Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

Green tomato hot dog relish is a sweet and tangy relish made with brown sugar, dry mustard, and a little cinnamon and clove. It turns the last green tomatoes of the season into jars of relish for hot dogs, brats, and burgers all year long.

Frost usually shows up here in Vermont before the tomatoes are done ripening, so every fall I end up with buckets of green ones. Green tomatoes are firm and tart, and they hold their shape through a long simmer, which is why they’re a natural fit for relish.

Old preserving books are full of green tomato relishes, and I’ve been working through as many of them as I can. This one is a hot dog relish, sweet and finely chopped, and it belongs on a bun.

It’s sweeter than a dill relish, with a good mustard bite and a little warmth from the cinnamon and clove. The green tomatoes keep some of their tartness under all that brown sugar.

I adapted this green tomato hot dog relish from the recipe in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, with more vinegar in the brine. The original recipe didn’t have quite enough liquid to cook properly, so I adjusted it following safe canning recipe change guidelines.

If you’d rather have a relish with cabbage in it, Southern chow chow is the classic, and there are plenty more relish recipes for canning beyond that. For the rest of the harvest, I’ve got more than twenty green tomato canning recipes to keep you busy.

Types of Green Tomato Relish

Green tomato relish comes in a lot of styles, and you’ll find most of the difference in the brine and the spices. This hot dog relish is the spiced one, with brown sugar, cinnamon, and clove, and it has no cabbage at all.

Southern chow chow adds cabbage and gets its color from turmeric. Canadian green tomato chow chow keeps it simple with mostly green tomatoes and onions, and New England piccalilli has cabbage too, cut in bigger pieces.

I made this one alongside a classic sweet green tomato relish and a dilled green tomato relish, and you can see all three jars below. The dilled one is sour and pungent with no sugar, and the classic is sweet, with mustard seed and celery seed. All three are in my list of green tomato pickling recipes.

There are plenty of regional versions beyond these, and my chow chow and piccalilli roundup lays out how they compare.

Choosing Green Tomatoes for Hot Dog Relish

You want firm, full-size green tomatoes. Pale green ones are ideal, and a few with a blush of red are fine. Varieties that stay green when they’re ripe, like Green Zebra, won’t work here, since a ripe tomato is too soft for relish.

Any size works because you chop everything fine, so this is a good use for the small ones. Save the biggest for frying or for pickled green tomatoes.

Don’t peel them, either. Green tomatoes are close to impossible to peel, and the skins are fine in the jar.

Ingredients for Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

The ingredient list is mostly vegetables and pantry spices.

You salt the vegetables on the first day, and everything else goes into the brine on the second.

• Green Tomatoes: Firm and fully green, cored and chopped fine. Leave the skins on.
• Onions: Yellow or white onions, chopped as fine as the tomatoes.
• Bell Peppers: Green and red. The red adds color more than flavor, and you’re fine using all green as long as the total stays the same.
• Canning Salt: Most of it goes on the vegetables overnight, and a little seasons the brine. Table salt has additives that can cloud the brine, so stick with pickling or canning salt. I keep Morton canning and pickling salt on the shelf.
• White Vinegar: Distilled white vinegar with 5 percent acidity. I buy Heinz white vinegar in glass bottles.
• Brown Sugar: Lightly packed. It sweetens the relish and adds a little molasses flavor.
• Dry Mustard and Ground Ginger: Both go straight into the brine. The mustard gives the relish most of its flavor, and the ginger adds a little heat behind it.
• Garlic: Fresh garlic, finely chopped.
• Whole Cloves, Celery Seed, and Cinnamon Stick: These go in a spice bag, so they flavor the brine and come out before the relish goes in jars. A square of cheesecloth tied with string works fine. For other pickles, my homemade pickling spice blend is a handy one to keep on hand.
• Pickle Crisp (Optional): Calcium chloride firms up the relish a little. Look for Ball Pickle Crisp.

The salt rinses back off in the morning, so most of it never makes it into the jars.

How to Make Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

It’s a two-day recipe. You chop and salt the vegetables on the first day, then cook and can the relish on the second.

Plan on about 90 minutes for day two, and you’ll spend most of it giving a simmering pot an occasional stir.

