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Amish Chow Chow is a traditional homemade relish served as a side dish (or chunky condiment) at potlucks and community suppers, especially alongside heavier fare. It’s a great way to use up and preserve extra veggies at the end of the growing season.

Amish Chow Chow

Are you ready to experience a burst of flavor in every bite? Look no further than Amish Chow Chow, a delectable side dish that has been enjoyed for generations.

The secret to its mouth-watering taste lies in the perfect combination of pickled vegetables, including tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, onions, and cucumbers, all soaked in salt water overnight to ensure they stay crisp in the canner. But that’s not all – adding carrots and green beans adds a delightful crunch to this already flavorful dish.

Nothing beats the taste of homemade Chow Chow. And the best part is, you can enjoy it all year round, even in the dead of winter!

Amish Chow Chow

Ingredients for Amish Chow Chow

The ingredients for canning Amish Chow Chow are quite simple. To make a canner batch of four pints, you’ll need the following:

1 cup green tomatoes (chopped)
1 cup cabbage (chopped)
1 cup bell peppers (chopped)
1 cucumber (chopped)
1 cup yellow onions (chopped)
1 cup carrots (chopped)
1 cup green beans (chopped)
2 tsp celery seed
2 tsp mustard seed

For the salt water soak:

2 quarts water
¼ cup salt

For the Pickling Brine:

2 cups sugar
2 cups white vinegar

The mix of veggies here is pretty flexible, and you can substitute almost any canning-safe vegetable into this recipe. The vinegar in the canning liquid preserves them, and the canning times and headspaces are the same for relishes of all kinds.

If you don’t like a particular ingredient, feel free to leave it out (or substitute more of another vegetable). In most canning recipes, you can’t replace them like this, but the high vinegar content of pickles and relishes makes them a bit more flexible.

That said, this particular recipe is a traditional one, and I’d recommend trying it as is—especially the green tomatoes! Unripe tomatoes are an essential part of traditional chow chow recipes, and you’ll find versions from every region in the United States and Canada.

Ingredients for Amish Chow Chow

Making Amish Chow Chow

Begin by washing your tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. Then, chop them up into small pieces and soak them in water and salt overnight. This step is important for softening the vegetables, drawing out excess moisture, and adding flavor.

Next, cook your carrots and green beans for ten minutes in boiling water, then drain. This will ensure that the carrots and green beans are cooked to perfection and will not be overly crunchy or soft in the final product.

In a large pot, combine all of the other ingredients, including the perfectly soaked vegetables, cooked carrots and green beans, and any spices you like. This is where you can get creative and add your own flavor profile to the mix.

Then, heat your pot to boiling, stirring occasionally. This step is crucial, as it ensures that all ingredients are evenly mixed and heated.

If you’re making a refrigerator pickle instead of canning, you can jar up everything, allow it to cool, and store it in the refrigerator. It’ll keep that way for a few weeks.

For an actual shelf-stable preserve, you’ll need water bath canning.

Canning Amish Chow Chow

Using a spoon, pack the hot Chow Chow into hot pint jars, leaving ¼” headspace. If necessary, add more Chow Chow to fill up the jar.

Wipe the rims of each jar with a clean cloth to remove any food residue, then add the sanitized lids and bands. Screw the bands on until they’re fingertip tight.

Load the jars carefully into the water bath canner, making sure that they’re not touching each other or the sides of the canner. After you’ve loaded all of them, add more water if they aren’t submerged (with at least an inch of water above the tops of the jars). Then, bring the water to a rolling boil.

Process the pints for ten minutes at 0 to 1000 feet altitude, adjusting for higher altitudes as needed.

Once the processing time is done, carefully remove the jars, let them cool at room temperature for 24 hours, then check the lids and labels. Any jars that did not seal properly should be refrigerated and consumed immediately. The remaining jars can be stored for up to a year.

Altitude Adjustments

Water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes, so jars need to be processed a bit longer as you go up in elevation. Here are the altitude adjustments for canning Amish Chow Chow:

For 0 to 1,000 Feet in Elevation – Process pint jars for 10 minutes and quart jars for 15 minutes.
For 1,001 to 6,000 Feet in Elevation – Process pint jars for 15 minutes and quart jars for 20 minutes.
Above 6,001 Feet in Elevation – Process pint jars for 20 minutes and quart jars for 25 minutes.

Serving Amish Chow Chow

Now that you’ve canned the tasty Amish Chow Chow, it’s time to enjoy its deliciousness!

The best part about this recipe is that you can serve this delightful condiment with various dishes. It pairs beautifully with grilled meats, such as chicken or steak, but it’s also fantastic alongside burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches. Traditionally, Amish chow is used as a side dish to brighten up heavier fare like casseroles and pot roasts, but it goes well with just about anything.

The only thing to remember is that the Amish Chow Chow has an intense flavor for a side dish, so a little goes a long way. It is pickled, after all! It’s best to serve it in smaller portions so your taste buds have time to savor every bite.