Making Kraut

I can’t even remember how long I’ve been making sauerkraut now. I hope you can see here how fairly simple it is to make. Saurkraut is a beautiful gateway to health. Let’s talk about the benefits of sauerkraut and other lacto-fermented veggies. Why should we eat them? What does lacto-fermentation mean? What do we need to make sauerkraut? How do we eat them?

Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, stated in the book Wild Fermentation, that “Fermented foods have largely disappeared from the Western diet, much to the detriment of our health and economy. Fermented foods are a powerful aid to digestion and a protection against disease.”

Lacto-fermentation is the process that produces traditional dill pickles, kimchi, and real sauerkraut, among other fermented foods. This simple fermentation process requires nothing more than salt, vegetables, and water. Eating fermented foods supports our immune and digestive systems, and those are very important body systems that we want to be able to easily support daily. A great way is through the foods we eat.

We almost never want to heat our fermented foods. Heat can damage the health benefits. However, we do want to eat them along side our cooked foods. A great way to introduce fermented foods, like sauerkraut, is to add about a tablespoon to fajitas, salads, burgers, steaks, fish, eggs, or sandwiches. Just mix them in. The other flavors will balance out the tang if it’s intense for you at first. Start small and then increase the amounts over time to your liking. You want to start small because you will probably not be used to the tangy flavor, and you don’t want to wind up wasting it. Also if you have a sensitive system, too much at once could award you a few extra trips to the bathroom. Fermented foods can be excellent cleansers 🙂 Making your own sauerkraut is also extremely inexpensive versus purchasing it from the store.

I ate so much sauerkraut when I was pregnant. Our youngest son loves it! He’s been eating it probably since about 10 months old. So yes, give it to the babes. It’s so good for them too! The sooner you cultivate a palate in your kids for traditional foods, the better!

Sauerkraut Supplies

Cabbage (Start with 2 medium heads)
Big Bowl
Sharpened Knife & Clean Cutting Board
Food Processor (optional)
1 Tablespoon Salt
Jar & Wooden Pounding Tool

If you cannot afford organic cabbage, sauerkraut made with conventional cabbage is okay! Having sauerkraut with conventional cabbage is better than not having any. Cabbage is on the Clean 15 list, meaning it’s one of the least sprayed crops. or crops where pesticide residue is found much less. I will say that I always like to mix my color of cabbages. If I can purchase a head of green and a head of purple. I like to do these for a few reasons. First reason is I really like the combined texture provided by both cabbages. The second reason is purple cabbage is very rich in glutathione. Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant can help metabolize toxins, break down free radicals, support immune function, and more. It’s true that our bodies make it, but we burn through it due to stress, and can be easily deficient. By supporting the body and eating glutathione rich foods, it can be helpful. The third reason is after the cabbages begin to ferment they make this gorgeous pink color!

I wanted to address the salt. This is where you want to splurge. Use a high quality salt. I’ve used Redmond Realsalt (Use our code on the Redmond website shopping link in bio to save 15%: KHW) I go back and forth between the what I use. I’m into Celtic right now. It’s probably my favorite. Depending on flavor and amount of cabbage used, use 1-2 TBSP. I usually just use one for two smaller to medium cabbages. Now what you cannot do is omit the salt. The salt is what preserves the cabbage as well as being part of the lacto-fermentation process. I wouldn’t use less than a TBSP. Lactobacillus bacteria convert sugars naturally present in fruit or vegetables into lactic acid. Lactic acid is a natural preservative that helps fight bad bacteria and preserves not only the flavor and texture of food but also its nutrients. When you start to see bubbles form, that’s the lactic acid building up.

Something you will learn as you get into fermenting many different kinds of foods is that different foods require different processes from fermented veggies to sourdough to kombucha to yogurt or kefir. Some can touch metal and some can’t, some require warm environments, some require cool. I say this just to make you aware that it can vary.

You can use mason jars. I prefer a flip top jar like in my picture or this link because I find I don’t get mold when I use these. I’ve not done well with the fermenting jars with the special lids. Use what you have and works for you as long as it’s glass. You do want to make sure that no metal touches the cabbage because that can disrupt the process. My jar is a 1.7 liter size.

