Chutney Recipes

[neil bowman]

Hi, I'm new to using the forum ... stumbled onto it while 'googling' for some sugar free recipes for chutney ... and I'm looking for help in find a solution. I'm type 2 diabetic and love growing stuff on my allotment and then turning the produce into good quality, good to eat food.

The last couple of Christmases I've given my 3 grown-up children a basket of chutneys and jams made with my home grown fruit and vegetables.
I've just spent a few days creating a selection of chutneys to share with my family and suddenly thought: "these chutneys are really very tasty ... but contain large amounts of sugar".

1st question: Has anyone any truly sugar free or ‘no added sugar’ chutney recipes?
2nd question: Can you substitute a sugar alternative (e.g. canderel) in 'normal' chutney recipes or does this spoil their shelf-life?

Looking forward to your help ...
Neil

 

[mikeyB]

Sugar in preserves does just that. It preserves fruit and veg. That’s been known for centuries. There is no artificial alternative. The only alternative that would work is left handed sugar, which is just as sweet but can’t be absorbed by the human body. It costs an arm and a leg, and the only product that uses it, Splenda, is 95% dextrose and maltodextrose, and only 5% sucralose, so it isn’t particularly low carb, no matter what the manufacturers claim, or not low enough for your purposes anyway.

There are hundreds of low sugar chutney recipes online, but they just don’t have the shelf life, other than the ones with loads of vinegar as the preservative, but that’s pickle, not chutney. I’m T1, so I just bolus a tad more insulin to cover the chutney on my cheese and Ryvitas.

 

[Diabetes UK]

Hi Neil and welcome to the forum. Glad that you have found us and hopefully we can help you in finding a solution! Growing your own food in your allotment sounds brilliant and you can't beat fresh fruit and veg!

In answer to your questions....
1st question: Has anyone any truly sugar free chutney recipes?

This would not really be possible due to the naturally occurring sugars in whatever fruit or veg you are using to make your chutney. When you are cooking them, you will potentially be releasing those natural sugars by breaking down some of the fibre that is present and releasing juices. This could mean that the natural sugars might absorb quicker than if you were to eat a the fruit or veg raw, so it could never be truly sugar-free.​

2nd question: Can you substitute a sugar alternative (e.g. canderel) in 'normal' chutney recipes or does this spoil their shelf-life?

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of chutney making will be able to offer some guidance on this one. What may be of note is that some sweetners are more adviseable for baking than others. Some types loose sweetness when heated beyond a certain temperature and are therefore are not advised for baking. Others are more suitable: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-t...es-and-diabetes/sugar-sweeteners-and-diabetes
Whether sweeteners would do the right thing in regards to the process of chutney making, I cannot say.
​

It may be that you continue to make the chutmneys but have an awareness of the portion that you eating, have the chutney as a treat and just have small amounts?

I am hopeful that someone else will have some helpful input to add!

 

[Sally W]

http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2012/04/tomato-chutney-recipe-sugar-free.html
I make the above, substituting xylitol for sugar. As my tastebuds have changed I don’t add 2 tbspns but instead add only 1 tspn of xylitol and a pinch of salt.(It’s best to freeze half the quantity as a jar does only last 2-3 weeks in the fridge as no preservatives.)

 

[JMyrtle]

This is the first time in the last forty years i have not made jam or chutney I'm the only one that eats it and its now on the "banned list".
As Sally said you can use sweeteners in chutney to give a sweet taste but in making traditional chutneys you need to balance salt, sugar and vinegar to produce a medium that is hostile to the growth of bacteria when stored at room temperature so I am not sure sweetener would forfill that function.
Also you need to slowly simmer chutney to evaporate the liquid until you reach the jam like consistency you need so again I am not sure sweetener would be up to the job.
Probably the best idea is as has been suggested is to freeze what chutney you make in small quantities but to my mind that defeats the object of making it in the first place, why not just freeze the fruit and veg and make small batches of chutney as you need it.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Personally I still enjoy making jams and chutneys and I’m happy to use sugar.

Generally home made preserves contain far less sugar than commercial versions because the fruit/produce is the expensive bit.

Additionally, the amount of carb in the small splodge of jam or chutney I would use doesn’t seem to be problematic for my levels (I am on moderate rather than low carb). If a teaspoon’s-worth was full glucose it would be 5g of carbs. But with all the other stuff going on in chutney/jam I’d reckon 3g of carbs tops.

 

[silentsquirrel]

I still make - and eat, though in much reduced quantities - jams, marmalades and chutneys. With jam and marmalade, I reduce the sugar to 70% of the normal recipe amount, and it still keeps perfectly (for years sometimes). Less easy to reduce the sugar in chutney, as it needs to balance the vinegar.

I would not regard anything as on a "banned list". To misquote Prue Leith, you have to decide whether something is, for you, "worth the carbs". Unless you are on an extremely low carb diet, and you really miss your preserves, you can probably factor in smaller amounts less often without a problem.

Freezing, whether the finished product or the fruit/veg, is not really an option for me - I never have that much space in the freezer!

I have just made a large quantity of red plum jam and yellow Mirabelle-type plum jam, both from wild fruit foraged by OH. If I am very close to hypo (I am on insulin), I find a teaspoonful of delicious jam on its own works brilliantly as a hypo treatment!

 

[Carolg]

Personally I still enjoy making jams and chutneys and I’m happy to use sugar.

