15 Best Sweet Pickle Relish Substitutes

If you find it a bit tricky to find sweet pickle relish substitutes, you have come to the right place. After reading this post, you will learn everything you need to know about sweet pickle relish and how to pick the best substitute for it.

Sweet pickle relish is surely a beloved condiment. With its unique flavors, it is always sought after by food lovers. But sometimes, for any reason, people have to try to replace it with something else, and that can be a difficult feat.

But worry not, as I am here for the rescue! Let’s not hesitate and scroll down right now.

What Is Sweet Pickle Relish?

Sweet pickle relish is a wonderful condiment that everybody loves, but not everybody knows what it is or how to make it. If you are one of those people, worry not, as I will tell you everything you need to know about sweet pickle relish.

Definition

Technically, the word “relish” can include various condiments. In the U.S, when people say “relish” they almost always mean sweet pickle relish. People often use sweet pickle relish as food dressing, especially in salads, but it can also appear in sauce and dip recipes.

You can make sweet pickle relish using healthy, easy-to-get ingredients, including cucumbers (fresh or pickled), bell peppers, sugar, vinegar, salt, and spices. Other variants may include additional ingredients like celery, dill seeds, and garlic.

Characteristics

There are reasons that sweet pickle relish is such a beloved condiment. Sweet pickle relish is unique and flavorful in its look, taste, and smell.

So what is sweet pickle relish like? Here are some identifying characteristics of sweet pickle relish:

• Color: Sweet pickle relish usually has a green color; the main ingredients include cucumbers and sometimes green pepper.
• Texture: It has a fine chunky texture.
• Flavor: It is tangy, tart, and salty with a hint of sweetness.

Remember these details, as they are necessary when you find a replacement for sweet pickle relish.

Different Uses

Sweet pickle relish is a flexible condiment. It is often known as a type of salad dressing, and it does live up to its reputation. You can use it in various salads, from tuna salad and chicken salad to potato salad.

Another popular use of sweet pickle relish is as a topping on hotdogs, hamburgers, or other sandwiches. Sweet pickle relish adds tartness to these dishes, which elevates their flavor to another level.

Some sauces require sweet pickle relish as a key ingredient, like tartar sauce or remoulade sauce. McDonald famously used sweet pickle relish in its Big Mac Sauce, which bewitched many customers. ⁽¹⁾

How Long Can You Store Sweet Pickle Relish

Sweet pickle relish can last for quite a long time, from one to two years, depending on storing conditions. The general rule of thumb is store-bought relish lasts longer than homemade relish, and an unopened relish jar lasts longer than an opened one.

This is because mass-produced relish often contains preservatives, which makes it last longer than homemade ones. Storing in the fridge also helps, as it slows down the rotting process and limits the activities of bacteria.

Unopened store-bought relish does not require refrigeration to remain edible, but it does require a place with low temperature, low humidity, and a low level of sunlight for storage. When you store it in this way, it will last up to 2 years.

However, it’s a completely different story regarding opened store-bought relish. Beware because an opened jar of relish can go bad quickly, within a few days, when stored at room temperature.

You can prolong this period by putting opened relish in the fridge. When refrigerated, an opened jar of relish would last about one year. ⁽²⁾

The same principle applies to homemade relish. If you seal the container tightly, homemade relish should last about 12 months.

However, when opened, it should last for 1 month at most in the fridge.

Here’s a table summarizing the shelf life of different types of relish that you can save for later use.

Here’s how you can preserve homemade sweet pickle relish.

Why Replace Sweet Pickle Relish

Sweet pickle relish is delightful, but sometimes people have to replace it with something else. There are many reasons to do so, but here are a few main ones:

• They want to experience something new: When people look for sweet pickle relish substitution, it might be because they want a slightly different flavor or a creative twist to their regular meals.
• They need to replicate the flavor in a short amount of time: When you need sweet pickle relish and can’t get your hand on it, substitutes should be a good option.
• They can’t find the ingredients to make sweet pickle relish: If grocery stores don’t offer enough fresh ingredients to make sweet pickle relish, they might look for replacements.

How to pick substitutes for sweet pickle relish

It’s not hard to find substitutes for sweet pickle relish if you intend to use it as a condiment on hot dogs or hamburgers. However, sweet pickle relish can also play a role in a salad or sauce recipes, which is harder to find replacements.

