Relish and Pickle Making

Vidalia Onion Relish

We had a great time making onion relish in class the other night and tasting several different pickles. This was the last of my canning series at Wildwood. We covered how to make sweet pickles, dill pickles and crock pickles. For the hands-on part of the program we made a batch of the Vidalia Onion Relish from So Easy To Preserve. We sampled some with bread and cheese. Here are a couple of pictures from the class – the recipe follows.

Filling the jars

In the canner

 Vidalia Onion Relish

6 qts. ground Vidalia sweet onions (14 to 16 med. onions)
½ c. canning salt
1 qt. cider vinegar
1 t. turmeric
1 t. pickling spice
1 t. pimento, chopped
4 ½ c. sugar

Grind enough Vidalia onions to yield 1 1/2 gallons. Add 1/2 c. salt and let stand thirty minutes. Squeeze juice from onion salt mixture and discard juice. Wash canning jars. To onions, add vinegar, sugar, spices, and pimento. Bring to boil and cook for thirty minutes, stirring often. Pack both onions and cooking liquid to cover in hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rims. Adjust lids. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Yield: About 8 pints.

Source: So Easy To Preserve

Note: I always make this relish in half pint jars and process for 10 minutes. I will get about 16 jars that way.