I still have the photo of our first egg. We keep chickens in a suburban backyard, and we fought for the right to do that. The photo is of my son holding a single egg in his two little hands.
All these years later the humble egg has become one of my favorite foods. It’s rare that a day goes by where I am not cracking and frying eggs for breakfast. The backyard raised eggs are beautiful with a deep orange yolk.
Storing eggs for the long term is always challenging because once the shell is cracked you pretty much must eat them right away. If you have a lot of chicken or even quail eggs, then you can pickle them.
In the raw state you can preserve them in lime water, however, if you want something you can open and not have to cook, that’s where the pickled eggs come in.
What is Cowboy Candy?
Traditional cowboy candy is pickled jalapenos, and they are a real treat! This time of year, I like to make a mix of pickled red onions and jalapenos. The cowboy candy is often cooked, and the jalapenos softened. I like to use a warm brine and slice the onions and the jalapenos extra thin.
I found this recipe here, and it’s not the only recipe I make from it – I found a lot more useful tips to make food last for a really long time.
Cowboy candy pickled eggs use that same sort of spicy, sweet, tangy flavor profile. With the help of cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, and sugar you get that same flavor dynamic. Pickled and stored in a cool dark place these can be kept, unopened, for months.
- 2 1/2 dozen hard-boiled eggs
- 2 cups of apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 2 jalapeño peppers, diced small
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
Making Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs
The perfect boiled egg starts in a pot of cold water. You are going to bring this to a rolling boil and then shut off the heat and take the pot off the heat.
Cover the pot with the eggs and warm water inside. Then set a timer for 10 minutes. Once you reach the 10-minute mark you can remove the lid.
Your eggs are now in the perfect state of doneness. You will not have any blue on the yolk. Perfect.
Making Cowboy Candy Pickled Eggs
Peel the eggs while warm, and place them in a few large sterilized mason jar. A quart jar will hold about 8-10 eggs depending on how determined you are to squeeze them in there.
Meanwhile, add the rest of the ingredients into a saucepan and bring it to a boil until the salt and sugar are completely dissolved.
This is your homemade pickle brine and will do all the work of turning your humble boiled eggs into something amazing.
Place your eggs in the jar and pour the warm brine over them.
Place the jars in the refrigerator and allow the eggs and brine to cool completely before screwing on the lid. In 2-3 days, you will have yourself a sweet, spicy, and tangy batch of cowboy candy pickled eggs.
These eggs will last up to a month in the refrigerator.
Longer Storage
This method will allow you to store these eggs in a cool dry place for much longer. However, you have to be careful because when canning eggs there is a risk of botulism.
You cannot use eggs that have been damaged during the peeling process and all your eggs should be smooth.
To prevent any risk, you should follow these steps that will help you make no mistakes and learn how to create survival meals that truly last.
To your mason jars you will add peeled eggs, while they are still warm. Then you will add the brine, while it is hot, too. Put the canning lids on and screw them down just until snug.
Related: What You Should Do With Your Eggshells
Place the jars into a water bath and bring the temperature of the water up to 200 degrees or to a rolling boil for a few minutes. Then let them cool overnight and store them in a cool dark place like a basement or root cellar.
Pickle Other Stuff
You have a very interesting brine here. This is not your run of the mill pickled egg. This stuff has a lot of character and there is no reason why you should only pickle eggs with this. You should also try pickling vegetables with this.
- Okra
- Asparagus
- Cabbage
- Cucumbers
- Zucchini
Final Thoughts
Cowboy Candy Pickled Eggs are just one example of how you can leverage the preservation power of a pickle brine to build up your food storage. What stands out about pickled eggs is the fact that you are preserving protein and that is always a challenge.
Enjoy these but don’t forget that you are the Chef on this one. You can adjust the spices and sugar to your taste. At the end of the day, you are the person who will pull these off the pantry shelf for your family to enjoy.
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When I was a boy my dad used to bring home pickled products
Eggs, pigs feet, cow tonge, Hoofs and other products you cannot get today
pickles large and giant , huge jars , and now you never see any
What happened
Big Pharma realized the health effects of pickling foods and Not Preservatives
so they caused them all to be put out of business , for Drug Cartels thru the Drug Pharmicial industry
Lets face it The Love of Money Speaks Louder than Healthy people
and War Machines Feed the Rich more than health
and Traitors support the Money Machine More than Health
This is why you cannot buy
Pickled Eggs , the best Complete Protein , This is why all the distruction of your egg industry , MONEY , The LOVE OF , And The Worship of MONEY
Well They will all Fail , and God Will Give the final judgement on mankind
Where your investment is , this is where your heart is .
