This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy.
Southern chow chow is a traditional green tomato relish, diced finely and combined with sweet spices. It’s the perfect topping for burgers or hot dogs or anywhere else homemade relish is used.
If you’re not familiar with Chow Chow, I’ll break it down for you. It’s a relish-like concoction that’s been a beloved staple of Southern cuisine for generations. It’s made with a mix of vegetables and spices, resulting in a tangy, sweet, and sour taste that perfectly complements almost any dish.
This particular Southern Chow Chow recipe uses green tomatoes and cabbage as the base, creating a fresh and robust flavor profile. Adding the mustard further elevates the dish, adding a spicy kick that’s sure to wake up your taste buds!
Not only is Chow Chow delicious, but it’s also incredibly useful. It’s a versatile condiment that can be used in a variety of ways – add it to sandwiches or burgers for an extra layer of flavor, mix it into potato salad for a unique twist, or spoon it over grilled meats for a zesty kick.
But perhaps the most appealing thing about Chow Chow is its homemade taste. Recipes vary from family to family, and making your own Chow Chow is a labor of love that’s sure to impress your guests. Plus, the canning process means that you can enjoy this delicious relish all year long, long after the summer growing season has passed.
So put on your apron and get ready to preserve a Southern classic!
Types of Chow Chow (or Piccalilli)
Southern Chow Chow is its own distinct thing—sweet and tangy with cabbage, onions, and just enough heat to keep things interesting. But it’s not the only chow chow on the table.
Canadian Chow Chow keeps it simple with green tomatoes and onions, while Amish Chow Chow adds beans, carrots, and cauliflower for a chunkier relish. If you like bold mustard flavor, the original British Piccalilli both pack a punch. And New England Piccalilli has a tangy vinegar brown sugar brine that’s unique too.
A Quick Look at the Recipe
- Recipe Name: Green Tomato Chow Chow (Southern Style)
- Recipe Type: Relish Canning Recipe
- Canning Method: Waterbath Canning
- Prep/Cook Time: 1 day pre-soak, 5 minute cook
- Canning Time: 10 Minutes
- Yield: 3 Pints
- Jar Sizes: Quarter Pint, Half Pint and Pint
- Headspace: 1/2 inch
- Ingredients Overview: Green Tomatoes, Peppers, Onions, Cabbage, Vinegar, Sugar and Spices
- Difficulty: Easy. It’s an overnight recipe, but none of the steps are difficult.
Ingredients for Southern Chow Chow
The ingredients for canning southern Chow Chow are pretty simple. To make a canner batch of 6 half pint jars or 3 pint jars, you’ll need the following:
- 4 cups green tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cups bell peppers, chopped, green and red
- 4 cups green cabbage, finely chopped
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- ¼ cup canning salt
- 1 tbsp dry mustard
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tsp celery seeds
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- 2 ½ cups apple cider vinegar
If you can, let this Chow Chow mellow for about two weeks before you eat it from the jars. This will let the flavors fully develop.
While you can use just about any tomato you’d like for the recipe, make sure you’re using those that are not ripe.
Some varieties of tomatoes are green when fully ripe, and while they’re delicious, they aren’t ideal for this recipe. This is a truly green tomato canning recipe, and you want firm, unripened tomatoes – this will give you the best taste and texture to your finished southern Chow Chow.
While cabbage isn’t generally approved for canning (except when you’re canning sauerkraut), this recipe is a relish with plenty of vinegar, and cabbage is fine and perfectly safe in tested relish canning recipes.
Making Southern Chow Chow
First, gather your ingredients.
Start by finely chopping the veggies. We’re looking for small, uniform pieces, about 1/4 inch. A few quick pulses with the food processor will do the job nicely.
Soak diced the tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, and onions overnight in water and salt. Drain, then rinse and drain again. Don’t skip this step, as it really helps to bring out the flavor of the veggies! It also helps draw out their water, so that your finished chow chow doesn’t taste soggy. I know it can be frustrating to have to work with a two day recipe, but it’s worth it.
If you skip the draining and salting process, your Southern Chow may be a bit too soggy when you take it out of the jars.
After completing this overnight draining, rinsing, and settling process, you can continue with the rest of the recipe.
Canning Southern Chow Chow
Prepare a brine by mixing the sugar and spices into the vinegar. Bring it to a boil on the stove and simmer for about 2-3 minutes until the sugar is fully dissolved.
Make sure you’ve thoroughly drained and rinsed your veggies, getting off all the extra salt. Add the salted, drained, and rinsed veggies.
Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes to thoroughly heat the veggies and ensure they’re all completely coated in vinegar.
Pack the hot Southern Chow Chow into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2″ headspace. Adjust the headspace, remove bubbles, and add more Chow Chow, if necessary, to fill the jars.
