How to Make Pickled Beets in Canada (Bernardin Method)

Pickled beets are the most-Canadian preserve on this site after maybe sauerkraut. Manitoba and Saskatchewan basements have rows of them on the shelves. Newfoundland Sunday dinners have them next to the roast. Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes all have versions. They’re easy to make, gorgeous in the jar, and pair with almost every cold-weather Canadian dinner.

This page follows Bernardin’s Pickled Beets. Every quantity, time and temperature below is transcribed from that page, at double their batch size — our 5 cups vinegar to 2 cups water is their 2½ to 1, the same 2.5-to-1 ratio. Where we add something they do not (the pickling salt, the cider-vinegar note, the refrigerator variations), it is marked as ours.

Corrected 31 Aug 2026: this page previously told readers to slice large beets into 6 mm rounds or 1 cm wedges, and recommended Cylindra beets for exactly that. Bernardin publishes whole baby beets or larger beets cut into chunks, and the 30 minutes was established on that pack — thin rounds are a different heat-penetration problem, so the tested time did not cover them. Slices are gone. Four variations that added onion, horseradish, dill or garlic to a shelf-stable jar have moved to a refrigerator-only section: onion is a second low-acid vegetable in a jar whose safety is entirely the vinegar, and the others are additions to a tested recipe. The brine ratio, jar size and headspace were already right and are unchanged. Also corrected to match the source: 5 cm of stem left on rather than 2 cm, the tap root left intact, and the brine boiled covered 15 minutes rather than 10 with no lid stated.

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Pick your beets

The Canadian classics:

• Detroit Dark Red — the standard. Deep red, sweet, medium size, easy to grow. Most Canadian U-picks and farm stands have these.
• Cylindra — cylindrical beets, Danish originally, widely grown in the Prairies. Long and narrow, so they cut into even chunks that pack tidily. (This page no longer recommends slicing them into rounds — see the pack note below.)
• Bull’s Blood — heritage variety with dark red leaves; the leaves are also pickled traditionally.
• Boltardy — resists bolting; reliable for late-summer planting.
• Chioggia (striped) — looks beautiful raw but loses the ring pattern in pickling. Use for fresh salads instead.
• Golden beets — make amber pickles. Don’t mix with reds (the red stains the gold).
• Forono / cylindrical beets generally — cut into even chunks; good for gifting

For pickling specifically, choose small to medium beets, 3-6 cm diameter. Larger beets work but the prep is longer (when to plant beets).

What you need

• About 3 kg of beets — yields roughly 6-7 × 500 mL jars
• 5 cups white vinegar (5% acidity) — Bernardin’s recipe specifies white
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups granulated sugar — or to taste; some recipes go up to 3 cups for sweeter pickles
• 2 tsp pickling salt (non-iodized) — our addition; Bernardin’s brine has no salt in it
• Pickling spice — 2 cinnamon sticks, 1 tbsp whole cloves, 1 tbsp whole allspice, 1 tbsp mustard seeds (or 2 tbsp pre-mixed Bernardin pickling spice)
• Optional: 4-6 thin slices fresh ginger or a few star anise pods
• Bernardin 500 mL regular-mouth jars, fresh SNAP lids, bands
• Standard canning kit — jar lifter, headspace tool, funnel, water-bath canner, ladle
• Cheesecloth or tea ball — to hold the loose spices

Method

Step 1: Prep the beets

1. Leave 5 cm of stem on. Cut the leafy tops back to about 5 cm above the crown — Bernardin’s figure, and it is what stops the beets bleeding their colour into the cooking water.
2. Leave the tap root intact. Do not trim it now; it comes off after cooking, with the skins.
3. Scrub under cool water to get the dirt off. Don’t peel.

Step 2: Cook the beets whole

1. Place beets in a large pot, cover with cold water by 5 cm.
2. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer.
3. Cook 20–40 minutes until the beets test tender with a fork. Large beets take the top of that range.
4. Drain. Reserve some cooking liquid if you want to use it (some recipes do; the standard doesn’t).

Step 3: Peel

1. As soon as you can handle them, run beets under cool water.

2. Slip the skins off with your fingers, removing the tap root and stems at the same time. If they don’t peel cleanly the beets were undercooked; return them to boiling water for another 10 minutes.

