Can You Mix Different Fruit and Veg in One Jar?

Yes, in most cases. Chutney is built for a mix, jam and jelly can combine fruits when the pectin and acid add up, and a mixed pickle is safe only exactly as its tested recipe is written. The ingredients can vary from one recipe to the next. The vinegar and sugar within a recipe cannot.

Quick answer by preserve type

Chutney: made for a mix

Chutney is usually made from a variety of fruits, cooked with seasonings, sugar and vinegar, so a mixed glut is its natural starting point. Windfall apples, green tomatoes left on the vine when the short, cool season ends at the first frost and the last of the onions can all end up in one pan.

The vinegar's acidity is what stops harmful bacteria, moulds and yeasts, and it only works when there is enough of it for the amount of food in the pan.

The sensible route is to choose a tested chutney recipe that already uses roughly what you have, rather than improvising your own mix. For apples, green tomatoes and onions together, start with the green tomato chutney, which uses all three; for a wider mix of the last vegetables, the end-of-season relish. Once you have a recipe:

• Never use less vinegar or lemon juice than it calls for.
• Use vinegar of 5% acidity and check the label. Don't use a vinegar whose strength you don't know.
• Don't top the pan up with extra vegetables, and don't add water the recipe doesn't call for. Either one spreads the same vinegar across more food.

Swapping one fruit or vegetable for another, even at the same weight, turns a tested recipe into an untested one.

Jam: pectin, acid and sugar have to add up

Jam sets when the fruit supplies enough pectin and acid for the sugar to form a gel. Fruits differ a lot, and preserving guidance sorts them into three groups.

Rhubarb is low in pectin. Raspberries are the awkward one: they are classed as high in pectin in some guidance and as needing added pectin or acid in other guidance, so let the setting test decide.

On paper, a Group I fruit such as gooseberries or currants brings pectin and acid that a Group III fruit lacks. How much of each a pairing needs isn't something to guess. Follow a tested recipe for that combination and check the set before potting, using the tests in the setting-point guide.

Ripeness shifts the balance too. The riper the fruit, the less pectin it holds, and acid is higher in under-ripe fruit. Where no pectin is added, the usual advice is about a quarter slightly under-ripe fruit to three-quarters fully ripe.

Never cut the sugar a recipe calls for. Sugar is the preservative that stops microorganisms growing as well as part of the set.

Fruit that ripens weeks apart, such as early gooseberries and late brambles, doesn't have to be used the day it is picked. Open-freeze berries on a tray, then bag them once solid. They are best used within about 3 months for quality, though they stay safe for longer.

Jelly: an apple base for low-pectin fruit

Rowan and bramble are Scottish autumn staples, and rowan jelly is the classic mixed jelly. Rowan is best made with a pectin source such as crab apples or the cores of Bramley apples, which makes it a good use for a glut of apples. Without one the jelly stays too liquid and won't set.

Rowan berries are bitter and inedible raw. They contain parasorbic acid, which in large amounts can irritate the stomach lining. Heating converts it to sorbic acid, which is non-toxic, so cooked rowan is edible. Pick away from roads and above the height where dogs are walked.

The rowan-to-apple ratio decides both the set and the flavour, so follow a tested rowan jelly recipe. To test the set, spoon a little jelly onto a fridge-cold plate, wait a minute and push it with a finger. If the surface wrinkles, it has set.

The same apple base can carry other fruit short of pectin, such as ripe brambles, into a mixed hedgerow jelly. Brambles sit on both sides of the line: sour ones are Group I, fully ripe ones Group II.

Pickles: mix only as the recipe is written

A mixed pickle is the least forgiving of the four. There must be a minimum, uniform level of acid throughout the mixed product to prevent the growth of botulinum bacteria. That level has been worked out for the exact vegetables and quantities in a tested recipe.

Adding extra vegetables, especially low-acid ones, or changing the vinegar, food or water proportions means that level can no longer be relied on. If you want a different combination, find a tested recipe that uses it.

Rules that never bend

Whatever goes in the jar, these stay the same:

• Don't use less vinegar, sugar or lemon juice than any recipe calls for.
• Use vinegar of known 5% acidity.
• Use a tested recipe from a reputable source, not a mix improvised by eye, and follow every step it gives, including any processing step.
• Sterilise the jars before filling: a hot dishwasher cycle, water above 90°C for 10 minutes, or the oven at 160°C (gas mark 3) for 10 minutes. Check the jar maker's instructions; some (Kilner, for example) advise against the oven for their jars. Let the jars dry fully before use. The sterilising guide has the full method, and the jars guide helps you choose jars.
• Use new lids and put them on while the preserve is still hot, so a vacuum seal forms as it cools.
• Never keep anything in oil at room temperature. Herbs, garlic or vegetables bottled in oil are a botulism risk.
• A chutney or pickle made outside a tested recipe is a fridge food. It is only safe at room temperature if it is acidic enough (pH 4.5 or lower) or has little enough free water, and a home kitchen can't check either. Where that can't be guaranteed, the product goes in the fridge from the day it is made, and Orkney Islands Council's guidance for producers gives it a shelf life of no more than 10 days.
• Store sealed jars in a cool, dark, dry place.
• Discard any jar with mould or a fermented, yeasty or alcoholic smell.

Keeping times, sealed and opened, are in how long preserves keep, and there are more glut ideas in jam and chutney from a glut.

Common questions

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