As I stare out my office window, it's grey and gloomy. A storm is rolling in this afternoon and the forecast anticipates rain for the next week. It's mid-January here and I'm yearning for the upcoming season. I can't wait until the days are longer and the gardens are lush and full of life. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you the easiest recipe of all time - Fermented Sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut is one of the most simple, humble, and beneficial recipes out there. As I dive into my health journey (yuck I hate that phrase), I’m learning more about our gut biome and what foods are beneficial for it. If you didn’t know, fermented sauerkraut is a GREAT way to keep yourself “regular” (If you know what I mean…).
Luckily, my cabbage patch did pretty well this year and I was able to make a batch of this beautiful probiotic goodness. When you look up recipes online about fermenting cabbage, some people recommend using weights or airlocks, but you know what?? Our ancestors didn’t have fancy airlock contraptions to ferment foods – they used what they had on hand and so will we.
Fermented Sauerkraut
Ingredients you will need
- 2 medium sized cabbages
- sea salt
- a quart sized mason jar with the lid
- baking scale
- Peel off the outer leaves and cut your cabbage into quarters. Take out the hard stalk at the bottom of the cabbage and thinly slice your cabbage. (I use a knife but I know some people prefer to use a food processor)
- Take all of your shredded cabbage and weigh it in a bowl using a baking scale. Use that weight in grams and multiply by .02. This will give you the amount of salt you need to add. So for example, my shredded cabbage weighed 802 grams (802g x .02 = 16g) thus I used 16 grams of salt
- Add the correct amount of sea salt to your cabbage and start massaging with your hands. Knead it and squish the cabbage for about 2 minutes until it starts to turn a bit limp and you feel some juices being released.
- Pour the cabbage and salt mixture into a mason jar. Make sure to really pack it in there. You do not want any air to get into your cabbage. Continue to add and pack down your cabbage until it is completely submerged under the liquid and the jar is full.
- Take a few of the outer cabbage leaves and fold them up and pack them on top as a weight to keep the shredded cabbage submerged under the liquid.
- Loosely screw your lid on your mason jar and keep out on your counter for 3 days. After that – straight into the refrigerator it goes!
It’s not the most extravagant thing, but it’s definitely going to make your gut happy.
Till next time