Dill Pickle Sourdough Bread
Calling all pickle lovers! This dill pickle sourdough bread recipe swaps a big portion of water for real pickle juice, folds in diced pickles, and uses rye flour for an unforgettable flavor experience.
Craving The Recipe Details?
What it is: Sourdough bread made with pickle juice and diced dill pickles baked in.
Why you’ll love it: If you’re a pickle lover, this loaf delivers! The pickle juice adds subtle tang throughout the bread while the chopped pickles create flavorful bursts in every slice. It’s perfect for grilled cheese, deli sandwiches, burgers, or simply toasted with butter.
How to make it: Mix your active sourdough starter with warm water and pickle juice, then combine with bread flour and rye flour. Incorporate diced dill pickles during the stretch and folds, bulk ferment, shape, cold proof overnight, and bake in a preheated Dutch oven until deeply golden and crisp.
I’m a little obsessed with dill pickle flavor; you’ll find it in my dill pickle hot sauce, smoked wings, and half sour pickles too. This loaf is where it made the most sense: pickle juice swapped straight into the dough, not just a garnish on top.
I guess in the way of obsessions it could be worse, but there’s just something so delicious about that tangy taste that makes me so happy. I’m out here adding dill pickles to everything because I need more pickles in my life.
If you’re here, I’m guessing you need more pickles too!
This dill pickle sourdough recipe is dedicated to obsessions.
Jump to:
- Craving The Recipe Details?
- What Does Pickle Sourdough Bread Taste Like?
- Does Pickle Juice Affect Sourdough Fermentation?
- Key Ingredients
- Variations + Substitutions
- How To Make Dill Pickle Sourdough Bread
- Expert Tips
- Why This Recipe Works
- Pickle Sourdough Bread FAQs
- Baker’s Schedule
- Serving Suggestions
- More Great Sourdough Bread Recipes
- 📖 Printable Recipe
What Does Pickle Sourdough Bread Taste Like?
Dill pickle sourdough doesn’t taste like biting into a pickle.
Instead, it starts with everything you love about artisan sourdough, a chewy crumb, crackling crust, and subtle tang, then layers in savory garlic, fresh dill, and occasional bursts of chopped pickle. Replacing part of the water with pickle juice seasons the crumb throughout the loaf, while the rye flour complements those deli-style flavors.
Does Pickle Juice Affect Sourdough Fermentation?
Yes, but not in the way most people assume.
Pickle juice is acidic (usually somewhere around pH 3-4 from the brine), and adding a significant amount of it to a sourdough dough does two things: it tightens and conditions the gluten a bit faster than plain water would, and it can slow down your starter’s yeast activity slightly if you use too much.
That second part is why most dill pickle sourdough recipes you’ll find online use a small splash of brine, usually 15-50 grams, swapped in for a portion of the water. I use considerably more: 150 grams of pickle juice in this recipe, which is a much bigger swap than typical.
I do this because I want the tang to actually come through in the crumb, not just in the chopped pickles. To make up for the extra acidity slowing fermentation, I give it a slightly longer bulk fermentation time and an extra stretch and fold, which keeps the dough on track.
Key Ingredients
Sourdough Starter: For this recipe, you want to use a fed and active sourdough starter. This recipe is based on a sourdough starter with 100% hydration (equal amounts of flour and water by weight, not volume.)
Dill Pickles: This recipe works with both store-bought and homemade pickles and because I regularly make both vinegar-preserved and naturally fermented pickles at home, I tested this loaf with both styles. My absolute favorite version of this bread is studded with my homemade half-sour dill pickles – I find that they retain texture better after baking.
Dark Rye Flour: I use 100 grams of dark rye flour in this loaf, which gives it a deeper, slightly sour flavor than an all bread flour or whole wheat version. Rye and dill pickles are a classic pairing (think a loaded deli sandwich), so it reinforces the tang instead of fading into the background. I’ve also included it because rye flour has great moisture-holding capabilities leaving your bread softer for longer.
Variations + Substitutions
- Dark rye flour: Swap it 1:1 with whole wheat flour. The loaf will be a little milder in flavor, but the texture and rise won’t change much.
