Making cheese more interesting.
A festive cheeseboard isn’t a cheese board without its accompaniments. Â Handful of grapes, a selection of hard, soft & blue cheeses, rustic oat cakes or crackers, and then that something extra; chutney.
I’ve friends that squee at the sheer delight of a cheeseboard, pick wine bars that only serve cheese with their finest selection of grapes (wine) and those that would choose cheese over chocolate any day. Â I can’t say I would go that far, but I have certainly learned to embrace the delights of a cheese board in recent years, having gone off cheese in my scared of any fat miserable low-fat years. Â Especially when mature cheddar and a good chutney or pickle is involved.
I must confess before this adventure I don’t recall ever making a chutney before.  We did cover preserving on my natural chef course, but we focussed more on making preserves, curds and pickles using California’s finest glut of December fruit (oh those Meyer lemons!).  I can hardly believe that was two years ago now, so definitely needed a refresher and a simple recipe to adapt;  I used this basic recipe on Netmums for inspiration to create my slow cooker apple chutney recipe, it makes best use of the slow cooker for a fuss free hands off approach which is handy as no one seems to have any spare time in December.
Being a chutney novice, particularly using the slow cooker, I didn’t expect to get it right first time.  I was rather alarmed at the quantity of sugar – 500g – that was suggested in the recipe I used, and secondly the amount of vinegar also looked too much.  I knew from my slow cooker stew adventures that hardly any liquid will evaporate when you cook in a slow cooker (it has no where to go). So I bravely reduced them both (vinegar to 250mls and sugar to 200g), then along with my glut of apples threw some onions and shallots and  a heap of spices (which I didn’t measure), and hoped for the best.  The chutney smelt amazing, had the perfect texture and tasted amazing if a little too sweet.  Satisfied that this could be the beginnings of a cracking Christmas recipe for the blog I made it again, reduced the sugar further (to 100g), measured my spices et voila.
For the sugar element I would recommend any unrefined brown granulated sugar. Â The ones with caramel notes such as rapadura or muscovado are especially lovely in a recipe like this. Â Stuck on all the types of sugar? Check out this great guide in the Kitchn for some help. Â I had a packet of coconut sugar in the cupboard, I’ve been saving for a home experiment in something other than a cake, so opted for this. Â The final chutney is on the savoury side of where the chutney should taste, so its up to you and how you feel about sugar as to how much you want to put in. Â There’s no doubt about it that chutney needs to have sugar, it acts as a preserving agent, and the balance of the sweet vs sour taste is what chutney is all about. Â If you don’t want a sugary preserve or condiment, don’t have chutney. Simples.
Lightly spicy, not enough to remotely blow your brains out, but enough to complement the sweet apples, onions, and shallots, and provide a contrast to rich and creamy cheese. Â For the dairy dodgers amongst you the chutney goes particularly well with a plain hummus.
If you wish to can your chutney to keep for later in the year – this is a great guide how to.
- 250mls apple cider vinegar
- 100-200g unrefined sugar such as coconut palm sugar, rapadura or unrefined caster sugar
- 1.2kg eating apples such as braeburn, gala or granny smiths, peeled, cored and chopped (approx 850g after prep)
- 50g sultanas
- 2 onions, finely sliced
- 2 shallots, finely sliced
- 1 green chili, seeded and finely chopped
- 3 star anise
- 2 tablespoons coriander seed
- 1 tablespoon cumin seed
- Put the slow cooker on high.
- Pour the cider vinegar into the slow cooker pot and add the sugar. Stir well until the sugar dissolves.
- Tip in all of the ingredients and stir well. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook for 6 hours.
- Check in on the chutney every few hours and give it a good stir to ensure it will cook evenly. AFter 6 hours if there is still too much liquid in the cooker, remove the lid and allow it to cook for another 30 minutes or so - without the lid on the liquid will evaporate.
- Transfer the chutney to a cool bowl, and allow to cool before transferring into clean sterilized jars*.
- Keep in the fridge.
Fills 2 280g nut butter jars
Think you’ve caught the preserving bug?  Here are some more ideas; Mixed Tomato Chutney and Spicy Banana & Mango Chutney by Fab Food 4 All, Fig, Apple and Pomegranate Jam by Tin & Thyme, Rhubarb and Cranberry Chutney by Kellie’s Food to Glow, or Plum & Almond Chutney from BBC Food.  All use the less of the refined browner sugars.
If you like the idea of exploring cooking preserves in the slow cooker (or just using the slow cooker in general – including for cakes!) Baking Queen is your girl.
What would you put in your ultimate chutney?
