How to Make Sweet Relish

If you grow your own veggies, then march to your garden and pick what you need. If you need to buy them, try to buy from a farmer's market or other location that sells fresh vegetables. The vegetables at the store tend to have a coat of wax on them and you don't peel the skin on the cucumbers for the relish. Let's try to avoid wax in our relish, shall we?

Before you begin, be sure to have all the canning tools you'll need ready.You will need a jar funnel, jar tongs, clean jars, lids and bands, a ladle, colander and several cooking pots. (I recycled the picture above from the jam instructions cuz I forgot to take a picture of the supplies and I already put everything away! You won't need a spatula or a masher.)

Here is what you need to make Sweet Relish: At least 8 cucumbers, 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 2 medium onions, pickling salt, celery seed, mustard seed, apple cider vinegar and sugar. This will make 6-7 pints of relish.

Rinse all vegetables. Chop ends off the cucumbers and discard ends.

I use a nifty mandolin to slice my cucumbers into thin strips. You could do it by hand, I did before I bought the mandolin. I was doing a lot of chopping and slicing and dicing and so I bought this and use it practically every day! The mandolin slices up the cukes in no time, just watch out for the sharp blades. I have nicked my fingers plenty!

This is the result of the cucumber after a visit with the mandolin!

After I slice up the cucumber, I go through and pick out the skinny bits, the thin strips that's all skin with no "meat" on it. I think it keeps the relish chunky and gets rid of the stringy look. You don't have to do that, but I'm picky that way.

Dice up the strips with a large knife,

then drop them into a large bowl, big enough to hold all the chopped cukes, peppers and onions. Put aside and start chopping the other stuff.

Chop the onions. Add to the bowl of chopped cukes.

Chop red pepper and green pepper. Add to bowl of cukes and onions.

Isn't this pretty to look at? Press it all down evenly because you are about to add salt and cover in water.

Measure out 1/2 cup of salt.
Sprinkle salt all over the chopped veggies.
Pour cold water all over the salt, dissolving it and pour enough water to cover veggies completely. Let sit for 2 hours. Go watch TV, read some blogs, play with the kids.

Drain and rinse the salt off the veggies. Leave veggies in colander for a bit and let water completely drain away.
Measure out 2 cups of apple cider vinegar and pour into a large pot, stainless steel preferred. Get the big water canner started on the stove.


Add 1 tablespoon of celery seed.


Add 1 tablespoon of mustard seed.

Add 3 1/2 cups of sugar to vinegar and spices. Bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves.

When vinegar / sugar mixture boils, add the drained chopped veggies. Stir and return to a boil. This will take about 10 minutes to boil and you don't need to constantly stir like you do with the jam. No tired arms here!

(Another recycled jam picture here) When veggie mixture begins to boil, turn off heat and ladle chopped veggies into hot jars with the funnel. Fill almost all the way to the top, wipe rim of jar clean, then top with hot lid, then tighten band over to seal.

Using the jar tongs, lift jar and put into the hot water canner. (yes, another recycled picture) Cover with lid and boil for 10 minutes.

When 10 minutes are up, carefully remove lid, then use jar tongs to lift each jar to an area where they can cool overnight. Cover jars with a towel to prevent them from cooling too fast. In the morning, press the top of each jar and make sure the vacuum seal worked. If the lid pops up and down, boil again in the hot water canner for another 10 minutes, or put in the fridge and eat it up!

Here are 2 of the many jars I canned. Don't they look lovely? They go quickly so make extra for your family and some for gifts.

The relish tastes great on hot dogs, mixed into tuna fish sandwiches, potato salads... Hubby likes it on his hot dogs with nothing else.


See? I had to tell him to slow down so I could snap a picture! It was gone in 2 bites!