Chow-chow seems to be a uniquely Southern thing. I talked to 3 people on the phone while I was making it and each time I mentioned it, I was met with a puzzled silence. I could almost picture brows knitting in confusion before the inevitable response … “You’re making what?”

So for those of you not from the South, chow-chow is, at it’s most basic, relish made with cabbage and … something else. It can be made with just about any crunchy veggie; I’ve had it made with cauliflower, snap beans, and carrots. But my all time favorite variation is green tomato chow-chow. My Meemaw used to make it every fall from all the green tomatoes she harvested right before my Papaw plowed their summer garden and prepped it for winter.

I’ve made her recipe for green tomato chow-chow so many times that I’ve memorized it and even though it’s been a couple of years, it came back to me as I started assembling ingredients. I don’t live on a large farm in East Texas, so my summer garden is quite a bit smaller than Meemaw’s, but I still managed to gather a respectable number of green tomatoes from my plants before I cleared out my little patch of dirt.

Ok, enough explanation. Let’s make chow-chow.

Get all your ingredients together. Vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, allspice, peppercorns, pepper flakes, ginger, onion, cabbage, and of course green tomatoes.

Put 2 cups of vinegar, 2 cups of water, 1.5 cups of sugar, and 2 T of salt in to a medium sauce pan. The recipe calls for putting the spices in a bit of cheesecloth and tying it up, but I prefer to use a tea-ball type of thing. Easier cleanup.


Drop your spices into the pot and bring everything to a boil, before lowering to a simmer for about 30 mins. Oh yeah. Add a couple of slices of ginger, if you like. (This wasn’t in my Meemaw’s original recipe, but I like the bite it adds.)

While the vinegar mixture is boiling, chop up your veggies – onions, cabbage, tomatoes.

I had a lot of tiny little green grape tomatoes, which I just cut in half or quarters.

When all is said and done, you want about 6 cups of veggies. If you don’t have quite 6 cups, you can add some more cabbage, or maybe chop a bell pepper.

Remove the spices and the ginger slices from the vinegar mixture and add the chopped veggies. Bring it to a boil again, and the lower to a simmer for 30 minutes.

Take the chow-chow off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Then begin spooning it into jars. I use these canning jars because they look pretty in the fridge, even though I’m not going to can this batch.

After I’ve spooned out some of the chow-chow, I drain off the rest of the liquid – it makes it easier to fill the jars and pack them down.

Then top off each jar with a little vinegar solution.

Voila. Chow-chow.

So what, you ask, do you do with chow-chow? Serve it on hamburgers, sandwiches, hot dogs, with beans, with a few slices of pot roast, mix some in chicken salad or tuna salad. Or just spoon it out of the jar. Try it. You’ll like it. I promise.

Here’s the recipe:

Meemaw’s Green Tomato Chow-Chow
(This recipe has been adjusted for size – the original made 8 quarts!)

• 2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 2 T salt
• 1 T mustard seed
• 5-6 whole allspice
• 1 T whole pepper corns
• 1 T pepper flakes
• 2 or 3 thin slices of whole ginger
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cups chopped cabbage
• 3-4 cups chopped green tomatoes

Put vinegar, water, sugar, and salt into a medium saucepan.
Put mustard seed, allspice, pepper flakes, and pepper corns into a spice ball or into a small cheesecloth bag and add this to the saucepan. Also add the slices of ginger.
Bring the vinegar mixture to a boil and then lower to a simmer for about 30 mins.
In the meanwhile, chop your veggies.
After 30 mins, remove the spice ball or cheesecloth bag and the ginger slices and discard.
Add the chopped veggies to the saucepan and bring to a boil.
Lower to a simmer and cook for another 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly before spooning into jars.
Fill each jar with the tomato chow-chow using a slotted spoon.
Pack it down well and then pour over some of the pickling liquid to within about 1/2″ of the top of the jar.

The recipe above makes about 2 pints of chow-chow, which doesn’t keep in my house long enough to require canning. They’ll keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks – if it lasts that long. However, if you double or triple the recipe (or more) and you decide you want to preserve it, just follow any canning directions for pickle-type foods. Since the tomatoes are in vinegar, you’ve lowered the pH enough that they can be boiling water canned, rather than pressure-canned.

If I were to can them, I’d process them in a boiling water bath for about 15 minutes.