No, you absolutely don’t need a food processor, just a really good knife will do. I prefer the finer shreds from the food processor myself. When doing any kind of food preparation, making sure you have properly prepared kitchen tools is optional. In this case a sharpened knife made of food grade stainless steel knife and a clean cutting board are truly all you need. I like to eliminate the use of plastic cutting boards in my kitchen. Plastic contains toxins and when we cut our foods into plastic boards we run the risk of cutting plastic into our foods. Plastic boards also are difficult to clean without sanitizing in the dishwasher. We never want to heat plastics in the dishwasher or the microwave because it intensifies the toxic load. I prefer bamboo boards because bamboo is naturally antibacterial. You just need to clean them with hot, soapy water, towel try, then air dry a bit more. Once completely dry, just use a bit of organic coconut oil to seal it. When staining is an issue, wash with a bit of food grade hydrogen peroxide. I mix it into the dish soap, and let it sit on the board before finishing washing.

How to Make Sauerkraut

Wash your hands. Then peel a few cabbage leaves to get to the fresher cabbage on the inside, but don’t those those leaves away. Preserve them for later.

Next slice the cabbage into discs. If you are using a food processor, I then cut each disc into strips. I feed the strips into the food processor. I use the cheese grater on the processor. If not using a processor, then you simply want to cut your cabbage into fine shred like pieces.

Into a very large mixing bowl, I add the cabbage and the salt. Using my clean hands I mix up the cabbage and the salt. Then let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Go do some laundry and cook something while you wait. This allows the salt to draw out the natural juice from the cabbage. You want lots of cabbage juice. The fresher the cabbage, the more juice there will be. Dry sauerkraut is not delicious.

Once the time has gone by begin to put the cabbage into your jar. Once you have about 1/4 of the jar filled then begin to press down on the cabbage to release the juices with the pounding tool. If you have another kitchen tool with a flat head that will fit into your jar like a small potato masher, that would work too. A stainless steel tool is fine in the making of sauerkraut, we just don’t want any metal touching the cabbage once the fermentation process begins. Continue to layer then pound, by pound, I really just mean press. This reminds me of kind of making lasagna, of course pound anything in lasagna, but just to kind if give a visual. Once you get to the next of the jar, stop. You want a good inch or two of clearance.

Next grab those cabbage leaves you reserved, I usually save two from each cabbage. Fold them up and put them on top of the shredded cabbage in the neck of the jar.

Close the lid, then store the jar in a pantry, cabinet, or counter not facing a window with sunlight. Darker, drier, and cooler environments are better. The amount of time you let your kraut ferment is truly up to you. I’ve done as short as 4 days.That’s what I was taught at first. Then I learned a longer ferment produces more beneficial bacteria, and different flavor. These days I usually do 4-6 weeks. Some people let it go way longer. Play around and see what you like.

When I learned to make sauerkraut, I was taught to cover the jar with a dish towel to keep light out, but I really don’t think that’s necessary. The other reason to cover with a towel was if there was an explosion or overflow of the cabbage juices due to the lactic acid build up, the towel would soak up the mess. I am also really bad about doing something called burping the sauerkraut. That basically means you open the lid, let out some gas build up, and reseal it. This burping process is to help eliminate the abundance of lactic acid that can produce the mess. I almost always forget, guess what, it’s always okay! Some people might yell at me for that, but oh well! If you choose to do it and remember, great! Something I definitely do though because of the mess is I put my jars into a plastic container that I can easily rinse/wash if there is overflow of juices. This works well for me. See the picture below. I am using an old Rubbermaid container that I used to store my grains in before switching to glass storage. Really if you just use a container that the bottom fits in with some kind of a side, the top part of jar can stick out. The idea is just to have something to catch the mess. I store this in my pantry.

Let me know if you’d like to see more pictures, have more questions, or this post can be more helpful. If you are on Instagram, I recently posted a Reel of how I make it. I have a highlight on it too.

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