What To Do With Large Cucumbers
(Updated – July 27, 2020)
If you’re looking for things to do with cucumbers, we have the answer! Large cucumbers are often hard to transform into crispy pickle spears and are often quite seedy, but still have much potential! I recently had some very large cucumbers. My initial plan was to pickle them, but their seedy nature was making that difficult. So, we changed things up a little. After I washed and trimmed them, I used my mandolin to slice as much of each cucumber as I could until the seeds began to interfere with the crispness of the slice. All of these nice slices were transformed into Maw Maw’s Cucumber Salad, which we’d shared earlier. Yum!
Let’s Make Cucumber Relish – It’s Easy!
The full recipe for our cucumber relish is at the bottom!
Even though we used crispy slices to make a cucumber salad, we can turn the rest of a cucumber, even if it’s old cucumbers, into a delicious cucumber relish! I took the remaining cucumber parts, sliced them lengthwise, and scooped out the seeds. These were then cubed for relish! I like a relish in which all of the players can be identified, so removing the seedy, watery parts helps to maintain more texture.
As it turns out, I knew that I’d be short on peppers for this recipe, so I washed and cubed all of my peppers first to see what ratio of the original recipe I could make. I ended up with only half of what the recipe called for.
Clean, seed (as appropriate) and finely chop the cucumbers, green and yellow bell peppers, and onion. Then in a non-reactive bowl, combine the cucumbers, peppers, onions, and pickling salt and cover it. Let it set in a cool place for about 4 hours.
Transfer into a colander in the sink and rinse thoroughly with cold water for 4 minutes. Drain well, gently press more of the excess water out with your hands, set aside to drain further. Prepare water bath canner, jars & lids.
In a large non-reactive saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds & celery seeds. On medium heat, and while stirring, bring to a boil. Add cucumber, pepper & onion mixture and while stirring, return to a boil. Reduce heat, but maintain a gentle boil for about 10 minutes.
Scoop the relish into warmed canning jars, allowing ½ inch of headspace. Remove any air bubbles, wipe rims clean, lid the jars and apply rings only to finger-tip tightness.
Place jars into the prepared water bath canner. Adjust water level if needed (you should have at least an inch above the jars) so that the jars are completely covered throughout the process. Bring to a boil and process jars (8oz and 16oz) for 10 minutes. When the time is up, remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing them from the canner.
Place hot filled jars on a towel-lined counter to cool untouched for 12 hours. When jars have completely cooled, remove rings, test the seal and store in a cool dark place. If any of your lids have not sealed, refrigerate it and enjoy right away!
- 5 cups cucumbers
- 2 cups green bell peppers
- 2 cups red /yellow bell peppers
- ½ cup onion
- ¼ to ½ cup pickling salt
- 1 ½ cup white vinegar
- 1 ¼ cup sugar
- 1 ½ tbsp. celery seeds
- 1 ½ tbsp. mustard seeds
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Clean, seed (as appropriate) and finely chop the cucumbers, green & yellow bell peppers and onion.
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In a non-reactive bowl, combine the cucumbers, peppers, onions, and the pickling salt and cover it. Let it set in a cool place for about 4 hours.
-
Prepare water bath canner, jars & lids.
-
Transfer cucumber mix into a colander in the sink and rinse thoroughly with cold water for 4 minutes. Drain well, gently press more of the excess water out with your hands, set aside to drain further.
-
In a large non-reactive saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds & celery seeds. On medium heat, and while stirring, bring to a boil.
-
Add cucumber, pepper & onion mixture and while stirring, return to a boil. Reduce heat, but maintain a gentle boil for about 10 minutes.
-
Scoop the relish into warmed canning jars, allowing ½ inch of headspace.
-
Remove any air bubbles, wipe rims clean, lid the jars and apply rings only to finger-tip tightness.
-
Place jars into the prepared water bath canner. Bring to a boil and process jars (8oz and 16oz) for 10 minutes.
I use the large cucumbers that have turned yellow to make sweet cherry pickles. They are the best! They remind me of watermelon pickles. I would be glad to share the recipe if anyone would like it.
