What you see: Old pickles, past their best-by date. The jar is opened.
What it is: Old pickles.
Eat or toss: Eat, probably. Inspect, first with your eyes and nose, finally by tasting, to make sure they still taste good.
Pickles are designed to last for a while, so even when some get lost in the back of your fridge, odds are good they’ll still be fine.
The acid that preserves the pickles also makes it hard for microorganisms to grow, keeping pickles safe and tasty for a while. Pickles won’t last indefinitely though. So, before you eat older pickles, you’ll want to inspect them. Starting with how they look.
Mold can grow on pickles
Look for signs of mold (I’ve literally encountered floating rafts of mold in old pickle brine). While the acid makes it hard for mold to grow, it’s still possible if enough time goes by. Fizzing, bubbling, extra sour or off flavors and possibly cloudiness can also signal that some tiny critters have been having a spa day in your pickle brine.
Cloudiness alone could be fine
If the pickles look and smell fine and are only cloudy, however, they could still be fine. Cloudiness could come from broken down bits of cucumbers or spices, particularly if the pickles were made with coarser salts like kosher salt or sea salt, explained Shannon Combest, an assistant food science professor at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Cloudiness could also be lactic acid bacteria, which might not be cause for concern in fermented pickles (lactic acid bacteria are key to the fermentation process), but would signal unwanted activity in foods pickled with vinegar. Generally, given the acidity Combest said, yeasts and molds are far more likely than bacteria to mess with pickles.
Those yeasts and molds can also do another nasty trick: as they digest and process the pickles and brine they can make the pickle brine less acidic; this could make the brine more hospitable to other microorganisms. An error in manufacturing could also lead to a brine that’s not acidic enough to effectively hold off invaders.
So, those aged pickles could have developed some issues, but, particularly if the pickles are merely months past their “best-by” date, they’re probably fine. Fortunately, your senses are your friends here. Inspect, sample and eat accordingly.
