Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

Salty, sweet, crunchy, and tart, with a little garlicky bite and some heady dill notes, these pickle chips are perfect for burgers and sandwiches (including our <a href="homemade-mcrib">homemade McRib</a>!). But they’re also delicious straight out of the jar, and they’re super simple to make.With any refrigerator pickle, getting the right texture is the main goal. Dialing in the seasonings is a relatively simple matter—you want enough acid to preserve the cukes and impart that expected sour tang, and you want enough salt and sugar in the brine to make you want to eat them by the jarful—but no one likes a mushy pickle, no matter how good it tastes. To guarantee crisp, crunchy pickle chips, we get rid of the blossom end, because it contains the pectinase enzyme, which softens plant cell walls. We then salt the slices (which draws out excess water from the cucumber flesh and inhibits enzymatic activity) and bury them in ice for several hours (which firms up the pectin in the flesh and keeps the cukes ice cold). Draining the cucumbers and dunking them in a fresh brine effectively reduces the amount of pectin-softening enzymes released in the initial brine, and the addition of calcium chloride helps make the pectin even stronger.

Dill Pickle Chips