Name: Sweet Pickled Beets
Yield: enough sweet spiced brine for roughly 6–8 pint jars of beets
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 7 lb beets, cooked, peeled, and sliced; onions, thinly sliced; 2 quart white vinegar; 4 cup white sugar; 2 tbsp ground cinnamon; 2 tbsp mustard seed; 2 tsp ground cloves; 2 tsp ground allspice; 2 tsp pickling salt

Method

Beets

Cook the beets until tender, then plunge into cold water and slip off the skins.
Slice the beets to the desired size.

Spiced vinegar

Combine the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mustard seed, cloves, allspice, and pickling salt and boil for 3 minutes.
3 min
Add the sliced beets — and thinly sliced onions, if using — and simmer in the spiced vinegar for 15 minutes. Use enough of the vinegar mixture to simmer them in and reserve the extra in a separate container.
15 min

Canning

Pack the beet and onion mixture into pint jars, then pour the reserved vinegar mixture over, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace.
Put the lids on and process in a boiling-water bath for 30 minutes (at 0–1,000 ft — see the altitude note below). Properly sealed, the jars keep for up to a year.
30 min

From the family

Processing time varies with altitude (USDA/NCHFP pickled beets, pints): 30 minutes at 0–1,000 ft, 35 to 3,000 ft, 40 to 6,000 ft, 45 above.
Onions are optional — add thinly sliced onions and simmer them with the beets.
The spiced-vinegar brine makes more than 8 pints needs; reserve the extra and use it to top off the jars so the beets are covered.