Perfect Pickle: Grillo's Vegan, All-Natural Pickles

Photo Courtesy Grillo’s Pickles

Besides Grillo’s Pickles being vegan, all-natural, gluten-free, paleo, and kosher — they’re just plain good. Varieties include: Italian and Hot Italian (in both spears and chips) and Sweet Bread & Butter in chips (which are the perfect size for our Black Bean and Edamame Sliders and our Smoky Baby Portobello Sliders).

Founder Travis Grillo starting selling spears — two for $1 — out of a wooden cart on the Boston Common. He made them by night using an old family recipe. After generating buzz on the Common, Whole Foods and the Boston Red Sox approached him about creating professional partnerships.

Pickle Prep

The pickles are made simply, with old-school Italian recipes. Only natural ingredients are used: water, distilled white vinegar, salt, dill, garlic, and grape leaves. For the hot variety, habanero and jalapeño peppers are added. For the sweet, they add red peppers, yellow onion mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, and a pinch of all-natural sugar.

The grape leaves actually act as a natural preserver, thus avoiding the use of chemicals and preservatives such as calcium chloride and sodium benzoate, which are found in most pickle products. They opt not to ferment these pickles; they believe they’re freshest and crispest the way they make them.

Pickle Pairing

We asked the Grillo’s Pickles team to pick all-star recipes that would go great with their pickles:

Carrot Fritters with Dill-Yogurt Sauce — “We’ve had success mixing our Italian dills with anything that heavily features carrots, and we’ve also made a yogurt-based dip with the dill chips. I think adding some sliced/chopped dills to this sauce would yield awesome results.”

Red Quinoa Zucchini Burger — “The Italian dill chips would add a nice zest, and the HOT Italian chips would provide a good bite. I would personally add the hots; I’ve done so to veggie burgers many times.”

Sweet-and-Sour Baked Tofu Sandwich— “The sweet bread & butters would give a refreshing sweet flavor, while still maintaining the crunch of the cabbage.”