- Bread flour: If you only have all-purpose on hand, you can use it in place of bread flour, but expect a slightly less chewy, less open crumb – bread flour’s higher protein content is part of what gives this loaf its structure.
- Pickles: Garlic-dill or spicy pickles work well as a swap, you’ll just get a more pungent or spicier loaf. Bread-and-butter pickles will work too, but the sweeter brine trades away some of the sharp tang that makes this a true pickle sourdough bread. Cowboy candy is another great swap if you want sweet heat.
- Add-ins:
- Pickles and Cheese: fold in 50-75 grams of shredded sharp cheddar along with the pickles.
- Extra Dilly: Add 1 teaspoon dried dill or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill along with the pickles.
How To Make Dill Pickle Sourdough Bread
Make The Dough:
- Step 1: In a large bowl, combine 180g warm water with 150g pickle juice and whisk in 100g of active sourdough starter until mostly combined. I prefer to mix my liquid ingredients with the sourdough starter before adding the flour because it’s much easier to ensure that the starter is more evenly distributed in the dough.
- Step 2: Add 400g bread flour and 100g dark rye flour and mix until a shaggy dough forms. Knead the dough with your hands until all the shaggy bits are incorporated. Sprinkle 5 g fine sea salt on top of the dough.
- Step 3: Cover the bowl and set aside for 45 – 60 minutes.
Stretch And Fold:
- Step 4: Uncover the bowl and using damp hands, grab the dough and gently pull it until the flap is long enough to fold over itself, then fold the flap, rotate the bowl 90 degrees, and repeat 4 times.
- Step 5: Recover the bowl, and set it aside for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, dice 150g of dill pickles and wrap them in paper towel to absorb some of the moisture.
- Step 6: Before the 2nd set of stretch and folds, add 150g of diced pickles and stretch and fold to incorporate the inclusions. Allow to rest for another 30 minutes and perform 2 more sets of stretch and folds, for a total of 4 sets. This helps to completely incorporate the pickles. If you find the pickles are too wet and pulling apart the dough after the final stretch and fold, generously flour the working surface and the dough and gently knead the dough until it comes together cohesively.
Bulk Ferment:
- Step 7: After the 4th and final stretch and fold, cover the bowl and set aside for 2-4 hours to finish the bulk ferment. It is important to keep the dough bowl somewhere warm to encourage the microbes to work quickly!
- Step 8: Look for about a 40-50% increase in volume, visible bubbles around the edges, and a domed surface. If the dough is domed in the bowl it is ready to work with, if the dough is flat it may need more time in the bulk ferment.
Shape:
- Step 9: Lightly flour the work surface and use a bowl scraper to turn the dill pickle sourdough out onto the floured surface. Try to get the smooth top part face down so that the sticky underside is on top facing you, this will make shaping the dough easier.
- Step 10: Press into a large rectangle, then fold the edges into the middle.
- Step 11: Starting from the bottom, tightly roll the dough into a batard. Stop there if making a batard, or tuck the long ends underneath to create a boule.
- Step 12: Cover the dough with clean kitchen towel and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
- Step 13: Place your hands underneath the dough and using your pinkies, apply pressure to the dough and drag it along the work surface to increase surface tension in the dough. Avoid overtightening the dough because it may tear with the inclusions.
- Step 14: Dust the top of your boule or batard with rice flour, then use a bench scraper to pick up the dough, flip the dough, and place it upside down, or seam side up, into a banneton to prove for 2 hours.
Don't have a banneton? Check out these banneton alternatives!
Cold Proof:
- Step 15: Cover the banneton with a reusable plastic bag and place it in the fridge. During the proving period, the dough will rise in the banneton, but due to the cool temperatures in the fridge, there won’t be a marked difference.
Bake:
- Step 16: Place your dutch oven, cloche, or desired baking dish in the oven and preheat to 450f.
Once the oven is preheated, remove the dough from the fridge and invert the banneton onto a sheet of parchment paper. Use a lame, sharp knife, or clean razor blade to score the dough, I usually like to make one deep curved slash when adding inclusions, but you can get as fancy as you like!
- Step 17: Carefully remove the dutch oven from the oven, and using the parchment paper as a sling, transfer the sourdough loaf from the counter into the dutch oven.
