This Indian Apple Chutney for home canning is a traditional dark, thick, rich chunky sweet and sour chutney.
Use as an accompaniment to curries, rice, lamb, cheese with crusty breads, etc. Mix some into fat-free sour cream or fat-free yoghurt for a quick, healthy dip, or mix some into low-fat cream cheese for a delicious spread on celery sticks or crackers of your choice.
This recipe makes a lot. You can easily just cut the recipe in half, or make the full batch in November for rich, exotic Christmas gifts the following month. Your yield will vary based on how juicy or dry the apples were.
This is one of those recipes that tastes best after being allowed a bit of time for the flavours to develop and marry in the jar after canning.
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: 10 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 10 minutes either size jar
Indian apple chutney
Ingredients
- 1 kg apples (2 US quarts / 2 lbs. Measured after prep. Before prep: 1.3 kg / 2 ¾lbs / 10 to 12 medium apples.
- 150 g onion (1 cup / 5 oz / 1 medium-large. Measured after prep.)
- 150 g red bell pepper (1 cup / 5 oz / 1 medium-large. Measured after prep.)
- 1 kg raisins (7 cups / 2 lbs)
- 3 tablespoons mustard seed
- 2 tablespoons ginger (ground)
- 2 teaspoons allspice (ground)
- 2 teaspoons curry powder
- 2 teaspoons pickling salt
- 2 hot peppers (seeded and minced)
- 1 clove garlic (peeled, minced)
- 750 g brown sugar (4 cups, regular pack / 24 oz)
- 1 litre malt vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 4 cups / 32 oz)
Instructions
- Wash, peel, core and chop the apple.
- Put in a large pot that can hold at least 6 to 8 litres (quarts).
- Wash the onion, peel, chop, add to pot.
- Wash the pepper, seed, chop and add to pot.
- Add to pot all remaining ingredients down to and including the malt vinegar.
- Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered until thick, stirring frequently to avoid getting a burnt bottom. How long will depend on how juicy your apples were, really. Anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes, or a bit more. (Bear in mind, though, that it will thicken upon cooling.)
- 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 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.
Recipe notes
- Do not cut back on the high acid items (the apples, raisins, vinegar), and don’t increase the amount of low acid things (the onion, the pepper). The acidic balance here is for safety.
- Instead of the clove of garlic, you can use ½ teaspoon from a jar of non-oiled minced garlic, or about 1 teaspoon garlic powder, to taste.
- Instead of 2 small hot red chiles, you could use 2 teaspoons chile flake. If you want less heat, cut back on chile flake; if you want more, you can add more chile flake.
- Instead of malt vinegar, you can use 5% apple cider vinegar (or half and half.) It will be milder.
- 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 4 teaspoons of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia .
- It will come out quite dark from the raisins and malt vinegar, but if you want it even more mysteriously darker, add a teaspoon or two of Kitchen Bouquet.
- To avoid scorching, a heat diffuser can be of help.
- If you have sumac powder, a souring spice, to hand, you may wish to add up to 2 teaspoons to give the chutney a bit more of a sour balance.
Recipe source
Curried Apple Chutney. In: Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. Daleville, Indiana: Hearthmark LLC. Edition 36. 2013. Page 51
(In the next edition, 37th edition, 2014, page 82, Ball cut the recipe in half.)
Modifications made:
- Suggested malt vinegar of same or higher acidity in for extra robustness of taste, but white or cider vinegar (5% or higher) is fine.
With a pH of around 3.7, Ball has given us yet another well and truly safe recipe for canning.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 43 calories, 34 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free version
Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml
- 25 calories, 1 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 4 tablespoons: 1 point; 5 to 7 tablespoons: 2 points.
* 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.
Eva Matthews
I really enjoyed the flavors in the recipe so I chose this recipe to add to my Christmas baskets. I did cook the recipe for 60 minutes, and it was reduced but still really watery. I know that it was noted that the recipe would thicken after cooling… I found it did not.
Can I open the jars and cook for whatever time it takes to thicken?
Bike Walk Bake Barb
I made this with approximately 3 pounds of prepared apples. I didn’t increase the malt vinegar and I used 2 cups of dark brown sugar. After tasting I also added 2 T. sumac as suggested. That gave me the right balance of sweet to tangy; the apples weren’t particularly tangy themselves. (They were an unknown variety gleaned from a neighborhood tree, something with a red and yellow streaked skin.)
I experimented by adding 1/2 c. of crystallized ginger, chopped fine, in place of the 2 T. powdered ginger. My family isn’t big on having a ton of heat so I used one good-sized Jalapeño. That along with the crystallized ginger, which is its own burst of heat to bite into, was just right for us.
I didn’t have a full 7 cups of raisins on hand but forged ahead. Like one of the other commenters I prefer my chutneys on the lighter side for raisin quantity. I used a mix of dried cranberries (~2-1/2 cups), golden raisins (~1/2 cup), and seedless red grapes (~3/4 cup).
It thickened up beautifully after about an hour; I cooked a bit longer, approximately 15 minutes, to get it even thicker.
Total yield: 13 half-pints.
I know this will get even better with time. Bookmarking this one to come back to in apple season every year!
Peter travis
Made the chutney this morning. Only difference was using dark brown soft sugar. It is amazing now so should be even more amazing once matured. Well done and thank you for sharing the recipe. I only gave 5 stars because there wasnt 10😜👍👏👏
Cecilia Simpson
I felt the vinegar flavor overpowered the spices and fruits. It was good but not my preference. It did not thicken as much as expected.
Lorraine Weis
Hi, I used Rose Apples and this recipe was delicious. Thank you for sharing. I also used, instead of raisins, 1 kg of Dried Fruit which had Raisins, Sultanas, Dried Apricots and it was a perfect blend. Would definitely recommend. 5 Star Rating
Hilary
I love the recipe but did find it would not get thick. It seemed the more I tried the more the apples became watery. Do you have any suggestions?
Corona
It has amazing flavors.
Glad I came across this recipe by mistake. all I can say Is WOW
Laur
What type of apples do you suggest.
Angela
Is there anything that can be substituted for the raisins? I can’t handle their texture.
Healthy Canning
You could just omit them, but they are a pretty major featured item in this recipe. Might be best to just find another tested chutney recipe instead….
Sabrina
I made this with dried cranberries, because, i had some on hand. I was very happy with the results. ,
Dayana
Amazing, thanks
Vicki
What an amazing recipe. It was my first time ever to make chutney! It’s so easy and I ended up with 18 250 ml jars of deliciousness. Makes for a wonderful addition to a gift basket.
This one’s a keeper- thank you!
Ronnie
Hi this looks like a wonderful recipe and definitely going to make it.
Could you tell me how long it would be good for I once Jared ?
Thanks
Vicki
Hi Ronnie,
It’s been a year since I made this and still as wonderful. Maybe even more so now that the flavours have had longer time to meld together. My friends that I gave a jar of this to loved this on pork and also with Brie.
Tara
I cut recipe in half and ended up with 3 pints. I weighed everything and the only diffrence was I left out 1 cup sugar( I used 1c instead of 2c/ half of the 4 cups require for full 10 pint recipe). It should have made 5 pints according to the rrecipe.
Healthy Canning
Canning yields vary wildly; sometimes it just seems like it’s phase of the moon. Yield can depend on things such as how long a mixture was let simmer, how dry or moist or old the apples were, etc ….
Connie
chutney modifications: 4 cloves garlic, 50/50 malt & cider vinegar, 4 jalapeño, 50/50 raisins