Chop the Vegetables

Core the green tomatoes, then chop them, the onions, and the peppers into small, even pieces, about 1/4 inch.

I dice the vegetables for most of my relishes with my Breville slice and dice food processor, which turns out even cubes in a few minutes. A knife works too. With a regular food processor, use short pulses, because letting it run turns green tomatoes to slush.

Salt the Vegetables Overnight

Toss the chopped vegetables with the canning salt in a large glass or stainless steel bowl. Cover it and set it in a cool spot, 70 to 75°F, for about 12 hours or overnight.

There’s no water in this soak. The salt pulls the juice out of the vegetables on its own, and by morning there’s a pool of liquid in the bowl.

Drain, Rinse, and Squeeze

Pour the vegetables into a colander and let the liquid drain off. Rinse them well under cold water, then let them drain again.

Squeeze out as much liquid as you can, a handful at a time. Any water you leave in the vegetables just has to cook back out in the pot.

Steep the Spice Bag

Tie the cloves, celery seed, and cinnamon stick into a square of cheesecloth. In a large stainless steel pot, stir together the vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, dry mustard, ginger, and the rest of the salt.

Drop in the spice bag and bring the brine to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then cover the pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes. That gives the cinnamon and clove a head start while there’s plenty of liquid to cover the bag.

Simmer the Relish

Add the drained vegetables and bring everything back to a boil. Then turn the heat down to a simmer and let it cook for about 45 minutes, stirring often, until the green tomatoes turn translucent.

Keep it at a gentle simmer, not a hard boil. My stove runs hotter than most, so mine stays on the lowest setting the whole time.

Stop while there’s still syrup around the vegetables, and fish out the spice bag. If it starts to get thick before the tomatoes are done, turn the heat down and add a splash more vinegar, never water.

Fill the Jars

Ladle the hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. A wide-mouth canning funnel keeps the rims clean, since chopped relish likes to slop over the edges.

If you’re using Pickle Crisp, add it to each jar now. Then slide a chopstick down the sides of each jar to free trapped air, and add a little more relish if the level sinks. Wipe the rims clean before the two-part canning lids go on.

Canning Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

Put your water bath canner on to heat while the relish simmers, and it’ll be hot by the time you fill the jars. If you’ve never used one, my guide to water bath canning for beginners explains the setup from start to finish.

Process half pints and pints for 10 minutes. The clock starts once the water is at a full rolling boil again, and the altitude chart below gives the longer times for higher elevations.

Once the processing time is up, shut off the burner, take the lid off the canner, and give the jars 5 minutes. Then lift them out with a jar lifter, set them on a towel, and don’t touch them for 12 to 24 hours.

The next day, press each lid to make sure it sealed, and move any that didn’t into the refrigerator.

Ways to Use Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

Hot dogs are the obvious one, and it’s just as good on brats, sausages, and burgers. It goes on a bun right alongside green tomato ketchup and mustard, or with a pile of sauerkraut if you like your hot dogs loaded.

Spoon it over a chili dog made with home-canned chili con carne, or stir it into a pot of Boston baked beans with sliced franks.

It also works anywhere you’d use sweet relish. Stir it into potato salad, tuna salad, or deviled eggs, or mix it with mayonnaise for a quick tartar sauce.

For fresh green tomatoes, there are dozens more green tomato recipes, from side dishes to baked goods.

Storage and Shelf Life

Store sealed jars in a cool, dark place with the bands off, and plan to use them within a year. Once a jar is open, keep it in the refrigerator.

Give the jars about a month before you open one. Right out of the canner this relish is sharp and vinegary, and a few weeks on the shelf mellows it out.

Any jar with a failed seal belongs in the refrigerator, where it’ll keep for a couple of months.

Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish FAQs

A few questions come up with every green tomato relish, so here are the answers.

Green Tomato Canning Recipes

Hot dog relish only scratches the surface of what you can do with a pile of green tomatoes.

Southern Chow Chow (Traditional Green Tomato Relish)

Old-Fashioned Green Tomato Jam

Pickled Green Tomatoes (Old Fashioned Canning Recipe)

Relish Canning Recipes

These relishes cover everything from cucumbers to corn.

Caramelized Onion Jam

Canning Three Bean Salad

Zucchini Relish Recipe for Canning