Homemade sauerkraut is more than just delicious, it’s actually enormously healthful. For lovers of homemade food everywhere, this basic recipe can be your guide to experimenting with kraut adventures. While kraut has the reputation of being a German food, it’s actually just the German name for the simple brine fermentation that is a common practice of preserving vegetables in cultures throughout the world. Pickles and kimchee are other examples, for instance.
If you love the crunchy, tangy taste of sauerkraut, you’re actually tapping into an ancient tastebud tradition. Fermented vegetables have been in the human diet for thousands of years! Our ancestors were working in harmony with the microbial environment to preserve food with fermentation, and without the aid of a refrigerator, probably even before the advent of fire.
And yet, in the past few generations (you can thank Louis Pasteur for this), we have erased the actual TRUE goodness of sauerkraut and its brethren from the modern American diet. You see, the sauerkraut and pickles you buy in the store have been heat processed, and so robbed of many of the valuable micro nutrients our bodies have thrived on for eons.
But the good news is, you can easily remedy this grave gastric injustice right in your very own kitchen. You can stage a silent coup of the industrial food monopoly in a jar or crock of your own design. So far, there are no food police, so you’re still allowed to enjoy delicious food of made in the privacy of your subversive culinary habitat. And it’s so easy.
Wild Fermentation - How fermented food can change the world
I have to give a shout out to my friend Mike Clark for turning me on to this wonderful book. Wild Fermentation not only tells you how to make kraut from scratch, it chronicles the makings of dozens of fermented culinary delights that anyone can master. This book is more than just a great DIY guide, it’s a manifesto for health, wellness, and whole food, free from industrial processing. Wild Fermentation encourages us to take control of our own diets and take back our culinary history from the powerful food industry that perpetuates our separation from the grounding, life-giving forces of nature.
Everything I learned about sauerkraut I learned from this book by Sandor Ellis Katz. And, yes, I admit it freaked me out at first to be eating something that had been sitting at room temperature for several days. But overcoming my fear has paid off big time. Now there is not a day that a crock of kraut is not seasoning in some corner of my kitchen.
Sauerkraut recipe
A pictoral step-by-step of kraut making.
In this recipe I used equal parts red and green cabbage, plus I added some lovely fresh, local beet greens.
Chop the cabbage and greens into bite-sized pieces.
After producing a thick layer of chopped veggies, sprinkle some sea salt. No need to measure. But err on the light side. A good rule of thumb is about one tablespoon per cabbage head.
Continue until all your vegetables are chopped. Then mix them up, distributing the salt throughout.
Pack the vegetables tightly into a jar or crock. I use a wooden spoon or mallet (intended for meat tenderizing). The crushing of the leaves helps the salt to penetrate the vegetables and draw out the water.
Choose a lid that will fit very snugly inside the crock or jar. A bit of space is allowable, but you want to be sure to keep ALL the vegetables submerged under the brine. You’ll also want to weigh down the lid with a heavy rock or another jar filled with water.
Use a snug fitting lid with a weight,
or use a tightly fitting jar filled with water
to weigh down the kraut below the brine level.
Here I use a tupperware lid,
and weigh it down with a
boiled rock from Lake Michigan!
Press down the weight every few hours or so until you you are assured that water has risen above the vegetables. It can take up to 24 hours for the salt to completely leech the water from the vegetables. If after 24 hours there’s still not enough water to cover the veggies, you’ll want to add a bit of brine. Use 1 tablespoon of salt, completely dissolved, per cup of water.
The brine should be over your lid,
and no veggies showing!
This can take up to 24 hours.
It is VERY IMPORTANT that your lid is snug enough that NO VEGETABLES are floating to the top. Vegetables MUST stay submerged, or you are going to invite the wrong kind of bacteria into your crock - and the result will just be putrid vegetables rather than fermented kraut. (You’ll know from the smell, trust me. And nothing is sadder than having to throw out your lovingly chopped cabbage that never got the chance to fulfill its nutritive potential.)
