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This super simple chutney recipe takes the best of your autumn harvest and turns it into a delicious, spiced, tangy chutney that is the perfect condiment for so many dishes. You can use ripe tomatoes or green tomatoes and a variety of vegetables and fruits to make this chutney, allowing you to make the most of your abundant autumn harvest. I always make some extra to give away as christmas presents to friends and family. They will last for a couple of years on the shelf, so why not make a big batch to meet all your chutney needs for the next year and beyond?

What is chutney?

Chutney is a delicious condiment that is made using vegetables and fruit, cooked down to a jam-like consistency. Chutney can be added to many dishes and is best enjoyed alongside meats such as pork and chicken. You’ll often find chutney served on a cheese board with cured cold meats and cheeses, or with rice dishes such as Indian curries paired with rice and naan. Chutney is a great way to add a little extra flavour to your favourite meals, we love adding chutney to toasted sandwiches!

Why is autumn a great time to make chutney?

Autumn is such a great time to make chutney for a couple of reasons. If you grow your own tomatoes and zucchinis, you know that towards the end of the summer/start of autumn you will be faced with a large amount of fruit that either needs to be eaten, preserved or given away! Why not use this excess produce to make some yummy chutney.

As the weather starts to cool down in autumn, you don’t have to be as worried about heating up your kitchen on hot days. This is another bonus of making an autumn harvest chutney (although early autumn can still produce some very hot days where we live!).

vegetables arranged on chopping board tomatoes, onion, zucchini, garlic, sultanas

Can I use green tomatoes to make this chutney?

Fortunately, you can use green tomatoes in this recipe, which is good news for those who are ready to pull out your tomato plants before the first frost! I always dread pulling out my tomatoes, as there’s usually a huge amount of unripe fruit that won’t ripen to it’s full potential. Making this tomato, zucchini and apple chutney enables you to put those green tomatoes to good use. If using green tomatoes, I like to do half ripe and half green tomatoes to give it a more tomato-ey flavour.

What if I don’t grow my own tomatoes?

If you don’t grow your own vegetables at home, don’t worry, early autumn is one of the best times of year to buy tomatoes and zucchinis from the grocery store or you local farmers market, as they are in season and are usually cheaper to buy than other times of the year. If you’d like to start growing your own tomatoes and other vegetables, check out my ‘Grow Food Anywhere’ page for tips and suggestions on growing food no matter where you live or how much space you have.

Can you use frozen tomatoes?

Most years, I freeze some tomatoes as the summer season progresses, as often the tomato varieties that I grow don’t all ripen at once. This allows me to draw on my freezer stash at the end of the tomato season and process the abundance when it suits me. This also makes it possible to make recipes such as this tomato, zucchini and apple chutney throughout the year if we run out. You can use frozen tomatoes in this recipe, adding them in their frozen state to the rest of the ingredients will work just fine. You can also defrost them beforehand if you prefer.

What kinds of fruits and vegetables work best in chutney?

With this simple recipe, you can substitute many of the fruits and vegetables for in-season alternative. Her are some examples of fruits and vegetables that work well in this recipe:

Fruits

Apples
Pears
Dried or fresh figs
Sultanas
Dates
Apricots

Vegetables

Tomato (red and green)
Zucchini
Cucumber
Eggplant
Capsicum

Is this recipe suitable for canning?

One of the beauties of making chutney is the ability to store it for a long time on the shelf. To do this, it’s important to know how to preserve your chutney using a canning/bottling process. Canning involves filling jars with your desired product then processing the product either with a boiling water canner or pressure canner to pasteurise and seal the jars. An important aspect of canning is ensuring that either the sugar or acidity level of the product is adequate to prevent the growth of bad bacteria.

Is it safe to can chutney at home?

Canning pasteurises the food within the jars to reduce any bad bacteria to levels that don’t harm us. The pasteurisation process involves heating the food within the jars to 72-80^oC. The food is then held in a vacuum seal (created by heating, then cooling) to prevent any airborne bacteria from entering the jar and contaminating the contents.

