Chow Chow Recipe (Southern Relish)
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Transform any meal with a spoonful of this chow chow recipe, a classic Southern relish that’s a flavorful combination of tart, sweet, crunchy, and spicy.
If you have never heard about chow chow relish before, you’re in for a treat! This is a classic Southern condiment that people often called the end-of-season relish. Did your granny make this? If yes she would likely get all the leftover vegetables from her garden, like green tomatoes, under-developed bell peppers, onions, and cabbage, and make a big batch of chow chow relish. It made sure nothing was ever wasted, which was so important back in those days.
Using four main veggies: onions, cabbage, green tomatoes, and green and red bell peppers. But just like they did back then, you can use whatever veggies you want that you don’t want to waste. Our veggies are pickled in a tart, sweet, and flavorful combination of white vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric.
The instructions are thankfully pretty simple. All we have to do is finely chop up our vegetables, let them soak in salt overnight, and then bring the remaining ingredients to a boil the following day. Then it’s just a matter of canning the relish. This is such an easy chow chow relish recipe to follow and I just know you’re gonna love how tasty it is! The combination of flavors is irresistible.
Now let’s get to this recipe so I can enjoy a big bowl of red beans with chow chow and cornbread
Recipe Ingredients
- Onion
- Cabbage
- Green tomatoes
- Red and green bell pepper
- Coarse salt
- Granulated sugar
- Mustard seed
- Celery seed
- Turmeric
- White vinegar
- Water
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make Chow Chow Relish
Chop vegetables finely using a food processor or grinder.
Place the chopped vegetables in a porcelain or glass container and sprinkle with the salt.
Cover and let them stand overnight.
Place the vegetables in a large colander and rinse very well under cold running water. Divide into smaller batches if necessary.
Drain thoroughly and place in a large stockpot.
Combine the remaining ingredients…
Then pour over chopped vegetables. Heat to boiling and then boil for 4 minutes.
Ladle into clean pint jars that have been sterilized in boiling water.
Seal with sterilized lids according to manufacturer instructions.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Here’s my canning tutorial for more info.
Now enjoy your homemade chow chow relish with some beans and cornbread. YUM!
Storage
When canned properly and stored in a cool, dry place, the green tomato chow chow will last up to one year.
Recipe Notes
- If you like, substitute the white vinegar for apple cider vinegar.
- For extra heat, add a sliced cayenne pepper or jalapeno pepper to the veggies (remember to wash your hands thoroughly afterward).
- Other pickling spices you might like to add to this recipe for chow chow relish (a teaspoon each) include ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground allspice, a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, and dry mustard (or yellow mustard powder).
- If you don’t have access to green tomatoes, normal tomatoes will work in a pinch.
- You want to use pickling salt or kosher salt, not iodized table salt.
Recipe FAQs
What is chow chow?
Chow chow is a pickled relish condiment made from a variety of vegetables. Its origins are traced back to the South as a way to use up ingredients in the pantry. There’s no traditional chow chow recipe and it can vary from region to region, but the main ingredient is typically green cabbage. You can eat it by itself or add it as a main dish topping for extra flavor.
Chow chow is also a common recipe in the Pennslyvania Dutch area and in Britain where they call it Piccalilli. Amish chow chow recipe ingredients are very similar, but they often use different vegetables like green beans, lima beans, cauliflower, and corn kernels.
What does chow chow taste like?
Chow Chow tastes like a pickled relish, so it’s both sweet and sour thanks to the combination of sugar and vinegar.
How do you serve chow chow?
Southern chow chow goes well with so many Southern dishes. Here are some serving suggestions:
- Serve it as a Southern side dish with cornbread and a main dish like Southern fried catfish or Southern fried chicken.
- As I mentioned, it’s so good with red beans and cornbread or pinto beans and ham.
- Add it as a topping to sandwiches like pulled pork sandwiches, burgers, and hot dogs.
- Pour it over cream cheese and serve alongside crackers.
- Add it to your next charcuterie board.
- Stir the chow chow into deviled eggs or potato salad.