- Step 18: Bake the dough at 450f covered for 30 minutes and uncovered at 450f for 10-15 minutes, or until the loaf is cooked through and the crust is a rich caramel brown. You can test the doneness of the loaf with an instant-read thermometer. Bread is cooked once it reaches 205 – 210 degrees Fahrenheit internal temperature.
If you don’t have a dutch oven, I have a guide on how to cook sourdough without a dutch oven.
Expert Tips
- Dry the diced pickles before folding them in. Pickles hold a surprising amount of extra moisture that can throw off the hydration of this loaf.
- Watch the clock more than the rise on hot days. If your kitchen runs above 75°F, start checking doneness by the 40% mark rather than waiting for 50%.
- Taste your brine before you commit to the full 150g. Pickle juice brands vary a lot in salt and vinegar concentration. If yours tastes notably saltier or more acidic than a standard grocery dill pickle brine, drop your added salt below the 5g in the recipe and re-check with a quick dough-taste after mixing, don’t assume every bottle hits the same 7.5g-of-salt-per-150g baseline the recipe is built on.
- Let the crumb set before slicing a little longer than usual. The extra moisture from the pickles mean this loaf’s crumb structure firms up more slowly than a standard sourdough. Cutting before the 2-hour mark risks a gummier slice than you’d get with your unflavored loaves, even at the same internal temp.
Why This Recipe Works
Pickle juice builds flavor from the inside out. Instead of adding just a splash of brine, I swap a generous 150g of the water for dill pickle juice (which is mostly water and contributes to the dough’s hydration). That extra brine works its way into the crumb itself, not just the diced pickles, so you actually taste that tang in every bite instead of just biting into the occasional chunk.
A balanced formula accounts for the acidic brine. The extra bulk ferment time offsets the acidity, and the reduced added salt offsets what the brine already contributes; see Does Pickle Juice Affect Sourdough Fermentation? and the FAQ above for the exact numbers. The result is a loaf that still rises well and doesn’t taste like a salt lick.
Stretch and folds evenly distribute the inclusions. Adding the diced pickles in during the second set of stretch and folds strengthens the dough while gently working the pickles throughout instead of leaving them clumped in one spot. Patting them dry with a paper towel first is a step I don’t skip – pickles add a ton of moisture and skipping that step can lead to unpredictable dough.
An overnight cold proof develops flavor and improves oven spring. Retarding the dough in the fridge gives the wild yeast and bacteria more time to build that classic sourdough tang, and it firms the dough up enough that scoring is easy instead of a wrestling match. Baking straight out of the fridge is what gets me that deep caramel crust and open, airy crumb every time.
Pickle Sourdough Bread FAQs
Yes, pickle juice can replace a portion of the water in a sourdough recipe. I use 150 grams of pickle juice in this recipe. If you’re adapting your own recipe, start by replacing no more than 20-25% of your total liquid weight with brine, since more than that can noticeably slow fermentation and tighten the crumb.
It shouldn’t be because I account for the salt already in the brine. Pickle brine is usually 3-5% salt, so 150 grams of brine adds roughly 7.5 grams of salt on its own. My usual salt ratio for 500 grams of flour is around 12-13 grams total, so I cut the added salt to just 5 grams to compensate – more than half my normal amount. That brings the total to about 12.5 grams, right in line with a standard loaf. I tested higher and lower amounts before landing on 5 grams as the sweet spot. If you’re using a different brand of pickles, brine salinity can vary, so taste yours first and adjust from there.
This is normal, pickles add extra moisture to the dough. Make sure you’re patting the chopped pickles dry with a paper towel before folding them in, and don’t be afraid to flour your hands and work surface generously during after the final stretch and fold if the dough feels too wet to handle.
Keep your loaf cut side down on a cutting board for up to 12 hours before the crust starts to get too crisp. that’s our go-to method. After 12 or so hours, I’d recommend transferring it to a bread bag. For more detail, here’s our full guide to storing sourdough bread.
Yes. Cool the loaf completely to room temperature, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, slide it into a bread bag, and freeze for 1-2 months. To use, unwrap and let it come to room temperature for 1-2 hours before slicing. Full instructions are in our guide to freezing sourdough bread.