Don’t forget to wipe the rims of the jars to remove any food residue before adding the sanitized lids and bands. Screw the bands on until they’re fingertip tight.
Load the jars into a water bath canner. Process the pints for 10 minutes at 0 to 1000 feet, adjusting the time for altitude if needed.
Once the processing time is done, remove the jars from the canner and let them cool at room temperature for 24 hours. Check the labels, seal, and store for one year. Any jars that didn’t seal properly can be refrigerated and enjoyed immediately.
Altitude Adjustments
Water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes, so jars must be processed slightly longer as you go up in elevation. Here are the altitude adjustments for canning Southern Style 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 Southern Chow Chow
Now that you’ve canned your delicious Southern Chow Chow, it’s time to think about how you will serve it up! Luckily, Chow Chow is extraordinarily versatile and pairs well with various dishes.
You may want to add a heaping spoonful of Chow Chow to your favorite sandwich for a unique kick of flavor. It also works excellent as a topping for grilled meats, such as hot dogs, chicken, or even a juicy burger.
If you’re feeling fancy, you can use your Chow Chow as a colorful and flavorful addition to charcuterie boards or as a side dish for Southern-style fried chicken. Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with different dishes – the possibilities are endless!
Green Tomato Canning Recipes
Southern Chow Chow Relish
Ingredients
- 4 cups green tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cups bell peppers, green and red mixed, chopped
- 4 cups cabbage, finely chopped
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- ¼ cup canning salt
- 1 tbsp dry mustard
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tsp celery seeds
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- 2 ½ cups apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Gather your ingredients. This is a two day recipe, with dicing and salting on day one and canning on day two.
- Finely dice call the vegetables into even pieces. A food processor can help with this. I like mine pretty fine, but you can make it a coarser dice if you prefer.
- Soak the tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, and onions overnight in water and salt. Do not skip this step, it's essential for both flavor and texture. Drain, then rinse and drain again.
- Prepare a brine by mixing the sugar and spices into the vinegar. Bring it to a boil on the stove and simmer about 2-3 minutes, until the sugar is fully dissolved.
- Add the salted, drained and rinsed veggies.
- Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes to thoroughly heat the veggies and make sure they're all completely coated in vinegar.
- Pack the hot Southern Chow Chow into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2" headspace. Adjust headspace, remove bubbles and more Chow Chow, if necessary, to fill the space in the jars.
- Wipe the rims of the jars to remove any food residue before adding the sanitized lids and bands. Screw the bands on until they're fingertip tight.
- Load the jars into a water bath canner. Process the pints for 10 minutes at 0 to 1000 feet, adjusting the time for altitude if needed (see below).
- Once the processing time is done, remove the jars from the canner and let them cool at room temperature for 24 hours.
- Check the labels, seal, and store for one year. Any jars that didn't seal properly can be refrigerated and enjoyed right away.
Notes
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 Southern Style 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.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Find the perfect recipe
Searching for something else? Enter keywords to find the perfect recipe!
Homemade Relish Recipes
Looking for more easy relish recipes to add zest to your cooking?
In your detailed post before the recipe, you mention carrots as part of the ingredients but they are not in the recipe. Do you use carrots? I am interested in possibly adding them if not, just wasn’t sure how much to add
Amish chow chow and a few of the other chow chow recipes have carrots, but this one doesn’t have carrots in the base recipe. You can, however, add them to the recipe as this is a vinegar pickled relish and most vegetables (though not all) are fine in that type of relish provided there’s enough vinegar to thoroughly pickle everything. I would say that you can add up to a cup of finely diced carrots (but I’d maybe start with 1/2 cup and see how you like it), but you should also increase the vinegar by 1/2 cup in that case (to 3 cups total). Just make sure you simmer everything in the vinegar brine for 5 minutes before packing into the jars, stirring to make sure the vinegar evenly infuses into everything. And then make sure there’s a bit of vinegar at the top of the jars so all the veggies are completely submerged before you lid them. Enjoy!
This sounds wonderful. Are skins left on the tomatoes? Thank you!
Yes, they are left on the green tomatoes. Unlike red tomatoes, green tomatoes are almost never peeled in canning recipes. I was curious why, and I did try to peel them for a green tomato soup recipe I made a while back…and I learned why! They’re nearly impossible to peel when green, or at least mine were. Enjoy!
I really like the way your measurements are in cups, not a medium onion or tomatoes. A medium size to one person maybe different to another. My husband like hot chow chow so I added jalapeños. We eat it on a bowl of navy beans.
Nice! Yes, that is frustrating to me too when recipes aren’t specific. This chow chow recipe was my favorite of all the ones I tried. I bet it’s good on beans!
I’m excited to try this recipe. My Mom made Chow Chow and this is similar to the recipe she used.
This one is my absolute favorite relish I’ve made to date (and I’ve tested dozens thus far). Enjoy!
I love it!