Because some bacteria survive the pasteurisation process, we either need to add acid, such as vinegar, or sugar to the jar to prevent these bacteria from multiplying and contaminating the food.

Sugar preserves food in a similar manner to salt and involves osmosis. Sugar and salt help to draw moisture out of the food, preventing bacteria from entering. Sugar and salt also act to dehydrate and kill bacteria. Usually, the canning of fruits requires the addition of sugar.
Acid such as vinegar or citric acid preserves food by reducing the pH to a low enough level that bad bacteria are not able to live or reproduce. A good example of this is my simple cucumber pickle recipe. Usually the canning of vegetables requires the addition of an acid such as vinegar.

Because this recipe contains both a high sugar content and a high acid content, it is safe to can and store this chutney in your home.

What is the shelf-life of this chutney?

When done correctly, the canned product can remain shelf stable for at least two years. As always, ensure that you check the seal before consuming any products that have been canned/bottled at home. If the seal isn’t tight when removing the lid, or if the contents of the jar look or smell off, don’t consume the product.

tomato chutney in glass jars on chopping board

How to make tomato, zucchini and apple chutney

You can make this chutney is large or small quantities to suit you.

Gather your equipment

For this recipe, you will need a few basic pieces of equipment:

Chopping board and knife
Peeler
Large pot or large saucepan
Wooden spoon
Canning jars (I like to use pint jars or half pint jars)
Jar lifter
Potato masher (optional)

Gather your ingredients

Tomatoes (red or green)
Apples (and/or other seasonal fruit)
Zucchini and/or eggplant
Brown onions
Fresh garlic
Fresh ginger
Sultanas
Chilli
Sugar (raw or brown sugar)
Black pepper
White vinegar (or malt vinegar)
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Ground turmeric

Prepare your ingredients

Peel, core and dice your apples. Remove tomato cores and roughly chop. Chop zucchini and onion. Finely chop garlic and chilli. Grate ginger.

Add ingredients to the pot

Add your apples to a large pot with a little water and cook over low heat until soft.

Add the rest of the vegetables and sultanas to the pot with the softened apples and stir to combine.

chopped vegetables in pot tomato, apple, zucchini

Bring to the boil

Set your stove to a medium-high heat and bring the contents of the pot to the boil. The fruits and vegetable will release their juices. Stir occasionally.

Once the vegetables have released a good amount of liquid, add the required sugar, salt, pepper vinegar and spices. Stir well until the sugar has dissolved.

Simmer and reduce

Return to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1-2 hours to reduce the chutney to a thick, chutney consistency. The moisture content of your vegetables will determine how long the cooking time will be. Cooking your chutney for longer results in a thicker finished product. You will need to keep an eye on the pot to ensure that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Wash jars, lids and ring

Thoroughly wash your jars, lids and rings in hot, soapy water. This is an important step, do not skip, even if your jars look clean. Allow jars to drain.

Fill jars

Once the chutney has reached the desired thickness, it’s time to add it to your jars. Using a wide-mouth funnel, add the hot chutney to your jars, allowing one inch head-space below the rim of the jar. Insert a knife or the end of a spoon into the jar and move it up and down around the inside of the glass to remove air bubbles. Using a clean, damp cloth or paper towel, wipe around the rim of the jars (be careful of the hot mixture).

Water bath can your jars

Add your lids and rings, seal to finger tight. Place your jars in a deep pot and cover with water (if your jars are hot, don’t add cold water as this may cause your jars to crack). Place on a medium-low heat and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and water-bath can for 20 minutes. Turn the heat off and remove your jars with a jar lifter. If you don’t have a jar lifter, allow the water to cool before removing your jars.

Cool, label and store jars

Allow your jars of chutney to cool completely to room temperature and carefully remove rings. Check your seals have sealed tight. If any of the lids have not sealed correctly, repeat the water-bath canning process using a new lid. The best way to ensure a good seal is to use high quality lids.

Label your jars and store in a cool, dark, dry place for up to 2 years. The best way to ensure a long storage time is to make sure the storage conditions are optimal.

Check out the recipe card below and let me know what you think of this recipe! 🙂