I have a confession. I love making my own fermented foods, especially sauerkraut. But I hate chopping the vegetables. In fact, I will assign a teenager to the task almost every time. So, imagine my delight when this post appeared in my inbox. Thank you, Chris, for this easiest sauerkraut in a jar recipe ever.
It’s early spring, or maybe it’s still winter where you live. The garden isn’t producing. You won’t see a cabbage at the farmer’s market for a few more months. The pickles and sauerkraut you made in October are gone. You keep thinking you should get some fermented vegetables going but you are busy. It’s gardening season, after all. So you procrastinate and another week goes by without those amazing probiotics working with your immune system to keep you healthy. The brain fog invades your space but you fall into bed, too tired to do the one thing that will make the biggest difference for your energy levels and your health.
This recipe is a gift for busy times. This is the jump start you need to boost your immune system, beat the sugar cravings, and kick into gear your clear-headed thinking and clean-eating resolve once more. This easy sauerkraut recipe requires just 10 minutes to make and just two store-bought ingredients. Put them on your shopping list now and print out this recipe. Make it as soon as you get home from the store and you’ll be back on track. You’ll be eating probiotic-rich, super food sauerkraut in just a week.
This recipe begins with a packaged “Kale Salad Kit.” These premade salad packages are sold as a complete salad in a bag. You’ll find them in the cooler section of your grocery store’s fresh produce department. At Costco, they are found in the cooler room at the back of the produce department along with baby spring green clamshell boxes, bags of baby carrots, and cello-wrapped baby spinach.
Their impressive list of precut vegetables includes kale, shredded broccoli stems, green and red cabbage, shredded Brussel sprouts, and radicchio. The actual vegetables in the bag vary depending on the availability of each ingredient, so don’t worry too much about the actual vegetable contents of the bag. Most of these ingredients are from the same plant family as cabbage and will serve the same purpose in a sauerkraut recipe. All the vegetables are precut, shredded, or otherwise prepared in just the right sizes for sauerkraut. They will greatly reduce your time in preparing the vegetables for your homemade sauerkraut blend.
Also included in the Kale Salad Kit are two plastic envelopes of salad dressing, as well as a package of mixed cranberries and pumpkin seeds. Set aside the salad dressings for another use. You won’t use them in this recipe. You can add the dried cranberries to the sauerkraut while it’s fermenting now, or you can sprinkle the dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds on the finished sauerkraut just before serving to add crunch and sweetness. I add a few of the cranberries to my fermenting jar for color. I reserved the majority of the cranberries and pumpkin seeds to add just before I serve the sauerkraut.
The Easiest Sauerkraut in a Jar Recipe Ever
Yield: 1 quart
Ingredients:
- 1 packaged kale salad kit, (1 ½ pounds or 680 grams)
- 2 tablespoons Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt
- 2 tablespoons culture from a successful batch of fermented vegetables (optional)
- Filtered water to top up the jar
Directions:
Empty the full bag of pre-cut vegetables into a colander. Wash under cold water, stirring the mixture to wet all sides of the vegetables and to rinse off any residual anti-browning treatments applied by the manufacturer. Drain the vegetables in the colander for a few minutes or spin the vegetables in a salad spinner to remove excess water.
Transfer the vegetables to a 2-quart bowl. Add salt. Pound with a kraut pounder until the juices begin to flow, about three minutes. Stir in a handful of dried cranberries from the salad topping mixture in the Sweet Kale Salad Kit. Put aside the remainder of the topping mixture for later.
Transfer the vegetables to a sanitized one quart wide-mouth Mason jar. If you are using a fermented culture from a previous successful fermentation recipe add it now. Press down the vegetables into the jar using the kraut pounder. Top with filtered water.
Place the Fermentools glass weight into the mouth of the jar. Place the Fermentools seal, lid, and fermentation lock in place on the top of the jar. Secure the lid with a metal canning jar ring. Set aside.
After 24 hours you’ll see bubbles forming in the jar. Pressure will begin to rise inside the jar and this will push up the vegetables inside the jar. When the pressure drops inside the jar and the vegetables sink, the fermentation is finished. This will take four to six days, depending on your ambient temperatures.
When the fermentation is complete, remove the Fermentools kit, including the glass weight, and cover the jar with a regular Mason jar lid. Refrigerate the jar. You can begin to eat it immediately.
Cabbage, kale, Brussel sprouts, radicchio, and broccoli are superfoods that become even more powerful when they are fermented and infused with probiotic bacteria. Don’t neglect this convenient way to get more fermented food on your table.
Can you do me a favor?
Once you’ve made this recipe and you’ve seen how easy it is to make, can you share this with a friend who is new to fermentation? We’d love to see more people enjoying the health benefits and convenience of making their own easy sauerkraut recipes at home.
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If you, like me, want to go out and buy a case of the kale salad and ferment it, you will need a 12-pack of Fermentools. Get yours today, so that you are never caught unprepared again.
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Chris is a teacher, author, gardener, and herbalist with 30+ years’ of growing herbs and formulating herbal remedies, skin care products, soaps, and candles. She teaches workshops and writes extensively about gardening, crafts, scratch cooking, fermentation, medicinal herbs, and traditional skills on her blog at JoybileeFarm.com. Chris is the author of The Beginner’s Book of Essential Oils, Learning to Use Your First 10 Essential Oils with Confidence and Homegrown Healing, from Seed to Apothecary. Her newest book is “The Beeswax Workshop, How to Make Your Own Natural Candles, Cosmetics, Cleaners, Soaps, Healing Balms and More” with Ulysses Press (2017). Chris is a contributing writer to The Biblical Herbal Magazine, The Fermentools Blog, and the Attainable Sustainable blog. Her books are available on Amazon. Chris lives with her husband Robin in the mountains of British Columbia on a 140-acre ranch where they raise lamb. They have 3 adult children and 3 granddaughters.