Leave your crock ajar, but cover it with a towel to keep out dust (or cat hair!)
So now you wait. Don’t seal the crock. Leave it open a crack. You will want to cover it with a clean dish towel to keep dust out, but allow air to circulate. Each day or so you may want to check your crock to be sure all is well. The water has a tendency to evaporate if your home is very dry or the weather is warm. After day four or five you can remove the weight and lid and sample your kraut. I’ve found that day ten to twelve (here in winter in Michigan) is when I find it “perfect” - I then take out a big handful to put it in the fridge to enjoy. I carefully repack the crock, submerging the cabbage and weighing it down, to let the remaining kraut season even further, creating new taste variations as it ages.
Kraut around my house never lasts past week three, as we eat it pretty quickly, but you can continue to store it under brine for many weeks in cool weather. Of course in hot weather the kraut will mature more quickly.
Finished purple kraut
So that’s it! Pretty simple! I like to add my kraut to a sandwich of steamed kale, mustard, and tahini on rye bread for a lovely vegetarian ruben. It’s also amazing on sausages. Or just straight out of the jar! My roommate and I love to just eat a bowl of it when it has finally reached maturity..sort of a little kraut celebration, an epicurean tribute to the wonders of home fermenting!
I’ve experimented with combinations of cabbages and greens - probably my favorite combo being a spicy pink kraut I accomplished by combing four heads of green cabbage, one head of red cabbage, two large bunches of mustard greens, and four tablespoons of mustard seeds.
Makings of spicier kraut
Feel free to experiment! Add garlic and peppercorns. Spinach and kale. Get creative! Enjoy!
Ask me if I’d like some carrot soup and, like most people, I’d answer, “uhh…what are my other options? ” But all that has changed since I discovered this recipe!
I’ve realized in recent months that I was throwing away too much food, so I’m trying to be more disciplined and efficient with what’s on hand. This week I had a big bag of baby carrots, just sitting there, waiting for inspiration. I had not much else in the way of vegetables, either. And true to my mandate to stick with what’s in my fridge, I decided to try to find some way to use those little suckers.
RECIPE BOOK COLLECTION TO THE RESCUE
I use carrots in vegetable soups and salads, but don’t really have any tricks up my sleeve for highlighting them. To the rescue - the always entertaining Isa Chandra Moskowitz, creator of the PPK (Post Punk Kitchen). Whether you’re vegan or not, you’ve gotta love Isa’s style and her cookbooks, just loaded with thoughtful alternatives, enlightening suggestions and inspiration to be creative.
From her book Vegan with a Vengeance I found her recipe for Carrot Bisque. I noted I luckily had all the ingredients on hand — this one calls for a can of coconut milk (I keep a couple of cans from Trader Joe’s tucked away for Thai curry emergencies). So i was all set! I varied the recipe a bit - hers called for curry powder and I just made my own little curry with cumin, red pepper, garam masala and ginger. (Curry is actually a combination of spices that varies from region to region, and even family to family, in India, so I rarely keep the nebulously titled “curry powder” around - instead opt to make impromptu variations.)
CURRY SOUP?! WE HAVE A WINNER!
I have to say the sweet nutty richness of the coconut milk, with the spice of the pepper and cumin, made this a truly complex, satisfying and memorable soup. HIGHLY recommended! (I actually just bought more carrots today, an extra big bag, with plans to pair it with that last can of coconut milk waiting patiently in the pantry.)
COMPLETING THE MEAL
But the challenge was not over! I had to make the soup part of a complete winter-night meal. I had some cooked chick peas that needed to be used or they were going to riot their way right into the garbage can. So I whipped up a little crowd-pleasing hummus, adding cumin to bridge the gap between the two dishes. It was actually a great meal, receiving favorable views from the assembled diners - myself included.
I’m trying my best to eat less convenience foods. So, rather than cracking open a plastic package of something with unpronounceable additives ($3.50 at the local food factory), I’m trying instead to put a little imagination behind the basic ingredients in my pantry. I know that with a little effort I can whip up something with more flavor and nutrition (and at a lower cost!) than anything the food industry can provide on a shelf!
