Recently, we went to the Soulstock music festival in Decatur, Alabama with friends. It was hot hot hot. We passed the time by eating our weight in snow cones for a while, but then I got to wanting something a little more substantial and headed on over to the fried Dill Pickle Tent. Hey, it was a music festival. It’s not like they had a Grilled-Chicken-Wrapped-In-Lettuce tent – not that I would have gone there if they did but still…
The Fried Dill pickles went over very well with our group and even ended up in another repeat performance. I had fun sitting next to a friend of mine who is expecting and not from around these parts. She’s from up north a ways and I said “You do realize that you are now barefoot, pregnant, and sitting in a field in Alabama eating fried pickles?”
~giggles~ I just had to point out that she was officially living the good life 🙂
So here is how I make them. I don’t care for the sliced ones that much because they seem to have more of a twang to them plus they’re an awful lot more work. These are just plain good in my mind so let me show you how easy they are to whip up!
You’ll need: Dill Pickle Spears, Milk, Flour, Corn Meal, and Seasoned Salt
You can make do with salt and pepper if you don’t have seasoned salt and whatever flour you grab first will be fine.
My “recipe” calls for all purpose but I grabbed Self Rising first so that is what I’m using in this tutorial. It makes no difference.
This is another ingredient picture in my quest to appease the ingredients by not constantly taking the same old boring photo of them sitting on the table.
Have you ever wanted to see my Southern Plate Office?
Here it is.
This chair.
Right here.
In my living room.
This is a NEW office though because I just got this NEW chair soooo consider yourself a veteran of the official Southern Plate unveiling of the office tour.
You should feel all elite and such now so don’t forget to hold your pinky up when you drink your iced tea later. Or Diet Dr Pepper, or the pickles juice we’re fixin’ to drain, or whatever you drink.
Place corn meal, some of the flour (see recipe), and seasoned salt in a bowl and then stir it up really well.
Drain your pickles and then lay them out on a paper towel lined plate to absorb excess pickle juice.
Arrange three bowls for dredging:
Bowl#1 Milk
Bowl #2 Remaining Flour
Bowl #3 Corn Meal mixture
Dip pickle into milk, then dip into flour and then…
Sing Leslie Gore.
If you don’t know who Leslie Gore is take a moment to go google her and listen to a few of her songs so that next time I tell you to sing Leslie Gore you are able to follow my instructions.
Leslis Gore is awesome.
I suggest “Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows” and “It’s My Party”. The first one because if you know all of the words and can sing it really fast it will impress people at parties – and/or someday annoy your children. The second one because that is the only Leslie Gore song the general public knows so when they ask you who sang the first one you can say “You know, the girl that sang…” and then you burst into “It’s My Party.”
Oh goodness, now I have to play one of her songs for you just in case you don’t look….
Watch this and enjoy the good old days when folks like me could do something that was considered by the general public to be dancing, then we’ll get back to the pickles.
Feel better now? Well ya should!
After you’ve dipped the pickle in milk and then flour, dip it in milk again.
Like this.
This is an important step because what you’re doing is basically making a sort of glue that will help adhere more of the cornbread mixture to the pickle. I’ve made these before without this extra milk and flour dip and you end up with significantly less breading on your final pickles.
This is also a great trick to use when making fried green tomatoes or pretty much any other breaded fried item.
Now dip into the cornmeal and turn to coat all sides.
Repeat until all of them are done. Handle them carefully so you don’t knock any breading off.
Place in a skillet of hot oil over medium high heat and cook until browned, then cook until browned on other side.
Unless you have enough oil to cover them, which I did not. If that is the case you won’t need to turn them. 🙂
Once they get as brown as you want them (which will likely take about 5-10 minutes) remove to paper towel lined plate.
I realize 5-10 minutes is kind of a big window here but it depends on how hot your oil is when you put them in and how brown you want them – and whether or not you get busy with other things and forget them for a few minutes.
They’re pretty forgiving.
Serve with ranch dressing to dip them in.
