Happy Easter everyone!

As I’ve mentioned before, horseradish is an essential part of traditional Easter food in Slovenia, along with dyed boiled eggs and cooked ham. My favourite way to eat it is usually with whipped cream, salt and lemon juice, but this year I decided to experiment a bit.

You are probably familiar with the prepared horseradish relish that you can buy in the stores, so I wanted to try and make a slightly different homemade version. To keep it from losing its sharpness, horseradish is usually stored in vinegar, but be careful, as it should not be pickled in the traditional hot canning way, because horseradish can quickly turn horribly bitter if cooked or exposed to high temperatures.

Pickled Easter Horseradish recipe

Ingredients

• 1 medium horseradish root
• 2 apples
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• salt to taste

Prep time: 10 minutes

Instructions

Wash and peel the horseradish root and slice it into smaller pieces fit for tossing into a food processor. Wash, peel and core the apples and chop them into quarters. Put the horseradish and apples into a food processor and shred them into fine pieces. Add salt, thyme and white vinegar (you can adjust the quantity to taste), then add just enough water to submerge all the ingredients and get the consistency of a relish, but not so much that the pieces are floating in liquid. Transfer to glass jars and seal tight, then let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 days before eating. Enjoy!

This recipe is super simple and makes about 2-3 cups of pickled Easter horseradish altogether, depending on the size of your horseradish root and apples. It should keep in the fridge for about a month and is based on the traditional apple horseradish we eat here in Slovenia, just with vinegar and thyme. It works great as a condiment for Easter ham (obviously) or in sandwiches where you want to add a bit of zing. Trust me, it has plenty of zing and will go right up your nose if you eat too much at once.

Is horseradish also an Easter food staple in your country?

Download printable PDF here