Amish Chow Chow

Amish Chow Chow is a sweet and tangy vegetable relish that turns the odds and ends of a late-season garden into jars you can pull off the pantry shelf all winter. It is the kind of old-fashioned condiment that shows up at church suppers and family potlucks, spooned alongside heavier fare, and a little goes a long way.

Amish Chow Chow is one of those traditional relish canning recipes that has been made the same way for generations. The base is a mix of pickled vegetables, green tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, onions, cucumbers, and cauliflower, soaked in salt water overnight so they hold their texture through the canner, with carrots and green beans added for a bit of extra bite and color.

Because everything is preserved in a vinegar brine and finished with water bath canning, the jars are shelf-stable and keep for the better part of a year. If you garden, it’s in the same category as zucchini relish and corn relish, a way to put up a little of everything at once instead of a single crop at a time.

Types of Chow Chow (or Piccalilli)

This version of Amish Chow Chow is loaded with chunky vegetables, cauliflower, carrots, beans, and more, in a sweet and tangy vinegar brine. Depending on where you are, though, chow chow can look very different, and the regional versions are worth a look if you want to compare styles before you commit to a batch.

Southern Chow Chow skips the beans and focuses on cabbage and green tomatoes, while the New England Piccalilli adds brown sugar and a more complex spice blend. For something simpler, the Canadian Green Tomato Chow Chow pares things down to the basics. Or for a thick mustard pickle, go back to the roots with British Piccalilli, and you can see them side by side in the full chow chow and piccalilli roundup.

Ingredients for Amish Chow Chow

The ingredients for canning Amish Chow Chow are simple, and most of them come straight out of the late-summer garden. Here is what each one brings to the jar, along with a few notes on what to look for and where you have room to make it your own.

• Green Tomatoes: The signature ingredient in a traditional chow chow, and the reason this recipe is such a good use for the unripe tomatoes still on the vine at the end of the season. Every regional version uses them, so keep them in.
• Cabbage, Peppers, Onions, Cucumbers, and Cauliflower: The bulk of the mix, with the cauliflower broken into small florets. These are soaked in salt water overnight so they shed excess moisture and hold their texture, rather than going soft and watery in the jar.
• Carrots and Green Beans: Denser than the rest, so they get a short precook before joining the mix. They add a little extra bite and color.

• White Vinegar: At 5 percent acidity, the vinegar is what makes this relish safe to keep on the shelf. Use the full amount called for and do not dilute it or cut it back.
• Sugar: Balances the vinegar and gives chow chow its sweet-tangy character. It is there for flavor rather than safety, so you have a little room to adjust it to taste.
• Pickling Salt: Use pickling or canning salt for the overnight soak, not table salt, since the iodine and anti-caking agents in table salt can cloud the brine and darken the vegetables.
• Celery Seed and Mustard Seed: The spice backbone. These are safe to adjust to taste, so use more of whichever flavor you like.

This is a traditional recipe, so make it as written, with each vegetable at the amount listed. If you’d like a different mix of vegetables, choose one of the other chow chow recipes above instead of changing this one.

The salt in the overnight soak is there for texture and flavor, not for safety, so you can reduce it if you prefer. The draining still matters either way, since it keeps the finished relish from turning watery and keeps the brine at full strength.

Making Amish Chow Chow

Amish Chow Chow comes together in a few simple stages spread over two days. The overnight soak does most of the work while you sleep, so the actual hands-on time is short.

Salt-Soak and Drain the Vegetables

Begin by washing your tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, onions, cucumbers, and cauliflower. Chop them into small, even pieces, and break the cauliflower into small florets. Combine 2 quarts of water with 1/4 cup of pickling salt, add all the chopped vegetables, and let them soak overnight.

A dicing food processor like the Breville Paradice 16 takes most of the knife work out of a batch this size.

This step softens the vegetables slightly, draws out excess moisture, and seasons them from the inside. In the morning, drain the vegetables well before they go into the pot, since that drained-off water is exactly what you do not want diluting the brine.

Precook the Carrots and Green Beans

Next, cook your carrots and green beans for ten minutes in boiling water, then drain. They are denser than the other vegetables, so this softens them slightly and keeps them from being too crunchy in the finished relish.

You can chop them before or after this quick precook, whichever is easier for you. Either way, get them down to a size that matches the rest of the mix so every spoonful is a little of everything.

Combine and Heat

In a large pot, combine all of the other ingredients: the drained soaked vegetables, the cooked carrots and green beans, the 2 cups of sugar, the 2 cups of white vinegar, and the celery and mustard seed. This is a good spot to taste and adjust the seasoning if you want to make the batch your own.

Then bring the pot to a boil, stirring occasionally, until everything is mixed together and heated through. If you would rather make a refrigerator relish instead of canning, you can jar everything up at this point, let it cool, and keep it in the refrigerator for a few weeks. For shelf-stable jars, keep going to the water bath canner.

Canning Amish Chow Chow

To can your chow chow, first prepare your water bath canner, jars, and lids. This is a hot pack, so heat the canner water to about 180 degrees F. Using a canning funnel and a spoon, pack the hot chow chow into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Add a little more relish if you need to in order to bring the level up.

Wipe the rims of each jar with a clean cloth to remove any food residue, then add the lids and bands. Screw the bands on until they are fingertip tight, which means snug but not cranked down hard.

Load the jars carefully into the canner with a jar lifter, keeping them from touching each other or the sides of the canner. Once they are all in, add more water if needed so the jars are covered by at least an inch, then bring the water to a rolling boil.

Process the jars for 10 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet in elevation, adjusting for higher altitudes using the chart below. When the time is up, turn off the heat, take the lid off the canner, and let the jars sit in the water for 5 minutes before you move them to a towel on the counter. That short rest helps prevent siphoning.

Let the jars cool at room temperature for 24 hours, then check that the lids have sealed by pressing the center of each one. A sealed lid stays down and does not flex. Any jars that did not seal should go straight into the refrigerator to eat soon, and the rest can be labeled and stored. Sealed jars keep their quality for up to a year in a cool, dark spot, and once a jar is opened it lives in the refrigerator.

Ways to Use Amish Chow Chow

Now that you have jars of Amish Chow Chow on the shelf, it is time to dig in. It is good with grilled meats like chicken or steak, and just as good alongside burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches. Traditionally, chow chow is served as a side to cut through heavier fare like casseroles and pot roasts, but it goes well with just about anything.

The one thing to remember is that chow chow has an intense flavor for a side dish, so a little goes a long way. It is pickled, after all, so serve it in smaller portions and let people add more if they want it. If you find you like this style of condiment, the corn relish and bread and butter pickled onions play a similar role at the table.

A few common questions come up when people make chow chow for the first time, so here are the ones I hear most.

Amish Chow Chow FAQs

Green tomatoes are the heart of this recipe, so if you have a bumper crop of them still on the vine, here are more ways to put them up.

Green Tomato Canning Recipes

Spicy Pickled Green Tomatoes

Sweet Pickled Green Tomatoes

Dill Pickled Green Tomatoes

10+ Chow Chow Recipes (& Piccalilli too!)

And if you are after more sweet-tangy condiments to line the pantry, here are more relishes to can.

Relish Canning Recipes

Caramelized Onion Jam

Southern Chow Chow (Traditional Green Tomato Relish)

Canning Three Bean Salad

Zucchini Relish Recipe for Canning