Yes please !
I would love the recipe
I would like your recipe
I would like to have it please !
Yes, I’d like this recipe
I would love that recipe. Please share it. Thanks!
Please share!
I would like to have your pickle recipe.
A year later but I would like recipe. e.
Yes, please, that sounds good.
Would love recipe agnes agnes.carter40@gmail.Com
Please.
Me too, please!
I made one years ago (not this recipe) and found it vinegary tasting.
Did anyone find this recipe less vinegary tasting? My kids won’t touch it if it is.
Making a salsa recipe today, next will be something to use up all the cucumbers and zucchinis in the garden.
We don’t think that this one has a strong vinegar taste. In fact, I’ve tried cutting back on the sugar a little bit and it was still good! Also, because this isn’t a preserving recipe, the vinegar can be adjusted down if you wish. 🙂
The relish sounds good but I would like to see the recipe for the cherry pickle version also. Thank you
I made a small batch that was nice and sweet. Then when I got more big pickles, I made a second, double batch, but I had brined the cukes overnight or longer, and maybe didn’t rinse them enough – and after I’d canned 14 small jars (7 pints altogether) I thought I’d just label them “Briny Relish”. But my sweetheart had other ideas.
So I opened them, triple-rinsed the relish, and heated some vinegar and sugar – not too much, just to keep it from scorching – tasting as I go along. Got it boiling, then simmering, quite awhile. See, those larger cukes have tough skins and they need extra cooking. Also added another red pepper and three jalapeños, and by the time the jars were filled, I had only eleven jars! Must have done a LOT of tasting!
Something that’s been cooked, canned, re-cooked and re-canned can only have one name, I feel: HOUSE RELISH. It’s very good!
I would love the sweet cherry pickle receipe, thank you for offering to share
Not sure if I ever posted this recipe for Sweet Cherry Pickles as requested so here it is:
SWEET CHERRY PICKLES
9 ripe cukes (yellow) approx. 24 cups
1 pint white vinegar
3 lbs. sugar (7 cups)
1/2 tsp. oil of cloves
1/2 tsp. oil of cinnamon
3 or 4 — 10oz. jars of cherries
DAY ONE:
Peel & seed cukes; cut into cubes. Cover with water & bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Pour at once into cold water, drain. Mix vinegar, sugar & oils; bring to a boil & pour over drained cukes. Let stand at room temperature over night.
DAY TWO:
Drain off syrup; heat & pour back over cukes. Let stand over night.
DAY THREE:
Heat all, add cherries with juice. Pack in sterile jars & seal.
Makes 12 pints
for the 5 cups of cucumbers, is this 5 cups of chopped?
thanks.
Yes.
Hello : I have more green tomatoes then cucumbers . Do you think I could substitute cucumbers for tomatoes.
Hi Patricia,
I’d recommend following a recipe specifically for green tomatoes. Here’s one for Pickled Green Tomatoes.
I process my pickles, peppers, and onions in my food processor, finish the recipe as above and jar up. The finished product looks more like store bought relish but much much better tasting.
Hello I am Michelle Johnson! I made cucumber relish for the first time! I used everything I got out of garden for a week! It turned out wonderful! I came up with 5 quarts of relish! After cutting all of it up, I didn’t get as much as I thought! But it was quite easy! I thought it would be much harder! I am proud of myself! Thank you for ur recipes! I read a bunch of them before I started my canning! So I intend to do more canning now!
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for your comment. Glad to hear your relish turned out great! Thanks for reading the blog! Best of luck in your future canning adventures!
How long should I wait to eat this?
Hi Aimee,
You can eat this as soon as you’d like. If any of your jars did not seal, consume that relish first and store in fridge as it is not shelf stable.
To Colleen, I know that this comment is 2 years past the original post, but hope that you see it and can answer.
When you list a jar of cherries in the recipe for “Sweet Cherry Pickles”. I’m thinking ‘Maraschino Cherries’, or should I use a different kind?
Would like to try this recipe this summer when I know I’ll have a lot of cukes to use up and would sure appreciate a response, so that I know what to use.
Thanks,
Definately a great recipe !!!