These delicious Japanese style quick pickles are made with cucumber, salt and sugar with a fiery kick of wasabi. Perfect as a side dish or addictive snack and ready in just 12 hours!
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Japanese Pickles
For traditional Japanese cuisine, pickles are a very important element. Not only are they refreshing, but they also add to the visual presentation of the meal and provide added nutrition.
Although, the very first history is unclear, it is said that similar things existed as early as 3000 years ago! And in ancient times of course there were no refrigerators or freezers, so there were already many kinds of methods used to help preserve vegetables.
2 different styles of pickles
There are two different styles for pickles in Japan
- Asazuke (浅漬け) Short-term, a few hours to 2 days
- Nukazuke (ぬか漬け) Long-term, at least 1 month
And today's recipe is in asazuke category as it's easy and ready in just 12 hours.
Popular flavours for pickled cucumbers in Japan
These days, people make pickles with different flavours (some of them are interesting)
For example:
- Beer
- Japanese Mustard
- Chilli
- Wasabi...etc
Pickles as drinkers' favourites
Even though it's simple, pickles are one of the most popular beer snacks in Japan.
Proper drinkers always opt for pickles rather than heavy snacks and yes, it does go well with beer because of the strong salty taste.
Or people like to have pickles as a side or with plain white rice too!
Wasabi pickled cucumbers
Wasabi pickled cucumbers are one of my favourites.
It has the distinctive spiciness of wasabi with nicely sweet flavour of standard Japanese pickle.
It's easy and flavourful, I recommend to have it with beer or on the side of a teishoku set meal! 🙂
I use S&B Wasabi paste in my recipe, you can purchase it on Amazon.
Watch our video for how to make Japanese cucumber pickles with wasabi
Step by step recipe
Japanese Wasabi Pickled Cucumbers (きゅうりのわさび漬け）
- Total Time: 24 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 5-6 portions 1x
Description
How to make Japanese Wasabi Pickled Cucumbers with a spicy kick!
Instructions
- Wash the cucumber and cut off each end.
- Cut up the cucumber into large chucks (or slice long ways if you prefer). Make sure to keep the skin on.
- Put the cut up cucumber into a large zip lock bag.
- Add 65g sugar, 20g of salt and 20g wasabi paste.
- Rub the ingredients all over the cucumber, try and make sure all of the cucumber is covered. You can do this from the outside of the zip lock bag, there's no need to get your hands dirty!
- Once it's covered, seal the bag and leave in the fridge for 12 hours before eating.
- You can transfer to a airtight jar if you prefer.
- Keep refrigerated and eat within 1 week.
- Enjoy as a side with a kick!
Notes
This recipe makes enough for about 6 side dish servings.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Pickling Time: 12 hours
- Cook Time: 12 hours 5 minutes
- Category: Sides
- Method: Pickling
- Cuisine: Japanese
Keywords: pickled cucumber,cucumber pickles,Japanese wasabi cucumber,Japanese style pickled cucumber,Japanese wasabi pickled cucumber recipe
FAQ
What are Japanese pickles called?
Japanese pickles are called called Tsukemono (漬物).
Are Japanese pickles fermented?
Some of them are, some of them aren't. There are two main different types of Japanese pickles; Asaduke (浅漬け) are lightly pickled but not fermented,
nukaduke (ぬか漬け) are rice bran pickles and fermented in the process.