Giardiniera is an Italian

Italian cuisine

Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...

 or Italian-American

Italian-American cuisine

Italian American cuisine is the cuisine of Italian American immigrants and their descendents, who have modified Italian cuisine under the influence of American culture and immigration patterns of Italians to the United States...

 relish

Relish

A relish is a cooked, pickled, or chopped vegetable or fruit food item which is typically used as a condiment.In North America, relish commonly alludes to sweet pickle relish-like sauce that often condiments hot dogs, hamburgers and other types of fast food.-Description and ingredients:The item...

 of pickle

Pickling

Pickling, also known as brining or corning is the process of preserving food by anaerobic fermentation in brine to produce lactic acid, or marinating and storing it in an acid solution, usually vinegar . The resulting food is called a pickle. This procedure gives the food a salty or sour taste...

d vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

s in vinegar

Vinegar

Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...

 or oil

Cooking oil

Cooking oil is purified fat of plant origin, which is usually liquid at room temperature ....

.

Varieties and uses

Italian giardiniera is also called "sotto aceti", which means "under vinegar", a common term for pickled foods. It is typically eaten as an antipasto

Antipasto

Antipasto , means "before the meal" and is the traditional first course of a formal Italian meal. Traditional antipasto includes cured meats, olives, roasted garlic, peperoncini, mushrooms, anchovies, artichoke hearts, various cheeses...

 or with salad

Salad

Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes, including vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, eggs, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They may include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables or fruits.Green salads include leaf...

s.

In the United States, giardiniera is commonly available in traditional or spicy varieties, the latter which is sometimes referred to as "Hot Mix".

In the U.S. midwest, giardiniera is used as a condiment

Condiment

A condiment is an edible substance, such as sauce or seasoning, added to food to impart a particular flavor, enhance its flavor, or in some cultures, to complement the dish. Many condiments are available packaged in single-serving sachets , like mustard or ketchup, particularly when supplied with...

, typically used as a topping on Italian beef

Italian beef

An Italian beef is a sandwich of thin slices of seasoned roast beef, dripping with meat juices, on a dense, long Italian-style roll, believed to have originated in Chicago, where its history dates back at least to the 1930s...

 sandwiches.

A milder variety of giardiniera is used for the olive salad in the Muffuletta

Muffuletta

The muffuletta is a type of round Sicilian sesame bread, as well as a submarine sandwich made with that bread that originated from New Orleans, Louisiana.-Bread:...

 sandwich.

Ingredients

The Italian version includes onion

Onion

The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...

s, celery

Celery

Apium graveolens is a plant species in the family Apiaceae commonly known as celery or celeriac , depending on whether the petioles or roots are eaten: celery refers to the former and celeriac to the latter. Apium graveolens grows to 1 m tall...

, zucchini

Zucchini

The zucchini is a summer squash which often grows to nearly a meter in length, but which is usually harvested at half that size or less. It is a hybrid of the cucumber. Along with certain other squashes, it belongs to the species Cucurbita pepo. Zucchini can be dark or light green...

, carrot

Carrot

The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...

s and cauliflower

Cauliflower

Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea, in the family Brassicaceae. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed...

. The pickled vegetables are in red- or white-wine vinegar.

American giardiniera is commonly made with serrano pepper

Serrano pepper

The serrano pepper is a type of chili pepper that originated in the mountainous regions of the Mexican states of Puebla and Hidalgo. The name of the pepper is a reference to the mountains of these regions....

s along with combination of assorted vegetables, including bell pepper

Bell pepper

Bell pepper, also known as sweet pepper or a pepper and capsicum , is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum . Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange and green. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as...

s, olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

s, celery, pimento

Pimento

A pimento or cherry pepper is a variety of large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper that measures 3 to 4 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide . The flesh of the pimento is sweet, succulent and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper...

s, carrots, and cauliflower, and sometimes crushed red pepper flakes, all marinated in vegetable oil, olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

, soybean oil

Soybean oil

Soybean oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean . It is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils. As a drying oil, processed soybean oil is also used as a base for printing inks and oil paints...

or any combination of the three. It is also common to see it pickled in vinegar.