Even if you are like me and don’t really care for ranch dressing, it’s good on these puppies! 🙂
- 1 jar dill pickle spears
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup plain yellow corn meal
- 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
- 1 cup milk
- Vegetable Oil to cook in
- Ranch Dressing for dipping
- Pour vegetable oil to a depth of at least ½ inch in medium sized skillet and place over medium high heat. Drain pickles and place spears on paper towel lined plate to absorb moisture while you prepare breading.
- Place corn meal in small bowl. Add ½ cup flour and seasoned salt. Stir until well combined. In separate bowl, pour remaining flour and place milk in third bowl.
- Using your hands, dip a pickle into milk, then flour, then milk, then cornmeal breading. Repeat until all pickles are breaded.
- Carefully place pickles into hot oil and cook until browned, stirring once if needed, about ten minutes.
- Remove from skillet and place on paper towel lined plate. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving with ranch dressing.
Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars, etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.
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Will try this way but I also like mine wrapped in bacon and deep fried of course. Have A Nice Day !!!
I can’t believe you don’t like ranch dressing!!!
I hate ranch dressing too.
Yummy. I love fried pickles.
Question, why did you mix the cornmeal, flour and seasoning salt together if you did them all in different dishes to batter them. Just sayin. . . .
I didn’t. If you’ll notice I mixed only part of the flour with the cornmeal and seasoning salt. This is our primary breading, then I used the remaining flour as part of the “glue” to hold the breading on 🙂
Oh how I miss these yummy things!! I haven’t had any since I moved away from Mobile…. so, I’m guessing it’s time to make a batch or 3! lol
Just had to mention also that when you mentioned drinking the pickle juice, the first thought that came to mind was how the skating rink would sell “pickle pops”.. aka frozen pickle juice! My kids loved them….. Thank you for the memories and all of the wonderful recipes you share.
Thank You so very much for this recipe! I tried fried dill pickles for the first time at a music festival last summer and I was oh, so pleasantly surprised! They were delicious! I will definitely be making these! Thanks again 🙂
KANDY!!! You just totally made my day with that! I have never heard of such a thing! My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE pickles so I’ll have to try that for them!!! Thank you!
Woohoo! Been wanting to know how to do this. I think I’ll tweak it a bit and leave out the seasoning salt and substitute 1 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne. That way it’ll save my sweet hubby some of his sodium mg for something else tasty.
@Linda Walters – She first made a mixture, but *did not use all the flour,* the leftover flour was put into its own bowl, so you have a bowl of milk, a bowl of the *leftover* flour and a bowl of the flour, cornmeal and seasoned salt mixture. Hope this helps you.
I have to say fried pickles are probably first in my list of favorite fair foods. Followed closely by kettle corn, funnel cakes, blooming onions and those yummy curly potatoes that are topped with all sorts of good things, and, and…is there really a bad fair food? Yummy!
Thank you so much for this! My boys will be SOOOO happy – they love fried dill pickles! My husband likes fried bread and butter pickles, so I’ll try that, too! And pickle juice is also good for pickled eggs – when the pickles are gone, put some hard boiled eggs in the juice, refrigerate for a week or two, and yum!
I will surely try these. I have noticed that you use yellow cornmeal. Is this just a “cause my Momma did” thng, or do you just prefer the yellow? I have never tried yellow cornmean, I guess because my Momma didn’t…..ha ha.
In this case it’s just because I grabbed it first 🙂 I prefer white cornmeal but yellow is easiest to find. Either one works 🙂
And I prefer white cornmeal just “cause my granny did” lol!
Funnel cakes….at Dollywood….they’re a must-have!!
And, I just love your humility. It’s what I’ve loved most about you from the start! I’m still laughing at your home office being a recliner. You are too much and I just love how simple and real you keep it!
I have never tried one of these… I am going to whip up a batch this week for sure, cuz they look so good…
sounds yummy!!
