This is a really colourful, good-old fashioned, delicious, all-round relish, good on burgers, dogs, sausage on a bun, etc. A few tablespoons stirred into a potato salad liven it up.
If a relish ever tasted like summer, this is it.
The recipe
Jars: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 10 minutes either size jar
Cucumber relish
Ingredients
- 175 g pickling salt (½ cup / 6 oz)
- 1.75 kg cucumber (scrubbed, peeled, finely chopped. About 8 cups / 3 ¾ lbs. Measured after prep)
- 750 g green bell pepper (after it's been seeded and finely chopped, about 4 cups / 1 ½ lbs. Measured after prep)
- 750 g red bell pepper (after it's been seeded and finely chopped, about 4 cups / 1 ½ lbs. Measured after prep)
- 250 g celery (finely chopped. 2 cups / ½ lb. Measured after prep)
- 175 g onion (finely chopped. 1 cup / 6 oz. Measured after prep)
- 750 ml white vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 3 cups / 24 oz)
- 500 g sugar (white. 2 ¼ cups / 18 oz)
- 3 tablespoons mustard seed
- 3 tablespoons celery seed
Instructions
- Prep the veg, put in a very large bowl or pot.
- Mix the salt OR salt sub with the prepped veg, then let it sit for 4 hours, then drain, rinse, drain again.
- In a large pot, mix together everything from the vinegar down to and including the celery seed. Bring to a boil. Add the drained veg. Mix, bring back to a boil and simmer 10 minutes.
- Put in your choice of the following jar sizes: quarter-litre (½ US pint / 8 oz), or half-litre (1 US pint / 16 oz).
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace regardless of jar size.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process either size jar for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
- Best after at least a month of jar time.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe notes
- You may use any type of cucumber you wish, even English or regular slicing cucumber. There is no concern about waxed cucumber skin here, because the cucumber is being peeled, anyway. If the cucumber you use has a lot of large seeds in it, and you want to get rid of those seeds, you may do so: cut cucumber in half length-wise and run the tip of a spoon down the middle to scrape those seeds out.
- For a different taste, you can use apple cider vinegar (5% or greater) instead of the white vinegar.
- Instead of the pickling salt, you can use non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub. We have found that Herbamare Sodium-Free meets both those conditions.
- Instead of the sugar, you could use the same volume amount of Splenda®, or 2 teaspoons liquid stevia. We’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia . You can also reduce the sugar if you wish.
- You can just use 1.5 kg (3 lbs) of all one colour of bell pepper, or any equivalent measure of any colour of bell peppers that you wish. The different colours are just for visual effect. If you wanted a greener look to the relish, you could go for all green.
Recipe source
Cucumber Relish. In: Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 218.
Safety check
A pH of 3.77… well and truly in the safe range, far below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6. Another safe, quality recipe from the Ball / Bernardin Complete Book.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 32 calories, 74 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free version
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 13 calories, 4 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 3 tablespoons, 0 points; 4 to 10 tablespoons, 1 point
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
* Herbamare ® is a registered trademark of the A. Vogel Corporation.
Cucumber relish in a green heritage jar
Lynnette
I would like to make this recipe with all green peppers for a greener look and because that is what I have. Do I need to peel my cucumbers? I will be using softer skinned, non-waxed cucumbers.
Also, a previous comment asks about using pint jars rather than 1/2 pint jars per the recipe. The recipe actually says pint jars and a different recipe on the site uses 1/2 pint jars. Please confirm that pint jars are correct for this recipe.
BTW, your website is incredibly helpful!
Healthy Canning
All green pepper is fine, as mentioned in the Recipe Notes. The directions are to peel, so peel (see: https://www.healthycanning.com/why-you-have-to-peel-some-vegetables-for-home-canning/). The recipe allows for jar sizes up to and including 1 US pint (500 ml jars). You may do 1/2 pint (250 ml) jars if you wish; the processing time remains unchanged.
Lou-lou
Can I leave the celery out or substitute something else?
Thanks!
Healthy Canning
Yes you may leave out the celery.
Mary
It’s stated not to increase the size of jar for water bath. I noticed a very similar recipe for cucumber relish to yours that says to use pint jars, whereas yours says 1/2 pint. Would it not be safe to use pint jars in your recipe? Thanks
Healthy Canning
The recipe has been lab safety tested for the size of jar(s) indicated in the recipe. You can’t use larger jars. See Jar sizes: https://www.healthycanning.com/jar-sizes/ for the reason why.