There is no exact substitution for sweet pickle relish, as no dish is completely similar to another. However, some dishes come close. To choose the best replacement for sweet pickle relish, here are some factors that you may consider:

• The texture: Sweet pickle relish has a fine, jam-like texture. So if you prefer condiments with this kind of texture, pick substitutes that you can mince or blend to create a similar feeling.
• The flavor: If you love the layers of sweet-salty flavor in sweet pickle relish, you should go for ingredients that contain similar notes of tartness. If you don’t like sweet, pick ingredients that lean more on the sour, refreshing side. Similarly, it’s best to include sugar in your mix if you have a sweet tooth.
• The availability of ingredients: If you are running short on time, it might be helpful to take a quick look around the kitchen to see the ingredients you have on hand.

Sweet Pickle Relish Substitutes

Now that you know the general principles, it’s time to look at some of the closest replacements for sweet pickle relish. I have listed 15 potential substitutes in no particular order, and you can pick your favorites based on your taste and preferences.

1. Dill Pickles

To put it simply, dill pickles consist of cucumbers, usually coupled with vinegar, sugar, dill sprigs, mustard, and garlic. The exact ingredients and amounts vary from recipe to recipe.

Making dill pickles is simple. After pickling fresh cucumbers, add dill and dill seeds to pickle the cucumbers, resulting in the final product, which is dill pickles.

Like sweet pickle relish, dill pickles are sweet and sour in flavor. However, unlike sweet pickle relish, they have a crunchy texture, bringing a fresh, herbal aroma to your dish. Dill pickles are often sold in jars and have green color with yellow undertones.

They are a fantastic addition to burgers, sandwiches, or hotdogs, as they add tanginess and freshness to the flavor profile. To use, mince or chop dill pickles in an amount as much as you would use sweet pickle relish.

Learn the unbeatable recipe for dill pickles here.

2. Green Olives

Green olives are olives picked before they have the chance to ripen. As the name indicates, green olives look just like regular olives but with a bright green color.

Green olives’ flavor can be peculiar, as they are an acquired taste, but they can be a wonderful addition to your culinary repertoire if you use them correctly. Green olives usually have an acidic, earthy, and nutty flavor.

Because of the similar acidic flavor, green olives are a suitable replacement for sweet pickle relish in dishes such as pasta, pizza, or salads. They can be used in dips, too! All you need to do is wash and chop up a couple of them, and you are good to go.

If you want to do something new, you can stuff green olives in cheese, cherry pepper, herbs, or nuts and experiment with where the combinations take you. What is culinary without adventure, anyway?

Besides their unique flavor, green olives are also very healthy and supply your body with antioxidants and healthy fats. So, health enthusiasts, you know just what to pick.

3. Capers

If you are unfamiliar with the name “capers”, a type of flower buds of the caper bush picked before blooming. They usually are small, round-shaped, and have a bright green hue on the outside.

Before consumption, capers are often pickled in vinegar or brine and sold in grocery stores. They don’t require any cooking; you can just eat them straight from the jar.

In terms of flavor, they have a tangy, vinegary flavor with an overall lemony taste. If your purpose is to add a note of tanginess and balance the flavors of a dish, then capers are a good choice. They complement dishes like salads, marinades, or pasta perfectly.

However, you don’t want to overuse capers, as they have quite a strong flavor. Remember, just a little bit should be enough.

An additional benefit of capers is that they are also very healthy. Capers are extremely low in salt and sugar, with a high antioxidant level and vitamins (C and K).

4. Green Bell Peppers

I think it’s safe to say everyone is at least a bit familiar with bell peppers and their wide varieties. Bell peppers are tasty, versatile, and great for so many dishes. But as a replacement for sweet pickle relish, green bell peppers take the lead.

Green bell peppers are juicy and bitter with notes of grassy flavor and a crunchy texture. They are a good choice if you want to add more color and crunch to your food without using other, more adventurous replacements with strong, acidic flavors.

To consume, you can chop or dice them as you please. They are suitable for salads, dips, sandwiches, and garnish.

Furthermore, green bell peppers are healthy too! They are rich in vitamins A and C, so if you want to increase the intake of those vitamins, you know what to pick.

5. Celery Stalks

Technically, in botanical terms, a “celery stalk” means a bunch of sticks of celery that connect at the head. But normally, when people say “celery stalks”, or “a stalk of celery”, they mean one stick of celery, so I am going to stick to that.

Like celery, celery stalks have a light green color. Fresh celery stalks should feel crisp but juicy in your hand, as they have high water content.

