Growing up in a small town, we often joked about locking car doors in the summer. Not to keep people out…but to keep the zucchini out! We are having a wonderful zucchini harvest this year, and, yes, we have given our fair share away! I have also made zucchini bread, frozen shredded zuchini to make bread, and frozen cubed zucchini for meals. And they keep coming!
I’m not complaining (because last year we only got 1!), but I do want to make sure that I am a good steward of all the wonderful food coming from our garden this year. This morning I went looking for a sweet relish canning recipe on Pinterest, and I found a ton of posts about zuchini relish! So, I decided to try it today. I chose THIS recipe from Old World Garden Farms because it had tons of rave reviews…and it’s from a grandma, so it has to be good, right?!
Since the zucchini has to sit in brine for about 8-10 hours, I started first thing this morning. I used my food processor to chop up four cups of onions (I used a mixture of purple, yellow, and white) and four bell peppers (green, orange, purple & red–gorgeous!) straight from our garden and then to grate one of the ginormous zucchini that has been sitting on my counter. When I say ginormous, I mean it. I got 10 cups of grated zucchini from ONE zucchini! I added the of salt, mixed it up, and covered it.
After about 10 hours, I rinsed the mixture really well and pressed to drain. The rest if the process is a piece of cake–just dump the zucchini mixture into a big pot, add the extra ingredients (I used apple cider vinegar instead of regular), bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Then put in your pint jars (I ended up with 4 1/2 pints) and process.
Many of the commenters on this recipe said that they had tons of juice remaining. The purpose of the 30 minute simmer is to reduce the mixture. I’m thinking they either did not boil for the full 30 minutes or they did not strain very well.
The relish is amazing! I think the apple cider vinegar added a nice flavor. I have always only used relish on hot dogs, but after reading some of the comments on the recipe, I decided to try it in chicken salad. I mixed organic mayo, a couple spoons of relish, shredded chicken, and quartered red grapes. It was SO good! Like the best I have ever made!
I was raised on Miracle Whip, so I don’t like mayo; however, there are no ‘healthy’ options for Miracle Whip. I learned that I could mix a little vinegar and sugar into mayo to get a similar flavor, but this relish works even better! AND bonus! you get some veggies! 😉
I’m so glad I have another way to use up my plentiful zucchini! Do you have any favorite zucchini recipes to share?
Karen