As we travel, we have enjoyed eating at restaurants that weren’t part of a chain that we had in Vermont that we’d eaten at many times. We’ve eaten at little diners and local pizzerias. But one thing we really look for is a restaurant where we can eat outside! Where we are from it is winter now – so there is no eating outside. Now that we are in a warmer climate, we are soaking it up! We’ve eaten while looking out at the Atlantic Ocean all up and down the East Coast, but also overlooking rivers and coves. There’s just something about enjoying delicious food overlooking beautiful scenery!
Enter Deep Fried Pickles
One of the foods we’ve been ordering is Deep Fried Pickles. When I first saw them on a menu a couple of years ago, I thought “Yuck”! But why? We like pickles. We like fried anything. Why not together? It’s like putting Root Beer and Ice Cream together in a float – why would someone think to do that? But we are sure glad they did! (Check out our video on Float Challenges here where we tried different pairings of soda and ice cream – so much fun!) So I tried deep-fried pickles and HAVE LOVED THEM EVER SINCE!
One thing I’ve noticed is they taste different wherever you order them. They may have a thick batter on them. Sometimes they are spicy. Some are saltier. Another variation is the dipping sauce served with them. There is often ranch in a cute bowl beside them, but we’ve also had a spicy ranch, a honey mustard sauce, and even a blue cheese dressing once. The sauce can definitely make or break an appetizer, can’t it? That is often when you don’t know what it is (I’m thinking of Jesse dumping a celery stick into a dip only to find it has horseradish in it, which he hates!).
Ranch is definitely our favorite to have with these pickles, but we like to experiment with different varieties. Check out this variety pack of ranch dressings from Amazon. Great for family members with different preferences!
Why We Bought An Airfryer
Without going into too much detail, I will mention that we did give in and buy an air fryer for our RV. When we were still living in our home cleaning everything out for a garage sale, I had sold both my bucket air fryer and rotisserie air fryer. Why did we need it? We had a full kitchen in our RV and an outside grill too. We didn’t imagine why we would need it.
What we soon learned is that the stove and oven inside the RV, as well as the grill outside, all run on propane. If you want to bake a cake in the oven, you are using propane. Between having to run the heat (on cold nights), warm water for showers and dishes, and then for cooking – the propane doesn’t last all that long (and is expensive).
We learned that whatever we could do to use less propane and more electricity (which is included in most campgrounds) the better. So we went and bought another air fryer. It has not disappointed us AT ALL! We use it at least once a day if not more.
Here is the Ninja Air Fyer that we bought. It’s simple without tons of buttons. Basically your temperature and your time for the air fryer. There are two other buttons on the bottom row, but we haven’t used them. We cook potatoes in here the most: french fries, home fries, and baked potatoes. All come out great. We’ve also cooked muffins, chicken, burgers, salmon and frozen foods. We love it and we’ve saved a ton of propane. Definitely look into one if you haven’t jumped on the air fryer bandwagon yet.
I’ll also say we used to have the Vortex by Instant version and loved it. That one you could rotisserie a chicken in, which was pretty neat! Maybe down the road, we will get that one again. For what we need now though, this one works great.
Making the Pickles
Now with our love of our air fryer and our love of deep-fried pickles, we decided it was time to make them ourselves. How hard can they be?
I found several recipes on Pinterest but most were missing a little bit of spice that we wanted. We were able to alter some ingredients and come up with the recipe provided below. It was very easy to make and Aliyah and I had fun making them. Some of the pickles disappeared before they got battered so anything you see is a little less than what we bought for ingredients. If you are a pickle lover, you’ll probably do the same!
These are the ingredients that we used, mostly because this is what we had on hand. In the image, you will see Smoked Paprika, Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Chili Powder, and Black Pepper, along with the flour and cooking spray (not pictured). I highly encourage you to adjust as you see fit. Maybe you want a more Italian-tasting pickle – add some Oregano. Maybe you want it very spicy – add more Chili Powder. What is shown is what we used to give it a little spice but not so much that the kids couldn’t eat it or enough that made our foreheads sweat.
If you’ve ever battered anything and air-fried or deep-fried it, the technique is the same. You mix the coating mixture together, dip the pickle in it, and then cook it. Very easy. However, with pickles, you want to be sure you get a lot of the moisture out of the pickle first. Yes, you drain the liquid out first, but that won’t get the pickles dry-ish. The best way to do this is to line a couple of plates with paper towels and spread the pickles out on them. The paper towels will absorb most of the liquid.