3. Wear an apron and use a designated pickling cutting board. Beet juice stains everything.

4. Cut the peeled beets — whole or chunks only:

   • Small (baby) beets — leave whole. Bernardin’s headnote calls whole baby beets “a thrifty alternative to cutting larger beets into chunks.”
   • Medium and large — cut into chunks: halves, quarters, or pieces of roughly that size.

   Do not slice them into rounds. Bernardin publishes no slice for this recipe, and the 30 minutes was established on whole beets and chunks. A jar packed with thin rounds is a different heat-penetration problem, and we will not publish a processing time for a pack nobody has tested. (This page used to recommend 6 mm rounds. It was wrong to.)

Step 4: Make the brine

1. In a large stainless steel pot, combine:
   • 5 cups white vinegar (5%)
   • 2 cups water
   • 2 cups sugar
   • 2 tsp pickling salt (ours — Bernardin’s brine has none)
2. Tie the spices (cinnamon, cloves, allspice, mustard seeds) in a square of cheesecloth to make a spice bag.
3. Add the spice bag to the brine.
4. Bring to a boil, then cover and boil gently 15 minutes.
5. Discard the spice bag.

Note the ratio: 5 cups vinegar to 2 cups water — two and a half parts vinegar to one. That is Bernardin’s proportion at double their batch. Beets are a low-acid vegetable and the vinegar is the only thing making the jar shelf-safe, so it is not a ratio to adjust for taste.

Step 5: Pack the jars

1. Have your water-bath canner simmering with enough water to cover jars by 2.5 cm.
2. Have hot jars ready, fresh SNAP lids on the counter.
3. Pack hot beets into hot jars. Leave 1 cm headspace.
4. Optionally drop 2-3 cloves, 1 allspice berry, and a small cinnamon piece into each jar for visual.
5. Pack the beets to within 2 cm (¾ inch) of the rim — that is the solids level — then pour hot brine over them to within 1 cm (½ inch) of the top. That 1 cm is the headspace.
6. Run the headspace tool down inside each jar to release air bubbles.
7. Wipe rims clean. Apply lids fingertip-tight.

Step 6: Process

1. Lower jars into the canner. Bring water back to a rolling boil.
2. Process 30 minutes at altitudes up to 1000 ft (305 m), in 500 mL jars — the only size Bernardin publishes for this recipe. This is a longer-process pickle than dill.
3. Adjust for altitude per our altitude-adjustments guide.
4. Cool 24 hours undisturbed on a towel. Check seals.

If a jar doesn’t seal: the 24-hour rule applies.

Storage

• Cool, dark, dry place at room temperature
• Best quality 12 months — Bernardin’s guidance is to use home-canned food within one year. That is a quality window, not an expiry: the jar is as safe as the process made it. Colour, flavour and texture fade.
• After opening: refrigerate and use within one week — HealthLink BC’s published guidance for any opened home-canned container
• Check before eating — pickled beets shouldn’t change much in colour or appearance; significant cloudiness, fuzz, or off smell means discard

Corrected 31 Aug 2026: this page previously gave an after-opening window of 1-2 months. HealthLink BC File #22 publishes one week for any opened home-canned container — “Once the container has been opened, refrigerate leftovers, and use within one week.” Our longer figure was never attributed to anyone. The shelf life of the sealed jar is unchanged.

Spice blend: what the tested recipe allows

Bernardin publishes three spice options for this recipe and invites you to pick one — that is the whole permitted range, and it is the only variation on this page that comes from the source:

• A. Traditional — 3 tbsp (45 mL) pickling spice
• B. Sweet blend — 2 cinnamon sticks, halved, plus 10 whole cloves
• C. Caraway — 2 tbsp (25 mL) caraway seeds plus 2 tsp (10 mL) black peppercorns

All three go in the spice bag, boil covered with the brine for 15 minutes, and come out again. Changing which spices you use changes nothing about the acid.

Everything else is a refrigerator pickle

Bernardin states the rule themselves, in the headnote to their Seasoned Tomato Sauce — a tested recipe is safe because its acidity and its processing time were established together:

“Even though onions are added to this tomato sauce, it can still be processed safely in a boiling water canner. This is because its acidity and a safe processing time have been scientifically determined. Do not alter ingredients as this may result in an unsafe product.”

That sentence is about a tomato sauce, not about beets — but the rule it states is general, and it is why everything below belongs in the refrigerator rather than on the shelf.