God , or Money
Faith or Man made worship items ( Idolatry ) , false Gods, False Feelings of Goodness, Peace and Tranquility
But With out a True God, there will Never be Peace
God and His Ten Commandments and The Bible , True Bible , Real Word of God, keeps the Heart of Man in check , Restrained , self Controlled, Self Correcting ( Repentance ) Real Change .
With our Faith it is impossible to please God , and Mankind Cannot Buy God or Work off his evil with pittance to God , payment for Sin
God is Truth , and Jesus Christ ( john 14: All , 6 ) Read
I don’t believe in god but, sadly, agree with the rest of the post. Greed has taken all the vitality out of the food supply, happily I live in the country and can easily source real food. Not just for health but for the flavor, all that crap in the grocery stores and restaurants tastes like, crap.
This is misinformation.
The reason these things disappeared seemingly overnight is because they were found to be unsafe. People believed they were safe based on flawed studies done in the 1950s. These studies were redone in the 90s at the request of the CDC. The USDA oversaw the studies.
The request came about because people were contracting botulism, and died.
The only point of contacts in many of these cases were pickled eggs, and other high fat high protein items where boundaries existed within the product that did not allow the pH to drop to safe levels evenly.
If you eat these things without refrigeration, expect to die at some point absent antitoxin and modern medical care (intubation).
This article and its claims are dangerous and irresponsible.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39257/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3046489/
Is that the same CDC that said the VAXX was safe and effective?? Just wondering.
I love pickled eggs and I have a couple jars of store-bought ones on hand. I don’t like the price though…$4.99 for six small eggs. Making my own is something I’ve always thought about.
This recipe is a good base, but if it were me as the chef (as mentioned in the last paragraph of the article), I would pretty much completely change it. I would use white vinegar, eliminate the sugar and molasses, and add a good amount of onion.
You forgot to add pickling lime like you do with pickles.
For people who for several reasons don’t want spicy foods, you can rub your fresh eggs generously with mineral oil and store them in a cool dark place like your basement for up to a year and they won’t spoil. You do have to keep check on them to make sure they don’t dry out.
One of the best pickled eggs I’ve made was Amish pickled eggs. It calls for cinnamon and juice of beets.
Oooo, I do so love me some pickled eggs, and pickled pigs feet… I was introduced to them whole heartedly ’68 at a bar outside of Ft Bragg.. I miss that old place… Now I just save my pickle juice, add the jalapeño’s, onions, and the eggs to the gallon pickle jar…I usually let them sit in the frig for about a week before I dig in… I really like using these pickled eggs in my makings of a tuna salad, and sometimes my potato salad as well… Pickled eggs go good with anything, especially a nice cold cold beer while sitting on the front porch watching the critters sashay around…and burning up a good ole hand rolled cigar… Ya know, I promised myself, 55 yrs ago, If I make it back to the US in one piece, I do my best to live a peaceful serene life… Well, 2 yrs ago I finally made it, out here in an old farm house on a few acres where I can do just that, with my jar full of pickled eggs sitting next to me… America I love thee,… Live long and prosper…
Seem to remember back in the day …..does anybody remember when you could get a gallon jar of pickled sausages? We would boil off a dozen eggs and put them in that jar once the sausages were gone. Let them sit for a couple of weeks. Turned out great!
Wow, combining the sweet heat of cowboy candy with pickled eggs is genius! I never would’ve thought of this combo, but now I have to try it. Looks like the perfect bold snack with serious flavor!
Right? It’s one of those combos that sounds odd at first but ends up being downright addictive. The sweet heat from the cowboy candy soaks into the eggs and gives them a bold kick you don’t usually get with traditional pickling. Definitely not your average snack, this one’s got attitude! Let us know how your batch turns out.
What a genius combo! Cowboy Candy and pickled eggs—sweet, spicy, and totally addictive. This is the kind of bold flavor mashup I didn’t know I needed. Definitely trying this one soon!