One mistake we made the first time was that we didn’t flip the pickles over to get the other side of the pickles dry. This left for a soggy finished product. To fix this you can either flip all the pickles over after they’ve sat there for a few minutes, or you can dab the top of them with a different paper towel. Of course, you don’t want the pickles dried out so they turn into chips, but you don’t want the extra liquid either. Dabbing them works best and you don’t have to take the time to flip each pickle over one-by-one.
The next step is to batter the prepared pickles. Mix all of your seasonings (we use Costco to get spices a lot, especially with spices we use all the time, like Garlic Powder. Get your Costco Membership here) and flour in a small bowl. You simply begin dipping your pickles into the flour mixture until they are fully coated. If you’ve ever done Shake-N-Bake style chicken, you could probably do the same and save yourself some time and just dump all the pickles into the mixture, shake them, then fish them out. We, however, did them in small batches at a time. It was a very easy task to delegate to the kids.
Make sure the entire pickle is coated and then shake off any excess. Too much extra and it will just fall off in the air fryer and fall into the bottom of it. It’s easier to just shake it off before you put them in the basket of your air fryer.
While the recipe doesn’t require any oil, you do need cooking spray. You will want to coat the bottom of your air fryer (or the tray in it if yours has one). You will also need to coat your pickles in it before cooking, so make sure you have some on hand.
Now that your pickles are dried and then coated in a flour/seasoning mix, and your air fryer basket is coated in cooking spray, you can begin placing the pickles into the basket. You want them flat on the bottom and not touching one another (so you will likely need to do this more than once to cook them all, depending on the size of your air fryer). Having space between them will help them to get crispy in the cooking process. Don’t try to speed up the process by putting too many in there. It took us two batches to cook them all.
Once they are all neatly organized, the next bit of cooking spray comes in. Coat the tops of all of them with the spray. If you miss any, you’ll likely still see some flour when you think you are done cooking them. Coat them all as best you can.
As a good starting point, you should cook them at 400 degrees for 7 minutes on each side. After the first 7 minutes, flip each pickle over and coat the new top side with cooking spray. Cook them for an additional 7 minutes facing this new way. The 7 minutes on each side worked well for us and how we like to eat our fried pickles. But if you want them a little crispier, or not so crispy, adjust your cook time. Just like ovens cooking differently, so do air fryers. Play around with the right cooking time for your liking.
Once they are cooked to your liking, carefully remove the pickles from the basket. It is suggested to eat them immediately while they are warm. We let our first batch sit on a plate while we made the second batch, which just made the first batch get soggy. Eat the first batch immediately and then your mouth can water while you make the second batch!
Each time we make these we will experiment with different seasonings, based on what we have on hand and what sounds good, and of course pair it with different condiments. Let us know what variations you make and how they turn out!
Check out what other recipes we’ve made here!
Air Fryer Deep Fried Pickles
Ingredients
- 32 oz. Jar of Sliced Dill Pickles Drained
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp. Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp. Onion Powder
- 1 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
- 1/2 tsp. Seasonal Salt (like Lawry's)
- 1/2 tsp. Smoked Paprika
- 1/4 tsp. Child Powder
- Ranch dressing optional, for dipping
- Cooking Spray
Instructions
- Preheat your air fryer for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.
- Spray the bottom of your preheated air fryer basket with cooking spray.
- Lay your pickles out on plates lined with paper towels. This will soak up the extra juice. You should also dab the top of them with paper towels to absorb more of the juice. (If you don't do this, your pickles well end up soggier and not crispy!)
- In a small bowl, mix together the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt, paprika and chili powder. Stir them so they are well blended.
- Begin to put pickles, in small batches, in the flour mixture. Coat each one in the flour mixture, making sure to cover the whole pickle.
- Shake off any excess flour on each pickle and then place the pickles into the air fryer baskets. You don't want them to be touching each other. How many you can fit will depend on the size of your air fryer.
- Spray the tops of the pickles in the basket with cooking spray., then air fry them for 7 minutes.
- Open the air fryer and flip the pickles over, either with a fork or tongs, being careful not to touch the sides of the air fryer with your hands.
- Now that they are all reversed, spray the new tops of the pickles with cooking spray, then cook another 7 minutes, or until golden brown. (Add more time if you want them even crispier).
- Repeat this process with the remaining pickles you have.
- Serve immediately and with ranch, if desired.
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