cooks use iodised salt every year without trouble, so if it is what you have, it is not going to ruin a jar.
- Horseradish, and tannin leaves if you can get them. A few strips of horseradish root in every jar is the classic Polish move. Oak, cherry, blackcurrant or grapevine leaves are the optional extra. Go easy on the oak in particular: salt and acid both sharpen the way we taste astringency, so tannins that would be mild anywhere else come across as properly bitter in a brine. Cherry and blackcurrant are the forgiving ones.
You will also see people prick each cucumber end to end with a skewer, and the cooks who make these by the dozen are split down the middle on it. I would leave it alone. The argument for is that it lets the brine in faster; the argument against is that it breaks open the cell walls you are trying to keep intact. A small, fresh pickling cucumber is already bred with a skin thin enough for the brine to cross, so there is not much to gain and there is something to lose.
How to Make Ogórki Kiszone, Step by Step
The card below has the quantities and the timings. This is the same six steps with the reasoning attached, which is the part a card has no room for.
- Wash the cucumbers under cold running water, rubbing the grit out of the bumps, then sit them in a bowl of very cold water for ten or fifteen minutes while you get everything else ready. It costs nothing and it is the difference between a firm pickle and a limp one: a cucumber that has spent a day on a market stall has lost water, and one that goes into the brine already full stays firm, where a thirsty one is drawing water in and giving salt back at the same time. While they soak, cut a slice off the stem end of one and taste it. Bitterness in a cucumber sits at the stem end and just under the skin, and a bitter cucumber makes a bitter pickle. Rinse the dill, the horseradish and any leaves, cut the horseradish root into strips and break the garlic into cloves. There is no need to peel them.
- Rinse four one-litre jars and their lids with boiling water. Use only jars with a sound rim and lids with no rust or damage, because a chipped rim will not hold a seal and a fermenting jar is not the place to find that out. Worth knowing about the lids: this brine is salty and turns acidic, and it will corrode an old metal cap from the inside over a few months. Polish cooks who put up a shelf of these every year stretch a piece of cling film under the cap, or use jars with rubber rings instead. A rusting lid will taint a jar that is otherwise perfect.
- Divide everything into four. Into the bottom of each jar goes some dill, a good handful of garlic cloves, a few strips of horseradish and a leaf or two if you have them. Then pack the cucumbers in standing upright, as tightly as you can get them, and lay a few of the smallest flat across the top. Those last few are not decoration, they are a wedge. Everything in the jar has to stay under the brine, and it matters more than it sounds: where a cucumber breaks the surface it meets air, and a film of yeasts and moulds forms there that feeds on the lactic acid the ferment is busy making. It does not simply sit on top looking unpleasant, it lowers the acidity that is protecting the whole jar.
- Bring two litres of water to a proper rolling boil and stir in four level tablespoons of rock salt until you cannot feel any grains on the bottom of the pan. That is about 60 g, which makes a 3% brine, and the gram figure is worth knowing because a tablespoon of flaky salt weighs around a third less than a tablespoon of rock salt. Measure by the spoon with the wrong salt and you land well under. Use unrefined rock or pickling salt if you can, for the reason above. Make a little extra brine while you are at it. Two litres fills four jars with nothing spare, and you will almost certainly want some to top up in the first week.
- Pour the hot brine straight in, about 500 ml a jar, until the cucumbers are covered completely. Tap each jar on the worktop and give it a gentle shake to bring the trapped air bubbles up, then seal it tightly. Two things about this step surprise people. The brine goes in boiling, which is the Polish way and is deliberate: once it hits two kilos of cold cucumbers and cold glass the jar settles to something like 55 to 60°C, which knocks back what is on the surface without sterilising anything, and the bacteria on the dill, garlic and leaves under the waterline come through it perfectly well. Cold brine works too, it simply starts slower. And the lid goes on tight, where a good many English-language guides tell you to leave it loose. These are jars meant for months in a cool place rather than a fortnight in the fridge, and a tight lid is what keeps air off the surface.
