Mexican Pickled Vegetables (Escabeche)

Discover the fiery taste of escabeche - a quick pickle recipe of Mexican pickled vegetables like jalapenos, carrots and fennel, the perfect taco topping. And this Mexican recipe is naturally vegan and gluten free!

It is a slightly spicy, flavorful and most importantly, easy quick pickle recipe that will pairs well with Mexican food like tacos. In fact, you probably know this recipe from your favorite Mexican restaurant!

This easy quick pickled mixed vegetables recipe is more of a blueprint than a recipe you must follow to the letter, unlike my more-involved but absolutely delicious kosher dill pickles. That means that you can follow my general principles for making the brine, and then use any vegetables or spices you like or have on hand.

I learned the recipe for escabeche, a Mexican quick pickled mixed vegetables, from Dahlia Snaiderman, a fellow Montreal cook of Mexican Jewish descent. Dahlia's Mexican family recipe for pickles became one of my favorite quick pickle recipes, alongside classics like quick pickled green beans and quick pickled jalapeno peppers, one I make over and over again! To find out how I learned this recipe from Dahlia, head on to the Inspiration section below.

The process of making escabeche involves quick-pickling vegetables, particularly carrots, jalapenos, and onions, although there are many variations that incorporate other vegetables as well.

Equipment to Make Pickled Vegetables

Here is what you need to get started making this vegetable escabeche recipe:

• Chef's Knife - I use my Global knife for everything. It's amazing, but to really make quick work of these pickles, I recommend you use a vegetable slicer (mandoline).
• Wide-mouth Mason jars
• Mixing bowls
• Fermentation crock optional

How to Make Escabeche

Slicing the Vegetables:

To begin, slice the onion, carrots, and fennel into thin slices. Aim for thin slices to allow the brine to have a greater and quicker effect on the vegetables. The thinner the slices, the more the brine can penetrate and infuse them with its flavors.

Preparing the Brine:

In a bowl, create a flavorful brine by dissolving the salt and sugar in the vinegar. Stir well until the salt and sugar are completely dissolved, ensuring a balanced and tangy brine.

Adding Flavor to the Brine:

To enhance the brine, add slices of jalapeños or serrano pepper. These spicy additions will give your pickles a delightful kick. Additionally, crush the garlic cloves and mix them into the brine. Stir the mixture to combine the flavors, infusing the brine with the aromatic essence of garlic.

Combining Vegetables with the Brine:

Now it's time to combine the sliced vegetables with the pickling liquid. Place the vegetables into the brine, ensuring they are fully submerged and coated in the flavorful mixture. This will allow the brine to penetrate the vegetables and initiate the pickling process, preserving their fresh taste and crisp texture.

Allowing for Marination:

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap to create a seal. Let the vegetables sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour, allowing the flavors to develop and mingle. For even more enhanced flavors, consider letting them marinate longer if possible.

Pack quick pickled vegetables in a jar and refrigerate for up to 6 months.

Storage

If you plan to store the pickles for continuous use, pack them into a mason jar and cover them with the brine.  These homemade Mexican pickles can be kept in the refrigerator for months, ready to be enjoyed whenever you desire a tangy and crunchy snack.

Note: Be warned, these quick pickled mixed vegetables are so delicious that they may not last long due to constant snacking!

For longer storage check out my water bath canning guide. 

Recipe

FAQ Section

Inspiration for this recipe

As her knife moved deftly, stabbing and slicing where no human hands have gone before, I held my breath in anticipation. Excitement tinged with fear reverberated through my body, and my hands even began to shake a little bit, distorting the image in the camera I was holding. I was scared for the others, and worried about what would happen to me next. I never knew how exhilarating making Mexican quick-pickled vegetables could be.

Upon first blush, Dahlia looks like a typical North American girl. Though her hair was darker than normal for these Ango-German parts, falling in tight curls down her back, I admit I never thought twice about her heritage.  She was a fellow foodie and a writer, and that was reason enough for me to ask her to come over on a cloudy Saturday and cook from a basket of beautiful products from Montreal-based Lufa Farms.

In the days following, Dahlia devised a game-plan and a recipe for our food basket. Young, organic fennel would join small local carrots and onions in a quick pickle.

A plate of seared kale will welcome the pickles in a kale salad, and gladly soak up some cranberry vinaigrette.

We would then sear sausages on a cast-iron grill pan and place them atop of steaming, freshly made polenta. A drizzle of buttery hot sauce will crown the dish. And though I would not get to enjoy the sausage, I knew that the rest of the dish would be entirely to my liking.

As our cooking date crept closer, I grew more excited by the day.

But nothing could have prepared me for the surprise of watching Dahlia handle herself in the kitchen. Not only was she confident and knowledgeable about food, but her motivation and energy made me dizzy.

Yet the biggest joy was seeing her craft. She chopped one vegetable after another and reduced our prep ingredients pile to neatly stacked mounds. She made her favorite Mexican hot sauce in minutes, and it was both explosive and subtle at the same time. And through it all, her movements were graceful and precise, the easy dance of an experienced cook.

There is a simple truth that all cooks know, but rarely share so as not to discourage those who are still in their early days of learning: one of the best things in life is sharing a kitchen with those who know what they're doing.

And when I watched Dahlia move around my kitchen, making these quick pickled fall vegetables, I admit my heart did a little dance. This was culinary love at first sight.

Then she started telling of her family’s history. Their harrowing escape from persecution in Russia to Mexico in the previous century. The strangeness of their new life in the hot, arid dessert where Judaism was nothing more than a passing rumor.

Their fervent insistence on following the Jewish traditions and religious customs that have marked their lives in Europe, no matter how strange it made them seem to their neighbors. Their eventual immigration to Canada, and the fusion of Mexican and Jewish food and customs that their lives have now become.

And as I looked at a photograph of the grandiose, sugar-coated challah Dahlia’s aunt still bakes in her Toronto kitchen (check out my Toronto foodie guide), I realized that I had found a friend while making quick-pickled Mexican vegetables (escabeche).