Pickled Watermelon Rinds

Save your watermelon rinds for pickling and enjoy them as an accompaniment to any meal. This recipe yields 5 half-pint jars. Can now and save them for the winter months, or give them away as gifts to the pickle lovers in your life.

Watermelon Rind Pickles

Put your pretty purple cabbage crops to good use in this delicious vegetable side dish. For a filling meal, we recommend serving this hot alongside Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin, chicken breasts, or pork chops. If you have a hard time finding plum jam, apple jelly will substitute nicely.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 cups finely shredded purple (or red) cabbage
  • 1 cup finely shredded green cabbage
  • 2 apples, unpeeled and diced
  • ½ cup + 2 tbsp water
  • ½ cup plum jam
  • ¼ cup vinegar
  • ¼ cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 8 whole cloves
  • 1¼ tsp salt
  • Dash of pepper
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch

Instructions

  • Combine purple cabbage, white cabbage, apples, and ½ cup water in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Bring water to a low simmer. Cover and cook for 30 minutes or until cabbage is tender.
  • Stir in plum jam, vinegar, brown sugar, butter, cloves, salt, and pepper. Continue cooking, uncovered, until liquid evaporates.
  • Dissolve cornstarch in 2 tablespoons water.
  • Stir into mixture in skillet. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Serve hot.
Watermelon rind pickles recipe
Watermelon rind pickles!

Featured Ingredient: Red Cabbage

Red cabbage is a beautiful form of one of the oldest-known vegetables. With a red-purple hue to the leaves, red cabbage adds delicate crunch and bright color to an array of dishes, from tacos to salads and stir-fries. Its flavor is the same as green cabbage. When cooking red cabbage, be aware that the color turns a faded purple as the cabbage cooks, and can bleed its color onto the rest of the ingredients cooked with it. Cabbage plants need a fair amount of room to grow, but they add beauty to any garden, large or small, so consider planting them in an area in which you might normally plant ornamentals or flowers. Learn the best way to grow cabbage in your own garden.Recipe adapted from Southern and Then Some, a cookbook of the Alabama Farmers Cooperative, Inc.

Charleston Gray Watermelons
Charleston Gray watermelon has been popular for decades. If you want a big, oblong, old-fashioned watermelon, this is it.