To enjoy celery stalks, you first need to chop or slice them to your liking. Then, after marinating them in vinegar and olive oil, add your favorite spices like garlic, onions, herbs, salt, and pepper.

Like green olives, celery stalks can be a bit of an acquired taste. They are bitter, slightly sweet, earthy, and have a crunchy texture. However, their vinegary aroma and spicy flavor bear a certain resemblance to sweet pickle relish.

They should be perfect for hamburgers, hotdogs, and sandwiches if you want to bring a fresh, herbal flavor to the dish.

Besides their water content, celery stalks also supply a certain amount of potassium and calcium, which is good for your heart and your bones.

6. Cucumbers

So far, you have learned that you can use cucumbers to make sweet pickle relish and dill pickles. But fresh cucumbers work fine, too, if you have little time to buy or prepare other dishes or prefer the mild, fresh edge that cucumbers bring to your food.

Everyone is familiar with cucumbers and how to eat them. To enjoy cucumbers, you first peel them (or not, suit yourself), then slice or chop them into small pieces.

Some say that cucumbers are too bland, but others might like the freshness, the crunch, and the cool, crisp taste that cucumbers have. Cucumbers will be a great choice if you are a fan of sweet pickle relish’s fresh, juicy taste.

It’s no wonder that cucumbers are often paired with sandwiches, hamburgers, and dips to balance out the other strong flavors. They provide fiber, vitamins, and water to strengthen your digestive and immune systems. You can’t really go wrong with cucumbers.

7. Mango Chutney

Just like sweet pickle relish, chutney is a condiment. It originates from India and has a wide range of varieties and flavors, from sweet to savory to spicy. ⁽³⁾ The color also varies from type to type. It has a well-mixed, smooth texture, almost jam-like.

However, as a replacement for sweet pickle relish, only one type of chutney fits the role: British chutney or green mango chutney.

As the name suggests, the makings of green mango chutney involve simmering green mangoes with vinegar, sugar, and spice for a few hours. After this process, it should have a brownish or green color with a smooth texture.

Green mango chutney should taste tangy and minty with a tinge of spice. The tangy and spicy side of it makes it a great candidate to replace sweet pickle relish. It’s perfect for crackers, salads, and as a dipping sauce for sandwiches and wraps.

This is the ultimate guide to mastering the art of making mango chutney.

8. Freeze-dried Dill

This is another substitute that involves dills because dills are great. Freeze-dried dill is, obviously, dills that are chopped up, dried, and frozen. Frozen dill should look like wood splinters but has a deep green color.

Freeze-dried dill is crisp, citrusy, sweet, and grassy, with a pungent aroma, like all dills. It adds flavor and freshness to your dish and should appear in dips, sauces, and salad dressings. It also goes well with protein-based dishes like chicken, fish, and eggs.

An advantage of freeze-dried dill over fresh dill is that it can last much longer. It can last up to 2 – 3 years if stored in the correct conditions. While it obviously can not bring the same feeling of freshness to the dish, it virtually tastes the same as fresh dill.

Check out the simple method of how you can freeze dry fresh dills.

9. Piccalilli

Picalilli, or mustard pickle, is a relish made from chopped, pickled vegetables mixed with seasonings like mustard or mayonnaise. The usual ingredients for picalilli include onions, cauliflowers, cucumbers, and many spices.

As its ingredients include various chopped vegetables, picalilli often has an uneven texture in which you can see pieces of different vegetables. It also has a yellowish mustard color.

Picalilli has a tangy, salty, and vinegary flavor. Like sweet pickle relish, it serves as a condiment on hotdogs, hamburgers, and cold meats and cheese.

Be careful because this picalilli recipe will change your life.

10. Bread And Butter Pickles

Just in case you ask, the answer is: No, bread and butter pickle is not made from actual bread and butter. It’s just a figure of speech, as it is believed that people used to trade this pickle for essential foods such as bread and butter.

Bread and butter pickle is made from cucumbers mixed with mustard seeds, coriander seeds, white vinegar, sugar, salt, and celery seeds. A jar of bread and butter pickles should have a deep green color of cucumber with a yellowish hue.

This pickle is one of the sweeter types but not so sweet that it loses the signature tanginess of regular pickles. This is the way to go if you prefer your condiment to be sweet rather than extremely sour.

Because of its sweet flavor, it is more suitable for savory hamburgers and sandwiches.

Here’s how you make the invincible bread and butter pickles.