Baker’s Schedule
Day 1
- 9:00 AM: Combine water, pickle juice, starter, bread flour, and rye flour – fermentolyse
- 10:00 AM: First stretch and fold, dice and prep pickles
- 10:30 AM: Second stretch and fold, incorporate pickles
- 11:00 AM: Third stretch and fold
- 11:30 AM: Fourth stretch and fold, finish bulk ferment
- 1:30 PM: Bulk ferment complete, pre shape
- 2:00 PM: Final shape, place dough into banneton, beginning of the proof
- 4:00 PM: Proofing complete, place banneton in fridge to cold retard
Day 2
- 8:30 AM: Set a dutch oven into the cold oven and preheat both together at 450f.
- 9:30 AM: Flip the dill pickle loaf onto a parchment paper square, score the top of the loaf then bake.
Serving Suggestions
- Cold Roast Beef Sandwich: Just think about that cold cross rib roast beef sandwich piled high with crunchy deli pickles! YUM!
- Grilled Cheese: The tangy pickle flavor and rye pair perfectly with gooey sharp cheddar or havarti. This is hands-down one of my favorite grilled cheese breads.
- Reuben Sandwich: If you’re already using rye flour, you might as well lean all the way in! Layer it up with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing for the ultimate deli sandwich.
- Egg Salad: Creamy egg salad and dill pickles are already best friends. Serving it on this bread just takes things one delicious step further.
- Toast: Sometimes simple is best. Toast a slice until it’s crisp, slather it with salted butter or cream cheese, and let the pickle flavor shine all on its own.
More Great Sourdough Bread Recipes
If you tried this Dill Pickle Sourdough recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting!
📖 Printable Recipe
Dill Pickle Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
- 180 g water, warm
- 150 g pickle juice
- 100 g sourdough starter, active
- 400 g bread flour
- 100 g dark rye flour
- 5 g fine sea salt
- 150 g pickles, finely diced
- flour for dusting work surfaces
Instructions
Make The Dough:
- In a large bowl, combine 180g warm water with 150g pickle juice and whisk in 100g of active sourdough starter until mostly combined.
- Add 400g bread flour and 100g dark rye flour and mix until a shaggy dough forms. Knead the dough with your hands until all the shaggy bits are incorporated. Sprinkle 5 g fine sea salt on top of the dough.
- Cover the bowl and set aside for 45 – 60 minutes.
Stretch and Fold:
- Uncover the bowl and using damp hands, grab the dough and gently pull it until the flap is long enough to fold over itself, then fold the flap, rotate the bowl 90 degrees, and repeat 4 times.
- Recover the bowl, and set it aside for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, dice 150g of dill pickles and wrap them in paper towel to absorb some of the moisture.
- Before the 2nd set of stretch and folds, add 150g of diced pickles and stretch and fold to incorporate the inclusions. Allow to rest for another 30 minutes and perform 2 more sets of stretch and folds, for a total of 4 sets. This helps to completely incorporate the pickles. If you find the pickles are too wet and pulling apart the dough after the final stretch and fold, generously flour the working surface and the dough and gently knead the dough until it comes together cohesively.
Bulk Ferment:
- After the 4th and final stretch and fold, cover the bowl and set aside for 2-4 hours to bulk ferment. It is important to keep the dough bowl somewhere warm to encourage the microbes to work quickly!Bulk ferment is complete when the dough has risen in the bowl, and has a smooth surface with visible bubbles. If the dough is domed in the bowl it is ready to work with, if the dough is flat it may need more time in the bulk ferment.
Shape:
- Lightly flour the work surface and turn the dill pickle dough out onto the floured surface. Try to get the smooth top part face down so that the sticky underside is on top facing you, this will make shaping the dough easier.
- Fold the sides into the middle. Then starting from the bottom, tightly roll the dough into a batard. Stop there if making a batard, or tuck the long ends underneath to create a boule.
- Allow the dough to rest covered for 20 minutes.
- Place your hands underneath the dough and using your pinkies, apply pressure to the dough and drag it along the work surface to increase surface tension in the dough. Avoid overtightening the dough because it may tear with the inclusions.
