This recipe is for a delicious, beautiful-looking home-canned relish that is good with anything from sausage on a bun to the side of a plate of a roast supper.

It is very easy to make. You can let a food processor do all the hard work, and you can just do the assembly and claim the credit.

It’s really inexpensive to make, too, and makes a wonderful small gift at Christmas for someone.

Easily doubled or tripled.

Contents hide

1 The recipe
2 Red Cabbage and Beet Relish
3 Reference information
4 Recipe notes
5 Recipe source
6 Nutrition information
- 6.1 Regular version
- 6.2 Sugar and salt-free version

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: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)

Processing time: 15 minutes either size jar

Red Cabbage and Beet Relish

Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Course Condiments

Cuisine American

Keyword Relish

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 1

Total Time 2

Servings 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Calories 37kcal

Metric - US Customary

Ingredients

1 kg home-canned beets (cooked, peeled and chopped. 2 lbs / 4 cups after cooking. Measurements after peeling and dicing. About 1.2 kg / 2 ½ lbs beets unprepared. )
500 g red cabbage (finely shredded. About 4 cups after shredding. 1 lb)
175 g onion (finely chopped. 1 cup / 1 medium)
150 g red bell pepper (seeded and chopped. 1 cup / 5 oz / 1 medium-large or 2 small)
1 tablespoon salt
350 g sugar (white. 1 ½ cups / 12 oz)
750 ml cider vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 3 cups / 24 oz)
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Prep and combine everything from the beets down to and including the vinegar in a large pot.
Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Stir in horseradish.
Spoon hot into quarter-litre (½ US pint) or half-litre (US pint) jars.
Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
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.

Recipe notes

Cook beets in advance either by boiling, steaming, pressure cooking or roasting. Peel after cooking and cooling enough to be safely handled. You can cook beets the day before and store in fridge over night, just bring them up to room temperature before starting.
If you want your relish finely textured you can use a food processor to chop / shred the beets, cabbage and pepper.
If you shred the beets very finely and are using American volume measurements, then your measurement on the shredded beets is 3 ½ cups.
Optionally add any or all of the following: 3 tablespoons mustard seed, 1 tablespoon celery seed, 1 tablespoon ground ginger and 1 tablespoon cumin seed, toasted and ground in a mortar and pestle or pounded with back of a chef’s knife. The idea with toasting and grinding it is just to develop and release the flavour.
Instead of cider vinegar you can use white 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 .
If you are using liquid stevia, adjust taste at the very end. It may need more sweetener or not; it depends on your tastebuds and those of your crowd. Don’t try adding sugar at the least minute, it won’t dissolve properly.

Recipe source

Red Root Relish. In: Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 229.

Modifications made:

Specified red cabbage for better colour; specified cider vinegar for taste;
Moved horseradish addition to the very end to preserve more of its zing from the boiling.

Nutrition information

Regular version

Per 2 tablespoons / 30 ml

37 calories, 123 mg sodium

Sugar and salt-free version