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Well, September in the garden usually brings the last of the tomatoes and peppers, loads of zucchini, and the dehydrating of the herbs and greens. We really enjoy zucchini relish, as do some of the members of my family, so I always have jars of it in the pantry. We were down to our LAST jar, so it was definitely time to make some more.
Coincidentally, the September category for the Food in Jars challenge was for pickles, relishes, chow chows, and piccalilli. I used this recipe and made a double batch so I had plenty to share.
Zucchini Relish: Tips and Tricks
A few tricks to this are to make sure you let the mixture sit overnight per the recipe instructions. Zucchini has SO much moisture in it, that it’s an important step to let the salt draw that extra moisture out. If you don’t, you risk affecting your vinegar to vegetable ratio, which makes the safety of the recipe questionable. So, follow the recipe ingredients AND instructions.
One tool that is insanely helpful for this project (and many others) is a food processor. For the relish, the shredding blade works great for the zucchini, onions, and peppers. This thing saves SO much time.
Another important point to make with this is to ensure you are using a stainless steel pot for the overnight soak and also for the cook. A large glass bowl would also work for the overnight soak – but I just do it in my stainless steel pot because then I don’t have one more thing to wash. You don’t want to soak or cook it in aluminum or other types of metal pots because it can leech into the food.
Shh. It’s Actually Yellow Squash!
You wanna know a secret? I actually used some yellow summer squash in this recipe as some of the zucchini. According to this chart, yellow squash and zucchini have the same pH, so it is a safe substitution. So, next time you have some of those “Whoops I let this one get too big before I picked it” summer squash – you can peel and shred them JUST LIKE ZUCCHINI. Who knew?
(I know, my colanders are aluminum and I just told you above not to use aluminum. I should replace these with stainless steel colanders at some point but they are vintage and I love them. The food is only in the colanders for a few minutes, so I figure it’s different than soaking overnight or cooking in it. On Pinterest, there are some cool hanging planters some people have made with these.)
How to Use Zucchini Relish
In our house, we primarily use it for making tartar sauce. As you know, my husband is an avid fisherman and we eat quite a bit of fish in our house. (Check out his handmade lures!) Anyway, add a tablespoon or two of the relish with a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise, and you have amazing tartar sauce!
It’s also good on hamburgers and hot dogs, just like regular relish. Are you making chicken and/or egg salad? Maybe ham salad? It is also great mixed into those! I’m actually not a “pickles in my potato salad” gal, but if you are – you would like it in there as well.
Bonus Recipe: Zucchini Butter
While I had the food processor out and was working in the kitchen, I also made a batch of Zucchini Butter. I used parsley instead of rosemary or thyme because it’s what I had in the garden and I love parsley.
Anyway, I used yellow squash for this, too! It took quite a while to cook down, but I didn’t want to do it too hot and risk scorching it. So, I kept cooking and stirring. I think next time I would maybe try it in the slow cooker.
I had this as grilled sandwiches with goat cheese and spinach a few days for lunch and it was really good. We ended up eating the rest of it mixed into a pasta dish, which was also good!
More Zucchini Ideas
We gave quite a few zucchini away in the “Free Extras” stand in our front yard, and I dehydrated about 30 cups of it to be used later in baking, etc. This was a new experiment for me, but it takes up SO MUCH LESS space. I am excited to see how we like it. Rehydrate and bake should be all there is to it.
We have a few more that we picked the other day, I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do with them. However, I did see a recipe from Free Thyme Living the other day on Instagram for Pizza-Stuffed Zucchini that I would like to try. And, A Meal in Mind shared this yummy Peach and Raspberry Smoothie that has ZUCCHINI snuck into it. There are literally SO MANY things you can do with zucchini.
So, the next time a neighbor knocks on your door and asks if you’d like a huge zucchini, say, “Yes please!”
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