Garden Relish

by | Sep 6, 2018

I’ve been planning to make relish for several weeks and now cucumber and zucchini production has slowed. I don’t have enough of either to do a batch of relish. Never mind, I’ll try combining them. After researching recipes I came up with this combination based on what I had available. A further complication is that it has to be sugar-free. So this is not meant to be a recipe recommendation; it’s a reminder to myself of what worked in 2018.

I use a boiling water bath to can the relish, and also I store it in the kombucha fridge as an added precaution against spoilage.

Garden Relish

Makes  5 pint jars

Ingredients

  • 1 zucchini 12 inches long
  • 4 pickling cucumbers
  • 1 green tomato small, optional
  • 5 Sweet Italian Peppers red
  • 4 Hot Hungarian Peppers yellow
  • 2 onions
  • 2 tablespoons pickling salt

Syrup

  • 2 cups white vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon mustard seed
  • 2 teaspoons celery seed
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons stevia

Instructions

Wash and dry the zucchini and cucumber. Do not peel. Core the tomato and the peppers. Peel and core the onion. Run the vegetables through the Kitchen Aid meat grinder, coarse plate, into a large glass bowl. (This amount of chopped vegetables equaled ten cups.) Sprinkle with 2 tablespoon pickling salt and let stand for a few hours. Drain off the juices that are released, but there is no need to press out all of it. I did and my relish was a little too dry. Taste test for saltiness. Rinse and redrain if it is too salty (mine was not).

In a large stock pot, combine the syrup ingredients and bring to a boil. Add the vegetables, bring back to the boil and simmer for ten minutes. Stir with a wooden spoon. Taste test for sweetness and adjust if necessary.

Fill sterilized canning jars, leaving one inch headspace. Process in a boiling water bath for ten minutes. Let cool. 

Notes

After canning, I store this in fridge because it does not contain sugar. 

This same basic recipe works for hot pepper sweet relish. I used a 16-inch zucchini, skipping the cucumbers and tomato. For peppers I used 5 Sweet Italian, 8 Hot Hungarian and 1 jalapeño. I increased the turmeric to 2 teaspoons. Other than that, proceed as written.

2 Comments

  1. Kay on August 30, 2024 at 5:01 pm

    Delicious sugar-free relish!

    Notes from 2024:
    – use seven or eight Hot Hungarian peppers, not four
    – I need to fill my glass bowl to the brim to get five pints
    – after draining the vegetables, save 1/2 cup of juice and add it back when cooking the relish. This year’s was still a bit too dry.

    Reply
  2. Kay on August 18, 2021 at 10:51 am

    Karen, thanks so much for recording this recipe in 2018. It contains all the information I need to make hot pepper relish in 2021!

    Reply

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