Why in the picture are yall turned away from the other people?? 🙂
oh nevermind…looks like the other people might be standing in line for something…
They were in line to meet musicians as they came off stage in the meet and greet area. We were facing the stage 🙂
Hey there Christy…thanks for this recipe. I’m horrible at cooking. I was up at my friend’s place she has an in home business so I go up there some on my days off to help her out…will one day she was very busy so I thought “Hey I will make her a simple lunch….grill cheese sandwich and her homemade canned tomato soup.” How hard can that be?? Right?? Will I went down to her canned food stash (it’s like manna from Heaven down there) and grab a jar of her homemade tomato soup started warming that up and then I started to make the grill cheese…will nothing was happening in the skillet so I thought will maybe it needs some oil to get it going…so I added coconut oil and then I called another friend and asked how do you make a grill cheese sandwich without it getting soggy and her response was “Butter…you can’t have enough butter and what do you mean it being soggy” so then I got the sandwich that was soaked in melted oil and I sliced chunks of butter and layer both sides of the sandwich with chunks of butter….when my friend came in to her kitchen after helping a customer….she was very gracious and ate the lunch that I made her. She proclaimed that I had made a deep fried grilled cheese. She even enjoyed all the extra butter and we both thought this would make a great state fair food stand. In the meantime, I will keep trying to become a cook as long as I have your website and my very gracious friend. Thanks Christy and God Bless you!
Well, just YUM-YUM! This has gotta be added as a munchie staple for Saturday Football games along with Sausage Balls, Chicken Wings, vegetables with dip, chips & salsa…oh what fun!
Wow Kat, I’ll have to try the pickled egg recipe…I use to make a gallon of pickled eggs to accompany us on our visit to the gulf beach every year…. ;D
Have you ever tried this with sweet pickles? I am not a fan of dill pickles and was wondering how this might taste with sweet pickles.
That song is one of the main songs in the movie “cloudy with a chance of meatballs “. I didn’t know that she sang both of those songs!! After seeing the movie several times I think I can sing it!! The pickles are making me hungry
“Sunshine, lollipops….la la la” will be going through my head all day now. lol, but thank you for that cause it’s a happy song!!
oh and the pickles look great too. lol…I think I might need to make you a pillow for your office…….
Christy
I just bought 3 of your cookbooks. One for my daughter, one for my sister-in-law and one for me (I finally got on Amazon.com and ordered those babies). I love it..will you new book be out in time for Christmas?? I think that would be a wonderful Christmas gift.
Oh my goodness, these look scrumptious. I think we can fry anything here in the south. I only like certain brands of ranch dressing. To me, they all have a different taste. I really prefer Ken’s buttermilk ranch. Maybe one day you will find one that you like. It took me a long time. Have a blessed day.
Deep fried Oreos or Reese Cups!!!! YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t love fried pickles even though yours look yummy but Leslie Gore was a big part of my teenage years and it was soo great to hear your generation appreciates her! “You Don’t Own Me” was practically a battle cry of teenage girls of my generation….
Funnel cakes are my favorite festival food! I had never even heard of them until I moved from Canada to Texas. I will never forget the first time I tasted a funnel cake. I know my eyes popped wide open! I like them best the “classic” way–with just a generous dusting of powdered sugar.
How can you not care for ranch dressing? I thought that was a requirement to be southern. 😉 The pickles look good though!!
I love fried pickles and will have to try your recipe with the spears! I actually saw Lesley Gore perform in concert about 3 months ago. She’s still great!
Thanks for the memories. The Leslie Gore video was great and brought back memories of my youth! haha… The recepie was interesting. I’ve never had fried pickles, but I have had deep fried summer squash, and it was great! Although, I don’t think it was fried with a corn meal coating… got to try this on my family… Thanks Christy!
So glad your friend had an opportunity to taste the good life! The recipe sounds great, too. Have a great week everyone!
Favorite fair food HAS to be those giant corn dogs….YUM-MEE!! The largest county fair in texas is in the county I grew up in, and October always make long for those days. Thanks so much for the Lesley Gore video…my favorite LG song has always been ‘You Don’t Own Me’.