Your family will be so excited that I am giving you this recipe. Yes, the very strong smell of onions, cucumbers and vinegar cooking on your stove will bring them to tears and make them beg for a spoonful. (Or rather they will be like my kids and come downstairs with a disgusted look on their faces while holding their noses asking WHAT in the world you are making.)
Don’t worry…the smell in your kitchen goes away. Eventually. And then you are left with several jars of sweet pickle relish…enough to last you quite a while. (This recipe makes more than a year’s supply for our family. We don’t tend to go through pickle relish very quickly, but I really like having it on hand.)
If you have a few extra cucumbers and enjoy adding sweet pickle relish to your tuna salad, etc…you’ll like this healthier version. I cut the sugar in half compared to the other recipes I found..plus used organic sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice) instead of regular sugar and it is plenty sweet enough for our taste!
Sweet Pickle Relish
8 medium sized cucumbers
2 large onions
2 sweet green peppers
1 sweet red pepper
1/3 cup sea salt
3 cups rapadura or sucanat
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 T. whole celery seed
2 T. whole mustard seed
Begin by slicing the cucumbers, peppers and onions.
Chop the vegetables into tiny pieces.
I find that putting them into my food processor works best for this.
Pour the chopped veggies into a large bowl.
Cover them with water and let them soak for about two hours (longer won’t hurt).
Pour the soaked veggies through a strainer until all the water is drained out.
Pour strained veggies into a bowl and add remaining ingredients.
Stir well.
Pour contents of bowl into a large pot. Bring to a boil.
Simmer relish for ten minutes, then transfer it into pint sized jars. (I was able to make six full pints, with a little bit leftover.)
Following these hot water bath canning methods,
process the pickle relish for 10 minutes (from start of boiling).
Six beautiful jars of pickle relish all ready to go!
The cost for this relish was very low, as the cucumbers were given to me for free and the other veggies came from my in-law. The added ingredients were low cost as it all divided into SIX jars of pickle relish! Each jar only cost a few cents.
This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.