This is not an intimidating task involving years of practice, study, and a dozen cookbooks. It’s just a matter of diving in.
Take, for instance, this morning’s banana bread. Now, I used to think that baking was a science. I believed would-be cooks had to have the exact ingredients, in the right proportions, added in just the right way, or the end result would be a disaster. I’m hear to tell you: NOT SO!! You can be just as adventurous with baking as any other kind of cooking.
Banana bread is a great example. Some recipes will say: “Take 3 to 4 bananas…”
Ummm, ok. Is that three or four? Big bananas or little ones? Define the exact size of said banana - right?
Then there is the egg thing. They rarely say what SIZE egg. What happens if I put two large eggs and they wanted two small ones? Should I just use one Jumbo egg?
What’s a conscientious baker to do?
CREATIVE BAKING
I say: Improvise! For instance, this morning I referenced this banana bread recipe, but only had one banana. So I sort of winged it with my proportions. For the egg, I used enough egg replacer for about 1/2 an egg, then I added about 2/3 less sugar than the recipe called for, and I also put in half whole wheat flour instead of all white. PLUS, I just lumped all the ingredients together and mushed them up with my hands instead of first mixing in the sugar with banana, then adding flour, etc.
I also put the batter into little mini soufflé pans rather than a bread pan. I cooked them on 350 until they looked done (maybe 25 minutes?).
BAKING EXPERIMENT - THE MOMENT OF TRUTH!
The result? Lovely little individual banana breads, perfect for Saturday morning coffee.
So my point is, BE BRAVE! Experiment! EVEN with baking!!! Make foods from the whole ingredients in your pantry, and over time you’ll be surprised at how much money you can save AND how delicious and satisfying the fruits of your culinary adventures can be!
In the tradition of Michiganders everywhere, I went to one of the many orchards in the area to pick apples, eat donuts (which, by the way, taste exactly like the donuts in your dreams), and drink apple cider
And, like Michiganders everywhere, I came back home with WAY more apples than my household will ever consume. Empire, Gala, Jonathan, Cortland, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith! They all looked so good, I had to get a few of each, and I ended up with a little over a peck.
PIE ALTERNATIVES, ANYONE?
What to do? I issued a plea for an idea (other than pie) to the twitterverse, and a very simple reply came forth: applesauce!
But still, I’m thinking, that’s going to be all that peeling and chopping…so much work! And while discussing my dilemma in my morning carpool, my friend and car pool buddy Jona - who once worked at the famous and revered Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor - told me: you don’t have to peel the apples, as long as you chop them into bite sized pieces. That’s how they do it at Zingerman’s! Skin-on Applesauce! He also told me another hint: cook the apples down in apple cider!
ROLLING UP MY SLEEVES
And so, armed with little more than a carpool anecdote, I got to work. I chopped those gorgeous apples, all different colors and textures and degrees of sweet and tart, into bite sized pieces, coring as I went. It took some time, but not nearly as much as peeling would have! I used about half a peck. Then added nearly a quart of apple cider. I had drunk some of the quart, so didn’t have as much as I’d like. I wanted to fill the pot to ALMOST cover the apples, as I’d been instructed. So added a bit of water to make up for it. Then I put the pot on a low setting and slowly cooked the apples for about three hours, occasionally stirring and mashing as they became softened.
The instruction I got was that I wouldn’t need sugar, but perhaps the apple mix I used was more tart. I did eventually add about 1/4 cup of honey and half a cup of sucanat (unrefined raw sugar). Added together with ginger, nutmeg and three cinnamon sticks, the results were stunning!
This was the most complex and delicious applesauce I’ve ever had! It was delicious hot, just made, and also cold, some days later. I am still eating on it, about a week later, but it’s getting low. I’ve envisioned re-heating this apple sauce in an oven dish and dropping sweet biscuit dough, butter, and cinnamon/sugar onto it, to make a sort of apple cobbler. I may get to that, if it doesn’t disappear first!