11. Apple Butter

Surprisingly, apple butter is not a type of butter. It is a sauce made from cooking pureed apples over heat for more than an hour. The common ingredients for it are apples, along with sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.

Apple butter is a rich and plump sauce with a thick, paste-like texture and brownish color. It tastes rich and plump with a dash of tanginess.

With such a flavor profile, apple butter is delightful as a spread for flour-based foods like muffins, bagels, and croissants or as a topping for hotdogs and burgers, as it balances out their sweet taste. Salads would also pair well with apple butter.

12. Green Tomato Relish

When it comes to hotdog toppings, sweet pickle relish is great, but green tomato relish is a close competition.

As the name indicates, green tomato relish consists of chopped green tomatoes along with green bell peppers, onions, and a variety of spices. These ingredients are mixed and let to simmer in vinegar.

In terms of taste, this relish is definitely on the sour side of the spectrum. It has a strong tangy, acidic taste with a hint of sweetness and a chunky texture with deep green color. It works well as a pizza topping or dip for French fries.

Green tomato relish can stand toe to toe with sweet pickle relish in deliciousness.

13. Cranberry Sauce

Everybody loves cranberry. It is sweet and sour with an aroma that makes it impossible to resist. Therefore, cranberry sauce is extremely delightful too.

Cranberry sauce is easy to make with only a few ingredients, including cranberry, corn syrup, citric acid, and water. Combine the ingredients in a pan and stir over low heat from 10 to 20 minutes, and you’ve got it.

Like cranberry, this sauce is tart and sweet with a just-right note of spice in it. It works well with flour-based dishes (like rolls and biscuits) or meat-based ones (like turkey and ham).

Follow this recipe to make the perfect cranberry sauce of your life.

14. Crushed Pineapple

Crushed pineapple on hotdogs or salads? How scandalous! But hear me out, crushed pineapple as a topping is better than you think.

Crushed pineapple – canned or homemade – is simply blended pineapple. It tastes fruity and sweet, with a tinge of tartness. So for people who have a sweet tooth but still don’t want to give up the sour flavor, this topping is for you.

Sadly, it is not compatible with hotdogs or sandwiches, as the flavors don’t complement each other. However, it works great in salsa, salad, or pizza.

15. Ketchup

Ketchup seems like a surprising option, but it’s not that strange to use ketchup as a replacement for sweet pickle relish. It is sweet, tart, and acidic. Can you see the similarities?

Ketchup works best with hotdogs or sandwiches, but it can also be a salad dressing. It would work even better if you combined it with a bit of mayonnaise.

You can make ketchup at home, but few make ketchup anymore, as store-bought ones are just as good. So if you are running low on sweet pickle relish and have a bottle of ketchup nearby, you know what to do.

Summary

And that’s about it! I have covered all the best possible substitutes for sweet pickle relish. If you are overwhelmed with the amount of information, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Here’s a table summarizing all the key points you need to remember.

How To Make Sweet Pickle Relish At Home?

If you don’t feel like finding a substitute and want to make sweet pickle relish from scratch, it’s alright too! Below, I will show you the step-by-step instructions to make sweet pickle relish:

• Step 1: Combine diced cucumber with onion and salt. Let sit for 1 hour.
• Step 2: Use a strainer to get rid of the excess liquid. Use a cloth to wrap around the cucumber-onion fixture, and squeeze to remove the remaining liquid.
• Step 3: Mix the remaining onion & cucumbers with sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and vinegar. Stir the mixture to combine.
• Step 4: In a saucepan, boil the mixture and wait for it to simmer. This should take about 5 minutes.
• Step 5: Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. This should take about 15 minutes.
• Step 6: Put the relish in an air-tight jar or container. Refrigerate.

Making sweet pickle relish should be easy if you follow these simple steps.

FAQs

The world of food is complicated. For people still a bit confused and have questions, fear not, as help is on the way! In this section, I’m going to answer some of the most commonly asked questions about sweet pickle relish.

Now You Have So Many More Options!

When life closes a door, you breach the wall. When life doesn’t give you sweet pickle relish, you find something to replace it. Who knows, maybe you can even find a new favorite condiment you have never thought to try.

And that’s a wrap of everything you need to know about sweet pickle relish substitutes. If you have anything additional tips, don’t be afraid to put them in the comment section and share it with other foodies! Remember to share this with your friends who might need it.

References

1. Big Mac sauce – McDonald’s (no date).
2. Chutney (no date) Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.
3. Murphy, R. (2019) Here’s how long you can keep condiments after you open them, Insider. Insider.