Generally home made preserves contain far less sugar than commercial versions because the fruit/produce is the expensive bit.

Additionally, the amount of carb in the small splodge of jam or chutney I would use doesn’t seem to be problematic for my levels (I am on moderate rather than low carb). If a teaspoon’s-worth was full glucose it would be 5g of carbs. But with all the other stuff going on in chutney/jam I’d reckon 3g of carbs tops.

Thanks for this. I made tomato chutney the other day and worried about carb count although my diet is unpredictable at present. Making plum chutney today . I don’t like taste of artificial sweeteners in cooking so will just watch how much I eat

 

[JMyrtle]

The other thing to consider is that you have to put the jam or chutney on something to eat it, be it bread, toast, sandwich, ploughmans lunch whatever.
All I know is that one slice of wholemeal toast with butter and home made marmalade sends my two hour reading up to 14.5 from 7.9, that's why it's on the banned list!

 

[mikeyB]

I’m just glad I’m T1, and I like toast and home made marmalade. I just run out of insulin quicker when I make jam or marmalade. 🙂

 

[silentsquirrel]

The other thing to consider is that you have to put the jam or chutney on something to eat it, be it bread, toast, sandwich, ploughmans lunch whatever.
All I know is that one slice of wholemeal toast with butter and home made marmalade sends my two hour reading up to 14.5 from 7.9, that's why it's on the banned list!

So maybe try just half a slice if you want to have it occasionally? Or try a different bread - high protein of some kind, or granary with loads of seeds, wholemeal is almost as bad as white for many of us.
With the chutney, I will often have cheese and/or cold meats with various salad veg for lunch, sometimes with a small amount of bread or crackers, but sometimes not and then I just put a little chutney on the cheese or on the celery. I would also often have a little chutney with white fish to add interest - important thing is only a little!

 

[JMyrtle]

As I said wholemeal toast and butter just 7.9, wholemeal toast, butter and homemade marmalade 14.5, ergo the problem is the marmalade not the bread as my usual early morning reading is somewhere about 7.0

 

[silentsquirrel]

As I said wholemeal toast and butter just 7.9, wholemeal toast, butter and homemade marmalade 14.5, ergo the problem is the marmalade not the bread as my usual early morning reading is somewhere about 7.0

Sorry, I read your post as the 7.9 was your reading before eating the toast and marmalade.

 

[MrsPeel]

@neil bowman how amazing to be able to grow your own!!
when we lived in Brazil, most of what we ate came from our garden, back in the UK we moved into a flat, communal gardens so I only grow herbs now
We love cooking from scratch, but I think I only made chutney twice in my entire life, one was in the early 80s and second in 2001, both when I had no dietary restrictions, now reading the thread I am craving some LOL Hope you find your way for lower sugar contents 🙂

http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2012/04/tomato-chutney-recipe-sugar-free.html
I make the above, substituting xylitol for sugar. As my tastebuds have changed I don’t add 2 tbspns but instead add only 1 tspn of xylitol and a pinch of salt.(It’s best to freeze half the quantity as a jar does only last 2-3 weeks in the fridge as no preservatives.)

@Sally W thank you for the link!!! some really great recipes 🙂
in the past couple of months I have been searching for healthy recipes, found many that use erythritiol which I never heard of so I googled it, it sounds like an ideal as sugar replacement, but as our supermarket doesn't have it, and Amazon offers quiet big quantities (not cheap either) I am leaving it to try it when budget is a bit better than right now...
I thought xylitol sounded familiar so I googled to see if they were same thing, and find out they aren't. When questioning which one is better, the question isn't a simple one to answer but in all the articles I read, they seem to favor the erythritol ...have you (or any of you here!) tried it?

 

[mikeyB]

The trouble with complex sugars like xylitol is that they are osmotic laxatives, with the consequences you would expect from a laxative, so don’t forget the Andrex multipack.

 

[Browser]

I tried making sweet chilli jam replacing the sugar wth Erythritol. It seemed to work well but on cooling the jam began to crystallise and was horrible.

 

[Sally W]

@neil bowman how amazing to be able to grow your own!!
when we lived in Brazil, most of what we ate came from our garden, back in the UK we moved into a flat, communal gardens so I only grow herbs now
We love cooking from scratch, but I think I only made chutney twice in my entire life, one was in the early 80s and second in 2001, both when I had no dietary restrictions, now reading the thread I am craving some LOL Hope you find your way for lower sugar contents 🙂



@Sally W thank you for the link!!! some really great recipes 🙂
in the past couple of months I have been searching for healthy recipes, found many that use erythritiol which I never heard of so I googled it, it sounds like an ideal as sugar replacement, but as our supermarket doesn't have it, and Amazon offers quiet big quantities (not cheap either) I am leaving it to try it when budget is a bit better than right now...
I thought xylitol sounded familiar so I googled to see if they were same thing, and find out they aren't. When questioning which one is better, the question isn't a simple one to answer but in all the articles I read, they seem to favor the erythritol ...have you (or any of you here!) tried it?

@MrsPeel I use a combination of xylitol and Truvia (contains erythritol). For things like meringues where texture is required I use xylitol as it’s one on one replacement, for raspberry jam just for sweetness I use Truvia, but my tastebuds have changed a little so I tend to make jams quite tart now so don’t need a lot.