- Leave the jars at room temperature, around 20°C, for three days, then move them somewhere cool and dark. Anywhere between about 2 and 12°C is right, so a cellar, a pantry or the coldest cupboard in the house. They are ready after about two weeks and no later than twenty days. The move is not only about keeping them firm: in a cool jar a different set of bacteria leads the ferment and makes a more complicated mixture of acids and aroma, where a warm jar goes almost straight to plain sourness. Cool is where the flavour comes from. Expect the first week to be noisy. The jars will hiss, a little brine may creep out, and a lid can go concave one day and bulge the next. All of that is normal. Do not tighten them further and do not wrap them in a blanket, just stand them on a tray or some kitchen paper and keep them cool. If the level drops below the cucumbers, top the jar up with the brine you kept back.
Recipe Card for Ogórki Kiszone
Ogórki Kiszone (Polish Fermented Dill Pickles)
A traditional recipe for the best Polish fermented cucumbers (ogórki kiszone) - small, firm cucumbers naturally lacto-fermented in a simple salt brine with garlic, dill and horseradish. Crisp, tangy and gut-friendly, they keep for months in a cool pantry.
Equipment I Use
Ingredients
Instructions
Chef’s notes
- For firm, crunchy pickles, always add a piece of horseradish root - oak, blackcurrant, grapevine or cherry leaves help too.
- Choose small, fresh, firm cucumbers with no blemishes. Avoid large, overgrown ones as they turn hollow and soft once fermented.
- In the first few days the jars may fizz and a little brine may escape - this is normal, active fermentation. Do not open them; just wipe the outside.
- Once fermentation starts, keep the jars somewhere cool so the cucumbers stay firm and do not puff up or go hollow.
- Use an unrefined rock or pickling salt if you can. The calcium and magnesium it carries cross-link the pectin in the cucumber cell walls, which is what keeps them firm. The brine also works cold - the pickles turn out just as well.
Nutrition per serving
FAQ for Ogórki Kiszone
How long do ogórki kiszone take to ferment?
Leave the closed jars at room temperature (around 20°C/68°F) for about three days, then move them somewhere cool. They are usually ready after two weeks, and no later than twenty days.
What if I do not have a cool cellar or pantry?
Keep the jars in the coolest spot you have, or put them in the fridge once the fermenting has started. They will ferment more slowly, so just start eating them a little sooner.
Why did my pickles turn out soft or hollow?
Usually the cucumber rather than the method. Big overgrown ones go hollow, and so do cucumbers that had too little water while the fruit was setting, which is the grower’s weather rather than anything you did. Heat is the part you control: a jar left somewhere warm ferments hard and fast, and gas produced inside the cucumber faster than it can escape is what puffs it up and leaves it hollow. Small firm cucumbers and a cool spot after the first three days fixes both.
Why are my pickles bitter?
There are two quite separate causes and it is worth knowing which you have. Most often it is the cucumber. A plant under stress from too little water or a cold snap makes bitter compounds, which is the grower and the weather rather than anything you did in the kitchen, and the raw taste test in step one is there to catch it before a whole batch is packed. The other cause is the jar: too many oak leaves will turn a batch bitter on their own, and salt and acid both make tannins taste harsher than they otherwise would. Neither kind is spoiled, and neither is dangerous.
Do I need to clean the jars well?
Yes. Wash the jars and lids and rinse them with boiling water, and only use jars and lids with no cracks or damage so they seal well.
Is it normal for the brine to go cloudy?
Yes, this is normal. Cloudy brine and a little fizzing are signs of a healthy ferment, not that the pickles are going off.
A jar lid popped up, did not seal, or some brine leaked out - is the batch ruined?
No, this is normal in the first few days while the pickles are working. Top the jar back up with a little fresh brine (the same salt and water), move it somewhere cooler, and it will settle down. Do not throw it out.
Can I use normal table salt?