Check out these other Southern specialties:
Hush Puppies Recipe, Southern-Style
Southern-Style Fried Okra Recipe
Southern Biscuit Recipe (3 Ingredients Only)
Oven-Baked Mac and Cheese (Southern Plate Favorite)
Ingredients
- 12 medium onions 4 cups
- 1 medium head cabbage 4 cups
- 10 green tomatoes 4 cups
- 12 green bell peppers
- 6 sweet red bell peppers
- ½ cup coarse salt
- 6 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp mustard seed
- 1 tbsp celery seed
- 1 ½ tsp turmeric
- 4 cups white vinegar
- 2 cups water
Instructions
- Chop vegetables finely using a food processor or grinder. Place the chopped vegetables in a porcelain or glass container and sprinkle with the salt. Cover and let them stand overnight.12 medium onions, 1 medium head cabbage, 10 green tomatoes, 12 green bell peppers, 6 sweet red bell peppers, ½ cup coarse salt
- Place the vegetables in a large colander and rinse very well under cold running water. Divide into smaller batches if necessary.
- Drain thoroughly and place in a large stockpot. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over chopped vegetables. Heat to boiling and then boil for 4 minutes.6 cups granulated sugar, 2 tbsp mustard seed, 1 tbsp celery seed, 1 ½ tsp turmeric, 4 cups white vinegar, 2 cups water
- Ladle into clean pint jars that have been sterilized in boiling water. Seal with sterilized lids according to manufacturer instructions. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
Nutrition
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My mama made chow chow every year. My dad loved it in his pintos! My mother would get us kids up every morning during the summer break at 6:30! She like to go to the garden and gather the veggies before it got so hot! We would gather whatever was ripe, and bring it under the big maple tree in our yard. We would wash it there, and if it happened to be beans, we would break them sitting in the shade of that maple tree! This recipe brought back such good memories of growing up in Tennessee!
Thank you so much for the story of your Granny, it brought back memories of my precious Granny and all the wonderful stories she use to tell and all the canning she did. That generation really had it rough but from them come the greatest recipes. Can’t wait to try this recipe, as I have been searching every where for a good one, and this sounds like a winner. Thanks and Gods blessings to you.
can’t wait to try this one! i enjoy your recipes so much, and getting the old recipes is a joy! thank you and your kind contributors for sharing.:)
We make this kind of chow chow also. We use it in potato salad and in deviled eggs also and its really good.
My husband will Love this! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe and especially the story behind it. I know your heart is smiling each and every time you make this. I bet those granddaughter’s of yours will love to learn how to make this with you while hearing about their great, great grandma’s!
My Mother made almost the same thing and we called it mixed pickle. She didn’t put cabbage in hers probably because she didn’t have it in the garden. Everything was made from the odds and ends left in the garden. It was delicious and we liked ours with white beans. Sure it would be good with pintos also. Sometimes I cook a mixture of the two beans. Delicious!
My grandma used to make this also (she called it Cha Cha – must have been the dialect. She was born in Alabama but lived in KC, KS after she married. I got my love for canning from her. Her version was less sweet and also had banana peppers. We always came home with a couple of jars after our summer visit to last us through the winter. I make my own version without the cabbage but will definitely try this version with it. I like sweet. I grow my own tomatoes and peppers and go through the garden in Oct for the remnants to make mine. I have so many requests for it I usually have to get some green tomatoes from the farmers market to make another batch. We always ate it with chili but now I use it in many things – often in the place of pickle relish or salsa (on tacos, in potato salads and tartar sauce, hot dogs etc. My culinary inspiration comes from both my grandmothers who were very different in their upbringing and lives but great cooks in their own right. They knew how to bring a family together around a table.
We need more “bringing the family together around the dinner table”. When I was a kid, we usually had multi-generations at the table. We learned how to converse with adults; family history; current events….and LOTS of other “stuff”. Bring back the family dinners!!
This is a little off topic but related. When we were without power here in North Alabama after the tornados, in spite of all the bad stuff, it was wonderful to see how families spent quality time together. I enjoyed seeing people sitting under shade trees talking and eating the way I remember we did when I was a kid. I used to love sitting on a blanket under the big shade trees or on the porch with the grown-ups listening to the all the stories. I heard that one man said he was turning his power off once a month so his kids could come by and play games and visit the way they did last month but had not previously done in a while.