65 Pickle Puns That Are Kind of a Big Dill

Pickles are the funniest food and I will not be taking questions on this. Something about a cucumber sitting in vinegar for weeks and coming out with a whole new personality just speaks to me on a spiritual level. Anyway, I’ve been stockpiling pickle puns like a doomsday prepper stockpiles… well, pickles. Here’s the damage.

1. The Classic Opener

What’s the big dill?

I know. You’ve heard it. Your grandma’s said it. It’s on a t-shirt at Target. But it earned its spot because it’s the “Stairway to Heaven” of pickle puns, overplayed, still good.

2. The One I’m Proudest Of

I told my friend I was writing a blog post about pickle puns and she said, “How many could there possibly be?” I said, “You’d be surprised. The topic has a lot of brine-depth.”

She didn’t laugh. I don’t care. That one’s going on my tombstone.

3.

Just dill with it.

4. Rapid-Fire Round

• Everything’s brine and dandy.
• We’re in a bit of a pickle here.
• It’s crunch time.

Three idioms, three pickle angles, zero effort. Sometimes the classics do the heavy lifting for you.

5.

Why did the cucumber need a lawyer? It was in a pickle.

(Yeah, that’s the same idiom from #4. Sue me. Or don’t, I already can’t afford a lawyer.)

6. This One Slaps as an Instagram Caption

Relish the moment. 🥒

Seriously, next time you’re posting a charcuterie board or even just a sunset, throw this on there. It works for everything. It’s the little black dress of captions.

7.

I was dill-igent in my search for the perfect pickle, and honestly? Claussen. It’s Claussen. The search is over.

8.

My spear-it animal is a dill pickle.

9. The Niche One

What did the lacto-fermentation enthusiast say to the vinegar briner? “You’re taking a shortcut and we both know it.”

Okay that’s not really a pun, that’s just fermentation discourse. Let me try again.

What did the lacto-fermented pickle say to the quick pickle? “You lack culture.”

THERE it is. If you know, you know. Lactobacillus is literally a bacterial culture. I’m beaming.

10.

Stop gherkin around and help me with these jars!

11.

That first bite was pure dill-iverance.

I keep going back and forth on whether this one is brilliant or terrible. It’s been three days. I’m including it.

12. A Conversation I Actually Had

“What kind of pickles did you get?”
“Bread and butter.”
“Those aren’t real pickles.”
“Don’t be such a sour-puss.”

She was right though. Bread and butter pickles are just cucumbers in sugar cosplay.

13.

I need a pickle-up truck to carry all these jars home from Costco.

14.

Pickle me this: how do they get them so crunchy?

(Calcium chloride. The answer is calcium chloride. But that ruins the bit.)

15. One for the Foodies

The chef’s pickle-making jar-gon was impossible to follow. He kept talking about “anaerobic environments” and “pH levels” like I wasn’t just trying to put cucumbers in a mason jar.

16.

We were ferment-ed to be. 💚

Another Instagram caption contender. Send it to someone you love. Or someone you tolerate. Either way.

17.

He tried to pickle-pocket a gherkin from my jar and I’ve never recovered from the betrayal.

18. The Groan Zone

What do you call a pickle that’s also a detective? A dill-ective.

I’m sorry. I’m genuinely sorry. That one fell out of my brain and I couldn’t put it back.

19.

These homemade spears are absolutely dill-ectable.

20.

Let’s cuke it out for the last one in the jar.

Sidebar: why is the last pickle in the jar always the best one? Is it the concentrated brine? The anticipation? The loneliness of it just floating there? Someone fund this research.

21. The Stretch

I’m gherkin-teed to eat this whole jar in one sitting.

That barely works. “Gherkin-teed.” Say it fast. Squint. Okay it doesn’t work. Moving on.

22.

It was a spear-of-the-moment decision to buy twelve jars at the farmers market, and I regret nothing.

23.

What did the pickle say at the talent show? “I’m kind of a big dill.”

24. For the Pickleball Crowd

I signed up for pickleball thinking there’d be actual pickles involved. There were not. This is the greatest scam of the 2020s and nobody’s talking about it.

Anyway: let’s play pickle-ball, but with real pickles.

25.

The jar-ring truth is I ate all the pickles before anyone else got home.

26.

• Dill-icious.
• Dill-ightful.
• Dill-ovely.

That last one is a reach and a half. But “dill” is doing SO much work in the English language and I think it deserves recognition.

27.

She was cool as a cucumber, even when the jar wouldn’t open.

28. Actual Favorite #2

What’s the pickle-ing order of condiments? Ketchup thinks it’s first, mustard’s quietly competent, and relish is just happy to be there.

This one works on like three levels if you think about it. “Pecking order” → “pickle-ing order,” plus relish is literally a pickle product, plus it’s just… true? Relish has such underdog energy.

29.

His brine-y sense of humor always gets a laugh at parties.

30.

I’m in a real dill-emma: half sour or full sour?

Full sour. Always full sour. Half sours are for cowards. (I’m kidding.) (I’m not.)

31. The Deep Cut

Why did the pickle break up with the cucumber? It said, “You’ve changed.” The cucumber said, “I literally haven’t. YOU’RE the one who got brined.”