The variations this page used to publish for the shelf all add something to a tested recipe. One of them changes the acid load of the jar directly:

• Onion (½ sliced red onion per jar) puts a second low-acid vegetable into a jar whose safety rests entirely on the vinegar. That is not a flavour change; it changes what the brine has to acidify.
• Horseradish stirred into the brine, and dilled beets with fresh dill and a garlic clove per jar, are additions to a tested recipe rather than one of Bernardin’s three spice options.

We will not publish a processing time for any of them. Make them as refrigerator pickles instead — this is our method, not Bernardin’s:

1. Cook and peel the beets as above; leave whole or cut into chunks.
2. Pack into clean jars with whatever you’re adding — onion, horseradish, dill and garlic all fine here.
3. Bring the brine to a boil and pour it over, covering everything completely.
4. Cool, lid, and refrigerate at least 24 hours before eating.
5. Use within about 3–4 weeks. This window is ours, not a specification — no authority we could find publishes a keeping time for a home-made refrigerator pickle. Past the window, Québec’s rule is the one to follow: “When in doubt, throw it out!” A normal smell and a normal look are not evidence that a jar is still good — they only ever condemn, never clear.

Never store these at room temperature, and never treat them as shelf-stable. If you want jars for the pantry, do the tested recipe above with nothing added beyond one of Bernardin’s three spice blends.

How to use pickled beets

• Beside the Sunday roast — turkey, ham, roast beef, pork roast
• Newfoundland boiled dinner — alongside salt beef, cabbage, root vegetables
• In Christmas Ukrainian/Polish dinners — the pickled beet salad with eggs and dill
• Chopped into green salad with goat cheese and walnuts
• On a charcuterie board with cured meats and aged cheese
• As a sandwich topping with grilled cheese (a New Brunswick classic) or smoked meat
• Pureed into beet hummus with chickpeas and tahini
• As a topping for borscht for those who think their borscht needs more beet
• Straight from the jar — the Manitoba basement snacking tradition

Common problems

• Beets bleed too much in the jar. The colour will always migrate into the brine; that’s normal. Excessive bleeding usually means raw-peeled beets (use cook-then-peel).
• Beets are tough. Undercooked. Test with a knife before peeling — should slide in easily. Cook longer next time.
• Brine is cloudy. Likely calcium reaction with sugar; harmless. If accompanied by off smells or fuzzy material, treat as spoilage.
• Beets fade after months. Some pigment loss is normal in storage; happens faster on a sunny shelf. Store in dark.
• Jars didn’t seal. The 24-hour rule.
• Pickled beets are too sweet/sour. Adjust sugar in the brine next batch — it is flavour and body here, not the safety component, so a modest change either way is fine. What you must not touch is the vinegar: in a beet pickle the acid is the only thing making the jar water-bath safe. If you want a substantially less sweet result, use a Bernardin-tested recipe written that way rather than reworking this brine. Our note, not Bernardin’s: switching white vinegar for apple cider (mellower) is a common swap, and 5% is 5% either way — but Bernardin’s tested recipe for these beets specifies white vinegar, and we have no Bernardin recipe on file that specifies cider. Treat the swap as ours rather than as part of the tested recipe.
• My hands and counter are bright pink. Welcome to beet pickling. Lemon juice and salt scrub removes most stains; persistent stains fade in a few days.

Why pickled beets are worth making

• They keep for a year. A 6-jar batch is a year’s supply for most households.
• They’re cheap. Fall beets at Canadian farm stands are $1-2 per pound. A 6-jar batch costs under $15 in ingredients.
• They’re a perfect gift. A 500 mL jar of homemade pickled beets gets given to grandmothers and gets remembered.
• They’re the most-Canadian preserve. Heritage Mennonite recipes, Ukrainian Christmas recipes, Newfoundland Sunday dinner tradition, Maritime supper club staple — pickled beets are common across all the regional Canadian food traditions.

Next steps

• Why did my pickles go soft — applies to pickled beets if texture suffered
• Canning altitude adjustments — required reading outside Atlantic Canada
• Best water-bath canner — equipment context
• Bernardin vs Mason vs Kerr jars — which jars to use
• Water-bath canning pillar — the broader method
• Dilly beans, bread-and-butter pickles and corn relish.