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A perfect recipe, Ceri. I really must drag out my big ol slow cooker and make this. Every single ingredient sings. I like that it is adamantly on the savoury side too. 🙂 Shared
Thank you so much Kellie, I do love an ingredient that sings for multiple people! I have to admit its a faff getting my slow cooker out (and then cleaning it after) as my kitchen is so small, but in comparison to watching something on the hob I think I’ll cope. Thanks for the share!:)
I love the sound of your chutney, and it is great you can make and enjoy it now ready for Christmas. I love the sound of the brown unrefined sugar you can use in the recipe to make it better for you, I would love this with my festive cheeseboard that’s for sure. Thanks for the shout out too 🙂
Thanks Lucy, I’m going away for Christmas this year so am either going to eat it all up this week or hope it stays good till January (it should do), definitely an excuse to have a cheese party this weekend! I’m inspired by all your slow cooker adventures, no probs!
I really don’t use my slow cooker in enough different ways – I usually just use it for stews and stuff.
This sounds incredible though and I do love a good cheese board.
Thanks Dannii, who doesn’t love a good cheese board? Don’t do them very often so enjoying as a treat, yes you should def explore your slow cooker more! 😉
I’ve never made apple chutney before but now I have a slow cooker I have no excuses. Definitely one to try! Thank you x
Neither had I – but it was so simple and basically inspired by the fact I had a bag of apples about to go off! Thanks Sisley, Get on it 🙂 x
I love how you have adapted this chutney and made it your own. There is nothing better than offering a home made chutney with a lovely cheese board at Xmas and this apple chutney is definitely a winner!
Thank you so much Laura. I will be placing it on said cheesboard for a Christmas gathering this weekend. I hope it is appreciated 🙂
Definitely in our must try list! It looks really yummy, specially with cheese. We are spanish, but really like cheese before dessert french style. We´ll try one of these days! Thanks for the recipe!
yes – cheese!! we love cheese 🙂
No salt or is it optional? Please advise as my slow cooker is on and THREE more hours to go! Smells lush!
I didn’t add any as I didn’t feel it needed it, if you want to go ahead!
Can this be eaten straight away? Or does it have to be left for a bit? Looks like a great, simple recipe!!!
Yes it can, but the flavours improve over time that’s all!
Brillinat reicpe, tated delicious. Thanks for this. Simon
🙂
Sounds great…but Can I use cooking apples instead of eating apples? Thanks!
yes, you definitely can, it just might need a bit more sugar as they’re sour. Good luck!
I am making this right now! Will let you know how it turns out.
Good luck, I hope you enjoy it!!
Absolutely delicious recipe, made it twice now, even was lovely warm straight out of the slow cooker on a piece of cheese
Only used 100g raw sugar and was still sweet but depends on the apples.
I cooked mine for a bit longer, maybe about 7.5hrs (with the last hour lid off to reduce liquid).
Only thing I’d change is make it more spicy hehe
I made it a few times and turned out very well. Served with cheese everyone liked it. Now trying to make again to give away as holiday goodies.
Made this with cooking apple windfalls – couldn’t resist using up what I had so came to about 1.4Kg prepared fruit. Had red onions – colour comes out to make it look a pleasing browny pink. No slow cooker but le creuset casserole in oven worked very well at low setting. Much less trouble than endless slow cooking in jam pan making whole house smell of chutney! Used 100g brown sugar: think could use even less as still very sweet to my low-carb taste (though that affect longevity of storage). I like that recipe doesn’t use cinnamon which I’m not very keen on even though classic with apple for most people. Nice forgiving, trouble free and adaptable recipe. Thanks for posting.
Just bout to make this but need to know if you can you freeze this chutney, please?
Yes, but the idea with chutney is you don’t need to if you prepare the jars and follow the preservation process. Google ‘to to safely can chutney’ that should help!
I have made chutney in the past and kept it for several months. This one says 4-6 weeks in the fridge. It’s in the slow cooker now and smells divine but how long can I keep it?
I recommend following the advice on here re storing properly to get it to last. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/10/making-homemade-preserves.shtml
Just made this chutney -its delicious – but why has nobody mentioned the coriander husks ! I think it will put my family off. Did I neglect to do something? Maybe the seeds have to be de husked first ?
Oh, I really love the coriander seeds – they give such a lovely burst of flavour.
Hi, how do I adapt this to use pears?
Thanks
Just do a straight swap
Iv got this in my slow cooker at this very moment, all the spices I put in a spice bag in the the chutney so I’m hoping it’s going to be ok
Fingers crossed!