Tired of the same old store-bought dill relish? Try making this updated Home Canned Savory Dill Pickle Relish instead! You’ll love it!
Dill Vs. Sweet Pickles
There is an ongoing debate in my house about which is better… dill or sweet pickles. I’m a sweet or bread and butter kinda gal myself, where as everyone else living here wants dill. Ugh.
Yeah. I’m so losing.
It goes right along with the household’s mayo vs. salad dressing debate. I’m losing that with mayo as my favorite instead of the Miracle Whip.
Savory Dill Relish
So why, if I don’t like dill, do I make them relish? Because I love them and I like making them happy.
Instead of sticking to the old, plain version of dill relish, I decided to spice things up and see if I could do something in order for me to like dill relish more. It’d be so nice to make things that everyone likes.
So I sat down with my relish recipe and thought about what I could do to dress it up into a fancier version that we all would like.
Pickled Garlic in my Relish
I won’t lie. This just happened to be a happy accident. As I was thinking about how to change my relish recipe up, I opened the refrigerator to get a glass of iced tea. There sat my mason jar of pickled garlic. It was just staring at me with a pushy attitude. I swear, if it could talk it’d have yelled at me, “Use Me Finally Would Ya!”.
Because I knew I was using the food processor to dice up my pickles anyhow, I set it right in the way and wrote it down to try in the new relish recipe.
How can you go wrong with garlic?
Caramelized Onions in the Savory Dill Relish
I love onion. But there is just another level and depth of flavor to them once they are caramelized. The tricky part of this was adjusting how I typically caramael things.
Dairy products CANNOT be canned. I don’t care who tells you otherwise, it’s just asking for horrible things to happen.
Since I usually use butter to caramelize my onions, I had to adjust to something that wouldn’t affect the home canning process. So I stared into my pantry for what felt like 800 years trying to give it a little liquid and a little flavor.
Then I saw it. Balsamic Vinegar. Pickling requires a ton of vinegar anyhow, so why not change it up just a tad to kick up the flavor profile even more.
Dicing, Cooking, Boiling and More
I’m lucky enough to have married a man who loves to be in the kitchen with me. Even if I have the canners going and it’s hotter than the dickens in there, he likes helping me chop and stir. (Don’t be jealous ladies.)
So my dear sweet hubby manned the food processor for me while I started boiling the brine and caramelizing the onions.
It didn’t take too long honestly with both of us processing at once.
Finally we had everything chopped and cooked and ready to go.
And we were both sweating pretty good. Don’t worry. No one dripped sweat into the food.
Savory Dill Pickle Relish
Considering this was a new recipe, I kept the batch size pretty small. I didn’t want to have tons of relish that no one wanted to eat. I ended up canning 8 12 ounce jars, plus a half jar for in the refrigerator to taste and age a bit.
The Verdict?
My husband loves it! I don’t know if it’s because we watch too much Food Network or what, but he raved about the “depth of flavors” and how it was “delicious but unique”.
I guess that makes this recipe a keeper.
Good thing too. Four of those jars he decided he wanted to try making it a little spicier, so I put a tablespoon of crushed red pepper in them before I packed and processed them. Goofy man better eat it! *wink*
Home Canned Savory Dill Pickle Relish
Savory Dill Relish
Ingredients
- 8 lbs. pickling cucumbers
- ½ cup canning salt
- 2 tsp ground turmeric
- 4 cups water
- 3 cups finely chopped onions
- 8-10 pickled garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp dill seeds
- 4 cups white wine vinegar
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- In a food processor fitted with a metal blade or food grinder, working in batches, finely chop cucumbers, transferring batches to a glass or stainless-steel bowl as they are completed. Sprinkle with pickling salt and turmeric. Add water. Cover and let stand in a cool place for 2 hours. Transfer to a colander placed over a sink and drain thoroughly. Rinse with cool water and drain thoroughly again. Using your hand, squeeze out excess liquid.
- Meanwhile, caramelize onions and pickled garlic in a hot skillet with balsamic vinegar, cooking until golden. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Prepare canner, jars, and lids.
- In a large stainless-steel saucepan, combine drained cucumbers, onions, sugar, dill seeds, and vinegar. Brid to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened and vegetables are heated through about 10 minutes.
- Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot relish. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to finger-tip tight.
- Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove the canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.
Want more home canning recipes and how-tos? Check out my other canning posts here.
