Red Pepper Relish

This old-fashioned red pepper relish is a canning pantry staple. Sweet red bell peppers get salted for several hours to draw out moisture, then cooked down with sugar and vinegar until thick and glossy. Packed into jars and processed in a water bath, it keeps for months.

The salt-and-rest step before cooking is what separates a good relish from a watery one. Three to four hours of sitting in salt draws a surprising amount of liquid out of the chopped peppers. That extracted water would otherwise thin out the relish during cooking, meaning you’d have to cook it much longer and risk turning the peppers to mush.

Forty-five minutes of cooking with frequent stirring transforms the peppers and vinegar into a thick, jam-like relish with a sweet-tart flavor that goes with almost everything. Spread it on hot dogs, pile it on burgers, pair it with cream cheese on crackers, or serve alongside grilled meats.

Pro Tips

• Chop the peppers finely and uniformly. Uneven pieces cook at different rates and you’ll end up with some mushy bits and some still crunchy.
• Stir frequently during the last 15 minutes of cooking. The high sugar content means this scorches easily once it thickens.
• Leave exactly ⅛ inch of headspace when filling jars. Too much and the seal may fail. Too little and the relish can push past the seal during processing.
• Use proper canning jars with new lids. Reused lids may not seal properly.

Variations

• Hot pepper relish: Replace one cup of sweet peppers with finely chopped jalapenos or hot banana peppers for heat.
• Mixed pepper: Use a combination of red, yellow, and green bell peppers for a colorful, milder relish.
• Mustard seed relish: Add a tablespoon of yellow mustard seeds during cooking for a punchier, more complex flavor.