Heinz Pickles Go Spicy with First New Flavors in More than 50 years

Heinz Sweet and Spicy Pickle Chips, one of Heinz's first pickle flavors in more than 50 years.
Heinz Sweet and Spicy Pickle Chips, one of Heinz’s first pickle flavors in more than 50 years.

Old-fashioned pickled foods are cool again, and Heinz Pickles has capitalized on the current popularity by launching its first new flavors in more than 50 years.

Sweet & Spicy Pickle Chips and Spicy Garlic Pickle Chips come in 16-ounce glass jars, and retail for around $2.79 per jar.

Heinz Sweet & Spicy Chips are combination of crushed red pepper and sweet brine. Heinz Spicy Garlic Chips are made with real garlic and red pepper.

My husband, Kim, loves pickles. His mother had a recipe for mustard pickles that took several days to make, and he loved them. Neither of these new Heinz pickles are anything like mustard pickles, however. I think the company decided to ride the trend of today’s spicy, bolder flavors.

Kim did a taste-test of the new pickles, and he loved the spicy flavors, especially  the Sweet & Spicy Chips. But if you don’t like heat, you’d better stick with Heinz’s regular pickles.

Heinz GarlicSpicy Pickle Chip ProductThe Garlic flavored chips contain cucumbers, sugar, water, distilled white vinegar, garlic flakes, salt, red pepper, natural flavor, and calcium chloride. Four slices gives you 15 calories, no fat, 85 grams of sodium, 4 grams of carbs, and no protein.

The Sweet & Spicy pickle chips contain cucumbers, sugar, water, distilled white vinegar, salt, red pepper, spices, and calcium chloride. The nutritional values are similar to the Garlic chips.
Cuban Skewers with Spicy Garlic Pickles
Cuban Skewers with Spicy Garlic Pickles

The Heinz folks also offered a few simple recipes for using these new pickles. With Cuban Skewers with Spicy Pickles, toasted bread pieces, pickles, mustard and Swiss cheese are wrapped in smoked ham.

Pickles are dipped in an egg wash and buttery cracker crumbs to make Oven-Fried Pickle Chips.
Oven-Fried Pickle Chips
Oven-Fried Pickle Chips

A bit of history: In the late 1860s,  H.J. Heinz started selling horseradish, pickles, sauerkraut and vinegar by horse-drawn carriage to local grocery stores around Pittsburgh.

The company offered the first-ever sweet pickles in 1876.
At the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Heinz had a booth in the upper gallery away from the festival. To drive foot traffic to the booth and advertise the brand, Heinz developed the very first Pickle Pin! When people stopped by the booth to sample food they were given a free pin. By the end of the fair more than one million pickle pins had been given away. Back then, there were very few corporate logos of any kind, so this was a new way H.J. Heinz could separate himself from other food vendors.
Since the Chicago World Fair, there have been more than 100 million of the iconic pickle pins produced and distributed.