We never meant to make a zucchini pickle. We wanted the classic: a cucumber bread and butter. The trouble was cucumbers. Good pickling ones are hard to get in Australia for half the year. Zucchini isn't.

So we made a batch with zucchini, tasted it next to the cucumber, and the cucumber lost. That jar was the first thing ACIDE ever sold, at Coburg Farmers Market in February 2023. It's still the one most people start with.

The short answer: zucchini pickles are a bread and butter pickle made with zucchini instead of cucumber: thin slices of zucchini and onion in a sweet, spiced vinegar brine. They're sweet, tangy and crunchy, and because zucchini grows year round in Australia, they're never out of season.

What do they taste like?

Sweet up front, sharp in the middle, warm spice at the end. Mustard seed and turmeric do the heavy lifting, and the turmeric is why the brine glows yellow.

Ours gets a pinch of celery seed. It's the flavour people notice but can't name. The rest is a trade secret.

Why zucchini beats cucumber

Zucchini is denser. Sliced thin, it holds its shape in the brine and soaks up more of the spice, so every slice tastes of the pickle all the way through. Cucumber stays watery in the middle. For a sweet pickle, that's the whole game.

Do zucchini pickles need to go in the fridge?

Depends how they're made. Homemade ones are usually fridge pickles and need to stay cold from day one. Heat-processed jars live in the pantry until you open them.

We learned this the hard way. Our first batches were fridge pickles, and the shops put them on the shelf. They started fermenting in the jar and made a mess. Every jar is heat processed now: pantry until opened, fridge after.

What do you eat them with?

We call it the gateway pickle, because it's the one that converts people who say they don't like pickles. Start here:

• Toasties and jaffles. Ham, cheese, zucchini pickle. Nothing to add.
• Sandwiches. Anything with roast meat or a sharp cheddar.
• Cheese and charcuterie boards. The sweetness cuts salty, aged and cured.
• Burgers. Instead of the dill pickle, or as well as it.
• The brine. We have friends who drink it straight. No judgement.

Are they gluten free and vegan?

Ours are vegan and have no gluten ingredients. We use apple cider vinegar, not malt vinegar, which contains gluten. If you're coeliac, one thing to know: we do use malt vinegar in our kitchen for the Deli Style Mustard, so check the label and make your own call.

Where to buy them

ACIDE Bread & Butter Zucchini comes in 125g, 300g and 500g jars, plus a 5kg pail for cafés and restaurants. Buy it online, at our Melbourne farmers markets, or from 400+ independent shops across Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT. Running a kitchen? Open a trade account.

The jar that started it

Everything we've made since, from the chilli crisp giardiniera to the curried cauliflower and the kimchi, came after a zucchini pickle we only made because we couldn't get cucumbers. If you've never had one, start here.