Rock (non-iodised) salt is best, as the iodine and anti-caking bits in table salt can cloud the brine and slow the ferment. Pickling salt or sea salt work too.
Do I have to add horseradish and the leaves?
The horseradish (chrzan) is the one I would keep, as it helps the cucumbers stay crunchy. The oak, cherry, blackcurrant or grapevine leaves are a nice bonus, but the pickles still work without them. If you cannot get horseradish, half a teaspoon of mustard seed (gorczyca) per large jar keeps them firm too.
There is a white film on the surface. Is that mould?
Usually not. A thin, flat, white film that breaks up when you disturb it is kahm yeast, which is harmless and can be skimmed off. It is still worth dealing with rather than ignoring, because that film feeds on the lactic acid your ferment is making and slowly lowers the acidity that is keeping the jar safe. Skim it, make sure everything is back under the brine and move the jar somewhere cooler. What you do not keep is fuzzy growth, or anything green, black, pink or blue, or a jar that smells rotten rather than sour. That is mould, and the batch goes.
Should I cut the ends off the cucumbers?
This is the sharpest split between Polish and American practice you will find on this dish. American fermentation writers trim a little off the blossom end and some call it the single most important step for a crisp pickle, on the grounds that a softening enzyme sits there. No Polish source I have read trims anything, and neither do I: the cucumbers go in whole, ends and all, which is how my babcia made them. If you have had soft batches before and you want to try it, trimming a few millimetres off the flower end costs you nothing.
Can I use one big jar or a crock instead of four small ones?
Yes, and plenty of Polish households do exactly that. Keep the same brine strength, four level tablespoons of rock salt to two litres of water, and scale it to whatever your jar holds. The one thing a big vessel needs that a packed one-litre jar does not is a weight, because there is nothing holding the top layer down. A small plate, or a freezer bag filled with brine of the same strength, will keep everything under the surface. An open crock also wants covering and skimming rather than sealing.
Variations
- Ogórki małosolne (half-sour): use the same method but start eating them after just two or three days, while they are still mild.
- Add a little spice: a slice of fresh chilli, a few peppercorns or a teaspoon of mustard seed in each jar.
- More garlic: if you love it, double the garlic - it only gets better.
What to Serve With Ogórki Kiszone
These pickles belong on a Polish table. A few of my favourite ways to enjoy them:
- Next to a hearty main like my Polish Braised Chicken or Pierogi Ruskie, with boiled or mashed potatoes.
- Chopped into Sałatka Jarzynowa, the classic Polish vegetable salad.
- Diced into a pot of żurek or ogórkowa (dill pickle soup), or just eaten straight from the jar with buttered rye bread.
People ask me what to do with the jar once the cucumbers are gone, and the answer is zupa ogórkowa, which I have never written up. Monika at Everyday Healthy Recipes has a dill pickle soup I like very much.
Storage
Keep the jars somewhere cool and dark, ideally between about 2 and 12°C, which in practice means a cellar, an unheated pantry or the coldest cupboard you have. Kept like that they last far longer than most recipes admit: a good batch will see you through the winter, and Polish cooks routinely open jars a year or two on and find them still crisp. Once you open a jar, keep it in the fridge with the cucumbers under the brine. If the level drops, top it up with a little cooled brine made with the same salt and water.
If you enjoy fermenting at home, try brewing your own homemade kombucha.
More recipes you’ll like
- Love saving the harvest? Try my Korean Cucumber Kimchi for another crunchy ferment, or my Beetroot Kvass for a traditional Slavic fermented drink. And once a jar is ready, a slice or two goes on top of a zapiekanka, which is where half of mine end up
A Few Words from the Chef
There is something really nice about turning a basket of allotment cucumbers into rows of jars that will last until next summer. Ogórki kiszone remind you of how food used to be kept, and they taste even better for the wait. If you make a batch, I would love to hear how it went - leave a comment and a star rating below, and tell me: are you team horseradish-only, or team all-the-leaves? Smacznego! (that is Polish for “enjoy your meal”).
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