Grocery Grails: A Plethora of Pickles

I spent most of my life not liking pickles, despite being a Jew who loves New York-style Jewish deli food more than just about anything.  So I’ve been on a long quest to find pickles I liked, with most of them ranging from “meh” to “feh.”  My long-time readers will recognize that I’ve brought this up a lot.  I can’t try any pickles without commenting on them and somehow ranking them in my head.

Well, thanks to our local barbecue maven Chuck Cobb of Git-N-Messy BBQ (which I reviewed right here on The Saboscrivner last fall and have been frequenting ever since), I’ve found the best pickles I’ve ever tried, and very possibly the best pickles ever: Grillo’s Dill Pickle Chips.  Don’t worry, in pickle parlance, “chips” refers to round slices, not pickle-flavored potato chips.  See https://www.grillospickles.com/ for more information.  But I have snacked on them like potato chips or tortilla chips; they’re that good! 

The only ingredients are cucumbers, water, distilled white vinegar, salt, garlic, fresh dill, and GRAPE LEAVES.  They are firm, crunchy, and not overly salty, which is always nice.  There’s a slight sweetness to them, something I felt was missing from every bite I’ve ever taken of a dill pickle before, but there’s no sugar listed, so maybe it’s the grape leaves.  They’re fantastic.  I’d put them on just about anything.

At least at Florida’s ubiquitous Publix supermarkets, Grillo’s Pickles are in the refrigerated case above the hot dogs, where they keep the “fancier” pickles and sauerkraut.  These came in a relatively small container that cost $4.99, but they’re worth every penny.  Sometimes they go on sale.  If they do, stock up, pickle peeps!

And of course, as a librarian and a nerd, I have to research anything I like, so here’s an article about Grillo’s Pickles from FoodDive.

More recently, I was at Target picking up a few things and found Grillo’s Classic Dill Pickle Spears in a 32-ounce plastic container in their refrigerated case.  I was a little more hesitant to get full spears, rather than the sliced chips that fit so well in sandwiches, but it was a very good price: $5.99 for that much larger container.  Well, even though they taste the same as the chips, I didn’t like chomping on the spear as much, compared to the perfect flatness and crunch of the sliced chips.  Plus, the spears were just a little more inconvenient for fitting on a burger.

Grillo’s makes hot pickles too, so I’ll have to try those eventually.  I never thought I’d be so enthusiastic about pickles, but if I could like Grillo’s that much, then normal people who have always liked pickles should really taste the difference as well.  The brine is so good, I always keep it and make pickled eggs in the Grillo’s brine.

I am also a huge fan of shopping at Aldi, the discount supermarket chain that offers amazing deals on everything, including some serious gourmet shit.  I buy the majority of our groceries at Aldi now — they can’t be beaten for quality and value on staples like fruit, vegetables, cheese, eggs, and salami.  I check their weekly ads online every Wednesday to see their special buys for each week — interesting foods and other products that are only there for a week, or until they run out.  Aldi sells a lot of “private labels” that are usually national or international products from familiar brands, just relabeled as store brands that are exclusive to Aldi.

In recent months, I’ve discovered and tried three delicious kinds of sliced pickles from Aldi — two private labels and one national brand.  These were all weekly “Aldi finds” that I picked up at various times.  They probably won’t be available there now, but watch those weekly ads, and be on the lookout for their return.

The two private labels are the Great Gherkins spicy maple bourbon pickles, which were new to me, and the Park Street Deli sweet horseradish pickles, which were my favorites until I discovered Grillo’s.  I still like them a lot, though.  Like the Grillo’s brand, the Park Street Deli pickles are sold refrigerated, and they have other varieties, including regular spears and “atomic spicy.”  Suckerpunch Gourmet Pickles is a national brand, and I wanted to try their Spicy Bread N’ Better pickles too, since I was reminded of a friend and colleague’s ska-punk band I like a lot.

I recently tested out all three of these pickles on Krystal sliders, one of my favorite snacks that I’ve reviewed before.  I ordered a dozen Krystals with cheese, the standard yellow mustard, and extra onions, but I asked them to hold their usual mediocre pickles.

Here are the Great Gherkins spicy maple bourbon pickles on four Krystal sliders, so I could gauge their full effect.  I think the strong flavors overpowered the sliders.  They have that nice crispness, but they’re a little too sweet and not as spicy as I was hoping. 

The Suckerpunch Spicy Bread N’ Better [sp] pickles were also sweeter than they were spicy.  They would be a perfect pickle on a larger, more substantial burger to cut the juicy richness and saltiness, but again, Krystal sliders are delicious but puny, and these pickles were overpowering.  

I’ve been buying Aldi’s Park Street Deli sweet horseradish pickles the longest, so I already knew I liked them a lot, especially on homemade burgers.  Of these three kinds of pickles, they were the best on the Krystal sliders, but the slices are thicker than I would like.  They are nice and crunchy, not quite as horseradishy as I would like, but not as sweet as the two aforementioned pickles.  These were the best of the three, but would have been even better if the slices were thinner.

Sharp-eyed Saboscrivnerinos, you can see Krystal has pretty decent breaded onion rings now.  RING THE ALARM, WHAT WHAT!

But I felt like the two newer, sweeter pickles still deserved another chance, so I made my own really delicious cheeseburgers to try them.  I don’t like the flattened “smash burger” style, so my burgers are thicc, juicy, and medium rare.  I served these with American cheese (the best cheese for a burger), Cuban mustard, and a little ketchup.  Check out these perfect golden buns, spread with garlic aioli and lightly browned in the pan:

Now with the Great Gherkins and Suckerpunch pickles:

Both of these pickles went so much better with the juicier, higher-quality burgers, with their sweetness working well to offset the saltiness of the meat and tanginess of the mustard and ketchup.  Their crunch held up well, especially with the light, toasty crispiness of the pan-grilled buns.  I give the edge to the Suckerpunch Spicy Bread N’ Better pickles here, but they were both good pickles that led to even better burgers.

Now I’m thinking about all the foods that pickles could go well with, and I am psyched to experiment more.  I’ve already chopped pickles up in chicken and egg salads and made my own relish the last time I cooked hot dogs.  (I buy the Boar’s Head all-beef hot dogs with the snappy natural casing, and they are awesome.)  Salty, sour Saboscrivnerinos, which pickles do you like, and how do you eat them?  Inquiring minds want to know!

But so far, the only pickles I’ve just gone to the fridge and sought out as a solo snack are the Grillo’s, which are above and beyond all the rest.  In this pickle pantheon, they sit on the throne of gods.