Canning 101: Coleslaw and Mustard Pickles

I love coleslaw. Any recipe, any variety. Whether it's a mayo-based slaw or freezer slaw, if it's on the menu, I'm in.

We planted 12 cabbage plants this spring with the idea that we needed to make sauerkraut this year. Unfortunately after taking an inventory of all the jars on the canning shelves, we did NOT need to make any. So, what to do with 12 cabbage heads??  Why make coleslaw, of course!

I've done freezer coleslaw in the past, but freezer space is a bit tight right now, so I was on the hunt for what to do with cabbage that can be processed by canning. I came across a recipe for canned coleslaw, and that got me thinking. What exactly is coleslaw anyway? Really, in a canning sense, it's pickled cabbage. You add cabbage and any other vegetables and mix with a vinegar brine/syrup/solution, and so the idea for canned coleslaw was born.

While I was quite liberal with the amounts of veggies used in my slaw, I didn't mess with the proportions of vinegar in the syrup portion of the recipe. That's what preserves the veggies and is necessary to make sure things don't spoil. Feel free to double/triple the syrup solution (I did) to make sure you have enough to cover all the veggies you put into jars.

Canned Coleslaw

1 medium head cabbage
1 large carrot
1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
1 teaspoon salt

Syrup:
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Shred together the vegetables. Add the salt. Mix well. Let stand 1 hour.

Drain water from the vegetables. If preferred, can rinse and drain veggies.

Boil syrup ingredients together for 1 minute. Keep warm.

Pack veggies into hot pint jars and fill jars with hot syrup liquid. Add lids and seal.

Process jars in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove from canner and let stand for 12 hours before moving.

Yield:  Approximately 7 pints


We've been checking the cucumber patch daily and have picked a few here and there to make salads, but there just haven't been enough to do anything with. Until day that is. So, while I didn't have my usual dill and grape leaves ready to go for my traditional dill pickles, I did come across a recipe for mustard pickles that I'd been dying to try.

Seeing as we had a few (sarcasm here!) cucumbers that were larger than I like to use in my dill pickle recipe, I thought I'd chunk up a few and try them in the mustard pickle recipe.  I found the recipe on Scribd. They have a ton of booklets from A Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, and this recipe if from their Favorite Pickles and Relishes booklet.

Quick Mustard Pickles

1-1/2 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup prepared mustard
2 teaspoons pickling salt
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish (I used homemade horseradish relish..recipe in a future blog!)
8 cups cucumbers, sliced or cut in 1/2-inch chunks

In a large saucepan, combine all but cucumbers and bring to a boil. Pack cucumbers into hot, sterilized pint jars. Add boiling liquid, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Yield:  4 pints