- Dust the top of your boule or batard with rice flour, then use a bench scraper to pick up the dough, flip it, and place it upside down, or seam side up, into a banneton to prove for 2 hours.
Cold Proof:
- Cover the banneton with a reusable plastic bag and place it in the fridge. During the proving period, the dough will rise in the banneton, but due to the cool temperatures in the fridge, it won't be a marked difference.
Bake :
- Place your dutch oven, cloche, or desired baking dish in the oven and preheat to 450f.
- Once the oven is preheated, remove the dough from the fridge and invert the banneton onto a sheet of parchment paper.
- Use a lame, sharp knife, or clean razor blade to score the dough, I usually like to make one deep curved slash when adding inclusions, but you can get as fancy as you like!
- Carefully remove the dutch oven from the oven, and using the parchment paper as a sling, transfer the sourdough loaf from the counter into the dutch oven.
- Bake the dough at 450f covered for 30 minutes and uncovered at 450f for 10-15 minutes, or until the loaf is cooked through and the crust is a rich caramel brown. You can test the doneness of the loaf with an instant-read thermometer. Bread is cooked once it reaches 205 – 210 degrees Fahrenheit internal temperature.
Cool:
- Remove baked bread from the dutch oven and transfer it to a wire mesh cooling rack to cool completely before slicing. I like to leave it for at 2-3 hours before slicing, as slicing too soon can affect the crumb and texture of your loaf.
Notes
Expert Tips
- Dry the diced pickles before folding them in. Pickles hold a surprising amount of extra moisture that can throw off the hydration of this loaf.
- Watch the clock more than the rise on hot days. If your kitchen runs above 75°F, start checking doneness by the 40% mark rather than waiting for 50%.
- Taste your brine before you commit to the full 150g. Pickle juice brands vary a lot in salt and vinegar concentration. If yours tastes notably saltier or more acidic than a standard grocery dill pickle brine, drop your added salt below the 5g in the recipe and re-check with a quick dough-taste after mixing, don’t assume every bottle hits the same 7.5g-of-salt-per-150g baseline the recipe is built on.
- Let the crumb set before slicing a little longer than usual. The extra moisture from the pickles mean this loaf’s crumb structure firms up more slowly than a standard sourdough. Cutting before the 2-hour mark risks a gummier slice than you’d get with your unflavored loaves, even at the same internal temp.
It’s a great receipe and delicious bread
Happy to hear you enjoyed it!
Hi, I just thought I would reach out to let you know that you may want to change your cold ferment from two hours to 12 hours. I was confused until I went through the whole page and saw the baker schedule.
Hey Dan, the 2 hours listed in the recipe are for the bulk ferment and the proof (rise after the shape). The cold ferment can be short, or long, I’ve gone up to 3 days in the fridge for this recipe and all has been well. I have more information about cold fermenting here.
This sounds fantastic! But could I use whole wheat flour instead of rye?
You bet, just sub out the rye flour. It may have a slightly different taste, but it will still be delicious!
Hi, wouldn’t this be extremely high in sodium, especially with the added salt? Wonder if this could be made without the added salt, since the brine is already pretty high?
Hey Jessica, I’ve made this one numerous times and it’s not overly salty. I have compensated for the salt in the brine by decreasing the salt by more than half. You’re welcome to try and reduce the salt more, but in my testing I found 5g was the sweet spot for me!
If you’re curious on how I worked out a starting point while developing this recipe, I can explain it a bit! Pickle brine is usually between 3-5% salt, so I take 150g pickle brine x 5% (assuming the high side) = 7.5g salt per 150g brine. My usual salt ratio for 500g flour is around 12-13g. The 5g added salt plus the approximate 7.5g salt from the brine = 12.5g for 500g flour. I did test with higher and lower salt, but settled on 5g for my pickle brine. Hope that makes sense.
I’ve made this twice and it’s a great recipe as is, but I did change it a bit. I added a few tablespoons of fresh dill and some cheddar cheese. Everyone has loved it and I’m going to try it with pickled jalapeno next. Thank you for posting this recipe Ally.