Pickling Onions for a Traditional Ploughman's Lunch

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20 Aug 2026

Pickling Onions for a Traditional Ploughman's Lunch

Why Pickled Onions Belong on the Ploughman's Table

A proper ploughman's lunch is a study in contrasts. A thick wedge of mature Cheddar, a slice of ham, a hunk of crusty bread and a spoonful of chutney — and alongside them, a few dark, glistening pickled onions that cut clean through the richness of the cheese. Shop-bought versions are often soft, harsh and over-vinegary, but homemade ones are something else entirely: crisp to the bite, gently spiced and mellow enough to eat three at a time.

The good news is that pickling onions is one of the least complicated jobs in the preserve-maker's repertoire. You need small shallots, spiced vinegar, sterilised jars and a few weeks of patience. Nothing more. Get a batch on now and you will have the finest part of your ploughman's lunch ready and waiting before the weather turns.

Start with the Right Onions

Traditional pickled onions are made from small, firm shallots — the kind sold in late summer and early autumn as "pickling onions". They should be roughly 2–3cm across, so they pickle evenly and fit on a fork whole. Anything larger than a golf ball will still be raw and crunchy in the middle long after the outside has softened.

Size: uniform bulbs, so every onion in the jar is ready at the same time.
Condition: tight, papery skins with no soft spots, damp patches or green shoots pushing through the top.
Varieties: traditional brown-skinned shallots give the deepest flavour; pink and red types make a prettier jar with a slightly sweeter finish. Both work well.

If you grow your own, lift them on a dry day and let them dry somewhere airy for a fortnight before peeling. This firms up the skins and makes the job far less fiddly. Peeling a kilo of shallots is tedious work, so pour a cup of tea, put the radio on and accept that it will take the best part of an hour. A brief soak in boiling water makes the skins slip off more easily, but let them cool before you handle them or you will cook the outsides.

The Brine: Twenty-Four Hours That Make All the Difference

Skipping the brine is the most common mistake. Salting draws out excess water, keeps the onions crisp rather than mushy, and takes the raw, eye-watering harshness out of them before the vinegar ever gets involved.

For 1kg of peeled shallots, dissolve 100g of salt in 1 litre of cold water and pour it over the onions in a large bowl. Leave them for 24 hours, then drain and rinse thoroughly. If you would rather not bother with a wet brine, layer the onions in a bowl with 75g of salt, leave them overnight, then rinse just as carefully. Either way, do not skip the rinsing — trapped salt will make the finished pickle unpleasantly sharp.

Trim the tops and tails before brining, but leave a sliver of root end intact. It holds the layers together and stops the onions collapsing into loose shells in the jar.

Spiced Vinegar Worth Waiting For

You will need roughly 600ml of vinegar for every 1kg of onions, with a little spare for topping up. Malt vinegar is the traditional choice — robust, slightly sweet and cheap enough to use generously. White wine vinegar gives a lighter, sharper pickle; cider vinegar sits neatly between the two.

To make a spiced pickling vinegar, warm the vinegar gently in a pan with the following, then leave it to infuse:

1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp allspice berries
1 tsp cloves
2 bay leaves
2–3 dried chillies
1–2 tbsp caster sugar, to soften the edge

Bring it just to the point of a shiver — never a rolling boil, which drives off the very sharpness you want — then take it off the heat and let it cool completely. Strain it if you prefer a clear jar, or leave the spices in for a more rustic look and a deeper flavour over time.

Sterilising and Filling the Jars

Wash your jars in hot soapy water, rinse well, then sterilise them in a 140°C oven for 15 minutes or run them through a hot dishwasher cycle. Fill them while still warm, never cold, or the glass may crack when the vinegar goes in.

Pack the onions in tightly but do not crush them — the handle of a wooden spoon is ideal for nudging them into place. Tuck a dried chilli and a bay leaf against the glass in each jar for looks, then pour over the cooled vinegar, making sure every onion is completely covered with 1cm of headspace at the top. Any onion poking above the surface will darken and spoil.

Seal with vinegar-proof lids — the plastic-coated sort. Plain metal lids corrode within weeks and taint the whole jar.

Patience, Then the Ploughman's Plate

Two weeks is the absolute minimum, but four to six weeks is far better, and three months is better still. Store the jars somewhere cool and dark, label them with the date, and resist the urge to open one early. The vinegar will darken, the spices will round out and the onions will lose their raw bite and turn properly mellow. Once opened, keep the jar in the fridge.

Come serving time, set out a generous bowl alongside mature Cheddar or a wedge of Stilton, cold ham, a pork pie, buttered crusty bread and a pot of chutney. That is a ploughman's lunch worth sitting down for — and the onions, made with your own hands and a few weeks of patience, will be the first thing to disappear.

Preserving

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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