This is basically a therapy session in joke format.

32.

We need to do some brine-storming for new pickle recipes.

33.

That new pickle flavor really tickles my fancy. Or should I say… pickles my fancy.

Ngl, I almost cut this one. It’s hanging on by a thread.

34. Text You’d Send at 2 AM

you up? i’m eating pickles straight from the jar over the kitchen sink

Not a pun. Just a vibe. But honestly this IS pickle culture.

35.

He’s spear-heading the effort to make more homemade pickles and I’ve never been more attracted to someone.

36.

What do you call a pickle lullaby? A cucumber slumber number.

That’s so bad. That is genuinely so bad. I wrote it at 1 AM and I’m leaving it in as a monument to poor decisions.

37. The Obscure One for Fermentation Nerds

My pickles reached a pH of 3.5 and I said, “Now THAT’S what I call getting into an acid jam.”

If you’ve ever tested your brine with pH strips you understand. If you haven’t, just trust me, there’s a very specific anxiety around whether your ferment has acidified enough to be safe. It’s like waiting for test results but the test is bacteria and the result is diarrhea or deliciousness.

38.

I was pickle-d pink when I won the eating contest.

39.

We can’t dill-y-dally, these pickles won’t eat themselves.

40. The One That Works as a Greeting Card

You’re kind of a big dill to me. 🥒

Slap that on a Valentine’s card. Or a birthday card. Or a “sorry I ate your pickles” card, which tbh should be a Hallmark category.

41.

Our fermented friendship has only grown stronger with time, like a good pickle.

42.

What do pickles do when they’re stressed? They brine it out.

43. Another Bad One (Sorry)

What’s a pickle’s favorite classic novel? Great Ex-pickle-tations.

Dickens is rolling in his grave and honestly he should be.

44.

You need to gherkin up your courage to try that Carolina Reaper pickle.

Those exist, by the way. Spicy pickles are a whole rabbit hole I fell down last summer and my stomach lining hasn’t fully recovered.

45.

I relish the thought of a whole jar to myself.

46.

It’s a dill-icate situation, we’re down to the last three pickles and there are four of us.

47. The Cocktail One

I told the bartender I needed a pickle-back after that shot of Jameson, and she said, “You know that’s just pickle juice, right?” Yes. I know. That’s the point. Don’t judge me from behind that bar.

48.

She’s cuke-ing up a storm in the kitchen.

49.

• Brine-y weather outside, perfect pickle day.
• Lost at sea, longing for the brine-y deep (of my pickle jar).
• His brine-y disposition improved after a snack.

“Brine” is honestly carrying this entire list on its back. Give brine a raise.

50. Favorite #3

What did the pickle say when it looked in the mirror? “Well, I’ve really gotten myself into a jarring situation.”

Setup, wordplay, existential crisis. That’s a triple threat right there. I want this pun to know I believe in it.

51.

He’s a real cuke-box hero when it comes to eating contests.

Foreigner didn’t write “Jukebox Hero” for this but I think they’d be okay with it. Maybe.

52.

We had a dill-y of a time at the pickle festival.

53. The Extremely Niche One

My cornichons developed a pellicle on top and I panicked, but turns out it was just kahm yeast. Talk about a false a-brine.

If you’ve never stared at a white film on your ferment at 6 AM wondering if you’ve created a biohazard, you haven’t lived. Kahm yeast is harmless btw. Usually. Don’t @ me if yours isn’t.

54.

They were gherkin around the clock to finish the batch before the market.

55.

What do you call a pickle that draws? A dill-ustrator.

56.

Their new recipe is fermenting real success in the neighborhood.

57. Caption-Ready

Dill with it. 😎🥒

58.

I bought a jar-ge amount of pickles for the party and somehow it still wasn’t enough. Twenty adults went through six jars in two hours. I’ve never been more proud or more horrified.

59.

What kind of music do pickles listen to? Brine-d new stuff. No wait, they prefer the old school crunch.

I couldn’t pick between two bad options so you get both. You’re welcome and also I’m sorry.

60. The Honest One

I’m just cuke-ing it easy today, eating pickles on the couch, and if that’s wrong I don’t wanna be right.

61.

Here’s something to crunch on: Americans eat over 2.5 billion pounds of pickles a year. That’s not a pun, that’s just a fact that makes me feel less alone in my obsession.

62.

The whole town caught pickle-mania this week and honestly, it’s the only pandemic I want to be part of.

63. The Last Real Favorite

I asked my kid what the opposite of a pickle is and without hesitation she said, “a cucumber that gave up.” That’s not a pun either. That’s philosophy. From a seven-year-old. While eating a Vlasic spear.

64.

Embrace the spear-it of adventure, try the pickle with ghost pepper flakes.

65.

We’re cuke-ing up a plan to grow our own cucumbers this summer, which means I’ll have approximately four hundred jars of pickles by September and zero friends willing to take more off my hands.

Anyway. If you made it this far, you’re either a pickle person or a pun person, and either way I respect you deeply. Or should I say… I relish you deeply.

Okay I’m done. Go eat a pickle.