Did you know that homemade sauerkraut has the same healthy probiotics than yogurt has? You can make sauerkraut from many vegetables, too. This easy recipe only needs three ingredients to make a healthy, crunchy, homemade sauerkraut, that's great tasting and good for you!
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Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 0
Total Time: needs to ferment at least a day.
Yield: 1 lb.
Source: Mother Earth News
Ingredients:
1 lb pre cut cole slaw mix (usually contains various cabbagesand carrots, all precut for easy processing!)
1/2 tsp sea salt
pinch caraway, dill or fennel seeds
Steps:
I wash and sterlize a large mason and a smaller jelly jar to put my finished product in first. Let them cool and dry while you work on your kraut.
Pour your bag of slaw into a big bowl. You could also have cut up half of a cabbage finely, if desired. I just had a two for one deal of two bags of slaw so I decided to turn one into homemade kraut. All the precutting into small pieces makes it super easy and faster to ferment too.
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Sprinkle in your seeds and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt into the mix.
Use your hands to squeeze, knead and break down the coleslaw fiber. After a few minutes it will start becoming wetter due to the extraction of water from the veggies due to the salt. You want that! It is what will ferment the veggies. I did this for at least 5 to 8 minutes because it's quicker with the pre-cut bags.
I place the veggies into the mason jar and tamped it down with a meat tenderizer so it is covered with its watery juices. You need to have all the veggies covered in the watery liquid.
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Some cooks will then cover it with a cabbage leaf first and then weight it down with a smaller jar filled with water to keep the veggies totally under the liquid. I just used the weighted jelly jar. I also place a plastic bag over the top of the mason jar lightly, just so it isn't wide open (not pictured). That's really it.
You will leave it on your counter for the next few days, going in to stir it and push it back down.Since I used the finely cut cole slaw mix, mine was ready to eat by the next day! Normally it takes at least 3 to 5 days (or more for denser veggies like carrot) for that wonderful tangy slaw taste.
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Taste it regularly! Once it reaches the tangy taste you like, eat or refrigerate it! Putting it in the refrigerator stops the fermenting process. It's wonderfully easy and an ancient practice that is very interesting to learn about.
Looking forward to making this and this week. It looks so simple. My mother made kraut for years in a big container and then she canned it. It was kept in a "vegetable cellar" for a long, long time.
I've been fermenting for nearly 50 years and have two generations of fermenters before me. This recipe does not work and shouldn't even be used as a guide. 1/2 tsp of salt/pound of slaw doesn't begin to create enough osmotic differential to draw out water nor does it inhibit bacterial growth while allowing "good" bacillus to grow.
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At best you have a yucky mold culture, and and worst botulism. Bagged cabbage has so much surface area that it is invariably too dry to make kraut. With only remarkable luck would this make a desirable sauerkraut.
Did you know that homemade sauerkraut has the same healthy probiotics than yogurt has? You can make sauerkraut from many vegetables, too. This easy recipe only needs three ingredients to make a healthy, crunchy, homemade sauerkraut, that's great tasting and good for you!
