Pickling Veggies: Meal Prep for A Ready-to-Eat Side Dish
Pickling vegetables is a great way to have a ready veggie side dish to pair with any meal on busy days. Here is a recipe for bitter bitter gourd pickles (yes, two bitters) that goes well with roast chicken, grilled meats, fish, or sausages.
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Richard Lasam
4/10/20252 min read
Having a ready vegetable side dish in the home during a busy week is a critical part of maintaining a healthy diet, and pickled vegetables are one of the best such dishes you can eat. Because of its many health benefits, this tangy side dish can provide the needed healthy boost in your meals.
Variety is also a great way of keeping your meals interesting, so having all sorts of pickled side dishes in the house is a good thing. In our home, we go from kimchi to sauerkraut and other such food every week, and we like to add this bitter pickled bitter gourd (or ampalaya achara) to increase the number of options available in the kitchen.
The original and sweeter recipe comes from Taste by Trish but I find that reducing the sugar levels and changing some of the instructions to create a less sweet version fits our palate better, hence the name “bitter pickled bitter gourd.”
Admittedly this is very bitter (bitter gourds are bitter by nature!) so if you find it too much, you can add more sugar to the pickling liquid to reduce the bitterness. Just take note that as the bitter gourd gets pickled further, it decreases bitterness over time.
you don't need to buy a new jar. here, an old sauerkraut jar, cleaned and air-dried, was used.
Bitter Pickled Bitter Gourd
Good for a healthy vegetable side dish or achara to add to your main meals for one week (depending on consumption).
Equipment
2 small saucepans, one for boiling water and one to make the pickling liquid
Skimmer spoon
Airtight glass jar big enough to fit the pickles
Ingredients
2 pcs Medium-sized bitter gourd, seeded, halved, and sliced as thinly as possible
1.5 cups Vinegar
2 Tbsp White sugar
5-10 pcs Whole peppercorns
4 cups Water
1 tsp Salt
Procedure
1. Put water into the saucepan and add salt. Heat it up to a rolling boil.
2. Add the bitter gourds into the boiling pot of water for about 2 minutes.
3. After 2 minutes, carefully fish out the bitter gourds using a skimmer spoon and put them into a mesh strainer to remove excess water. Set aside.
4. In a separate saucepan, prepare the pickling liquid: add vinegar, peppercorns and sugar. Bring mixture to a boil until the sugar has fully dissolved into the vinegar. Stir as needed. Once the sugar and vinegar have turned into a pickling liquid, turn off the stove and let it cool down until relatively near room temperature.
5. Prepare the pickling jar. Make sure it is clean and dry. Carefully put the bitter gourds into the jar.
6. Once the pickling liquid is cool enough, carefully pour it into the glass jar until the bitter gourds are submerged in the pickling liquid. Close tightly and refrigerate for about 2 hours before it is ready to eat. This will last indefinitely if stored in the refrigerator.
