Dixie Relish is a delicious relish recipe based on cabbage that you can make inexpensively the year round.
Good thing, because in the spring you’re going to want to make sure you have a few jars of this mellowing on the shelf for summer sausage on a bun, and burgers.
It’s also delicious as a side with grilled meats, and barbeque.
Everything about this says lazy days of summer.
This recipe makes a lot, so you may wish to cut the recipe in half.
The recipe
If you wish to adjust batch size, do the math first on paper.
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)
Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning
Yield: 7 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 15 minutes either size jar
Dixie relish
Ingredients
- 500 g cabbage (coarsely chopped. 4 cups / 1 pound)
- 600 g bell peppers (mixed colours, finely chopped. 4 cups / 1 ¼ lbs)
- 250 g onion (finely chopped. 2 cups / 9 oz / 2 medium)
- 4 tablespoons pickling salt
- 2 litres water (lukewarm. 8 cups / 64 oz)
- 1 litre white vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 4 cups / 32 oz)
- 200 g sugar (white. ¾ cup / 6 oz)
- 3 tablespoons mustard seed
- 2 tablespoons celery seed
The final 3 ingredients are optional spicing that you may wish to also add. If using these spices, tie into a spice bag or put into a large tea genie, put into vegetable and vinegar mixture when you simmer it, then remove spice bag and discard:
Instructions
- Prep the cabbage, onion and bell pepper (free free to use a food processor, but use the pulse button so you don't purée it.)
- Put into a large bowl.
- Dissolve salt into water.
- Pour salt water over veg mixture. (If more water is needed to cover, add more.) Let stand for an hour on the counter or table, covered.
- Drain, rinse and drain again, squeezing out excess liquid.
- Put into a large pot with the vinegar down to and including the celery seed. Add spice bag, if using.
- Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until thickened to your liking.
- Discard spice bag, if used.
- Pack hot into quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars or half-litre (US pint) jars.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace for either size jar.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process either size jar for 15 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
- For a zippier relish you can replace some of the bell pepper with an equivalent amount of chopped hot pepper instead, or, add a teaspoon of dried red chile flakes.
- Don’t increase the amounts of cabbage, pepper or onion, or, decrease the amount of vinegar.
- Instead of the salt, you can use a non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub. We have found Herbamare Sodium-Free performs well in that regard.
- You can reduce the sugar, or use the same volume amount of granulated Splenda®, or use 2 teaspoons of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia.
- Instead of distilled white vinegar, you may try any vinegar you wish provided it is 5% acid or higher.
Recipe source
Dixie Relish: in Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Robert Rose Inc. 2015. Page 228.
Dixie Relish: in Ball Blue Book. Muncie, Indiana: Healthmark LLC / Jarden Home Brands. Edition 37. 2014. Page 87
The Ball Blue Book calls for ½ cup pickling salt to be mixed into 8 cups of water; the Complete Book calls for ¼ cup to be mixed into 7 cups of water. We went with the lower salt amount as there were cautions in the Complete Book notes about how salty some people could find the relish.
Modifications made:
- Ball / Bernardin Complete uses the spice bag spices; Blue Book doesn’t. We went with those spices for more of that old-time, added taste complexity, but let the mustard and celery seed be free range in the relish for added visual interest.
Nutrition information
Regular Version
Estimating that 10% of the salt was absorbed by the vegetable.
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 14 calories, 65 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free Version
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 8 calories, 3 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 7 tablespoons: 0 points; 8 to 21 tablespoons: 1 point.
Safety check
With a pH of 3.51 on this Dixie Relish, the recipe is well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6 pH.
* 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.
* Pickle Crisp ® is a registered trademark of the Jarden Corporation.
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