Fried Pickles with Homemade Ranch Sauce
A heavy hitter for summer parties.
By Erin Henderson
Earlier this week I posted a picture on The Wine Sisters’ Instagram showing how I made fried pickles. Y'all. Lost. Your. Minds.
Recipe requests with drooly-face emojis filled my inbox. So, I thought it would be easiest and most efficient to create a blog for those inquiring minds and stomachs.
Related: Warm Olives with Citrus and Herbs
A caveat: I am the type of cook who eyeballs most things and doesn’t get too hung up on missing ingredients. This is also why I’m not a baker. Precision is not my strength. The recipe for the ranch dressing I never measure – literally I use scoops of this and pinches of that, and taste along the way. There will be more here than you will likely use for the dip, so of course, it’s easily repurpose for salads or just eating with a spoon.
The pickle portion, well that’s hard to mess up, but I do use a candy thermometer and large sauce pot for the hot oil because that does have an element of danger to it. You don’t want to burn your pickle, after all.
Fried Pickles with Homemade Ranch sauce
No matter how sophisticated you consider yourself, there's just something irresistible about fried pickles.
Makes: 4 cups of sliced pickles and about 2 cups ranch
Chef level: moderate
Special equipment: candy thermometer, spider skimmer or perforated spoon
Fried Pickles
Ingredients:
- 1 litre jar of pickles, drained and sliced into baby-finger width rounds
- 3 cups canola oil, for frying
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup buttermilk
- Hot sauce
- 2 cups panko
How you do it:
- Slice the pickles and let drain on paper towel.
- Pour the flour to a medium bowl.
- In a second bowl, pour in the buttermilk and add a few dashes of hot sauce.
- In a third bowl, pour the panko or breadcrumbs
- Submerge pickles slices in the flour in bowl one, shake off excess.
- Quickly dip the floured pickles in the buttermilk and let the excess drip off.
- Place the pickles in panko, covering to form a crust.
- Shake off excess and put on parchment lined baking sheet ready to bring to the fryer.
- In a large pot pour in the canola oil. The pot should be large enough to only let the oil come up about 3 inches.
- Using your candy thermometer, heat the oil to 375. Test the oil with a dollop of batter. If it sizzles and fries, the oil is hot and ready.
- Place a handful of battered pickles on your spider and carefully lower the spider into the oil, dispersing pickles evenly. Don't over crowd the pot as the oil will dip in temperature too much resulting in a soggy, not crispy, pickle. Fry the pickles for a minute or so until golden. For the amount of pickles here, this will probably take about 6-8 batches.
- Remove the cooked pickles from the oil and place on a paper-towel lined baking sheet to absorb excess oil. You can keep the cooked pickles warm in a low oven set to 200°F.
- Keep repeating this process until all pickles have been fried.
- Serve warm with homemade ranch dressing.
Ranch Dressing
Ingredients:
- 1 cup sour cream
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup buttermilk
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp onion salt
- ¼ cup roughly chopped fresh dill
- ¼ cup diced fresh chives
- Few shakes of Worcestershire
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
How you do it:
- Combine everything in a bowl, adjusting seasonings as you go to your taste.
- Chill until ready to use.
Wine Pairing:
It seems hilariously indulgent, like wearing a tiara to a garage sale, but brut sparkling wine work beautifully here. The zesty bubbles cut through the fat of the deep fried batter and the creamy sauce, and brighten the whole experience.
