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Homemade Corn Relish with an Electric Pressure Cooker

Making a family recipe for corn relish from an abundance of corn from your garden or from a local farmers market is traditional in our home.  Making corn relish is a way to preserve the freshness of the summer harvest to be enjoyed for months to come.

Whether you can your corn relish, just refrigerate for use in the next few weeks, or freeze, you will not regret having tried one of our family’s favorite fall condiments.  You can use corn relish on tacos, a side with burgers hotdogs, and roasted chicken. For any food, you would use a pickle relish you can substitute a sweet corn relish.

When making Corn Relish or any corn dish, I have found that using my pressure cooker/Instant Pot is the best option. Using the pressure cooker cuts the work in half & make preserving fresh vegetables quick and easy, cooking 4 minutes under pressure. I have tried every way possible to remove corn from the cob I have found the Corn Zipper the best ever even better than a paring knife.

Find all my top 5 canning recipes here: 5 Basic Garden Canning Recipes.

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Passing Down the Family Tradition of Canning

My Aunt Lois, my mother’s sister, was always a big influence in my life regarding homemaking, crafts, and cooking.  When I was young our family would travel to Ashtabula Ohio to visit my Aunt and Grandmother every Sunday for Sunday dinner and afternoon visits. Lois always had something going on; whether it was her fabulous expansive vegetable garden she tended or the cooking and canning that was the harvest activities.

In the winter when the gardens were cleaned up and the vegetables put up, then her time was spent on crafts. When we would visit Aunt Lois always had a fun seasonal craft for the kids. My love for crafting started during these visits and stayed with me all my life.

Lois was a special needs teacher in Ashtabula Ohio long before the word special needs ever was used. Using Crafts and cooking was a way to educate and expand the minds of her disabled children. When my sister and I would visit her teaching continue for us as she taught us fun crafts and cooking, she could make any craft activity in simple steps so we could make the most beautiful DIY projects.

I remember one special project when my best friend Linda visited Aunt Lois when we made pillows in the shape of frogs. Aunt Lois took us to pick out our own fabric and stuffing and we learned to make a pattern out of brown paper bags. We cut our fabric sewed the frogs and stuffed them for pillows on our summer trip.

Fresh Food From the Garden

At the dinner meals, Aunt Lois always had fresh garden canned goods as side dishes. My favorite was watermelon rind pickles however, I’ve never been able to master that recipe. One of my other favorites that Aunt Lois served at many a fall meal was her corn relish. I always loved corn relish but I have never been satisfied with any that was store-bought.

Jim’s uncle being a vegetable farmer and corn being one of their biggest crops, I decided last year I was going to give corn relish a try. I looked through a lot of the old recipes that I had written down when I visited Aunt Lois and I found her corn relish recipe. I was so happy to find a recipe that had some family history and was an old favorite of mine from childhood.

Preparing for Canning

If you love fresh corn you will love vintage corn relish as it brings the taste of fresh corn to your table in the fall and winter months.

• I start making a batch of corn relish by putting the husked ears of corn in the Instant Pot with about 3/4 cups of water and setting it for 4 minutes.
• While the corn is cooking I chopped the other ingredients that need to go into the relish.
• As the glass mason jars need to be sterilized, I put them in the dishwasher as this takes some time.
• As you know all processed canned goods need to have a water bath so I start a huge canning pot full of water to boil on the stove.
• Next, I mix all the chopped ingredients together and set aside.
• I remove the corn kernels off the cob just using a Corn Zipper. (I’ve tried many of the other gadgets and none of them seem to work as well)
• When the corn kernels are off the cob I mix them with the additional ingredients.
• At this point, I fill the sterilized mason jar’s leaving an inch of room at the top.
• Now the lids and the rims are placed in a pot of boiling water for five minutes in order to remove all germs.
• Make sure the top rim and edge of the canning jar are wiped clean and seal with the lid and rim.
• Water bath for 30 minutes.

Supplies Needed:

• Ball Canning Jars
• Instant Pot
• Large Canning pot ( here is an entire set of what you will need)
• Lids & Rims for your Jars
• Corn Zipper

Freezing Fresh Corn

At the same time that I make my Aunt’s corn relish, I also freeze a bumper crop of corn in our freezer for our children. Our kids love Uncle Dick’s corn and especially our youngest son Joey. I always purchase an entire crate of corn from Uncle Dick’s farm, Red Wagon Farm, and process corn to be frozen. Again I cook the ears of corn in the pressure cooker for six minutes. When the corn is done I let it cool and remove the kernels from the cob. I put the cooked kernels into Sandwich Ziplock freezer bags and put in the freezer at least a dozen ears of corn.

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Update as of 8-18-2016:  I have two versions of corn relish, the above post is my Aunt Lois’s family version.  We also made a second batch from Bettycrocker.com and we like this version better.  So give both a try and see which one you like.

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If you like this post on canning you may want to read:

Canning Equipment Check List

Refrigerator Dill Pickle Recipe

Piccalillli Canning Green Tomato Relish

Canning Garden Tomatoes for Pasta Sauce

Canning Italian Hot Peppers

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