Simple Homemade Sauerkraut With A Spicy Twist
A simple recipe for spicy sauerkraut that anyone can make. Add a little spicy twist and it is also a great way for anyone to get into fermentation.
Equipment
- 1 Large Knife or Mandolin (a mandolin is much easier)
- 1 Glass Jar
- 1 Airlock
- 1 Bowl or Bucket
- 1 Fermenting Weight
Ingredients
- 1 head cabbage
- 3 % salt (I use sea salt)
- 2 fresh habaneros (any pepper will do)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp whole peppercorns
- 1 tbsp caraway seeds (optional)
Instructions
- Chop up your cabbage and peppers. How fine you want it is up to you. I like mine pretty thin. Some people take out the core of the cabbage, but I don’t. I feel that leaving the core brings a variety in the texture and still has flavor once it is fermented. If you do want to take core out, you can eat is as is for a snack or put it into a compost pile. I would highly recommend using a mandolin. They are extremely cheap and allow your cabbage to be cut much more consistently.
- Add the salt, garlic, peppercorns, and any other ingredients into your bowl. To get the correct amount of salt, first weigh your cabbage. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, then you can write down the weight when you buy it. Take your weight and add 3% salt. For example, if you weight is 1 kilo, you would add 30 grams of salt.
- Mix everything together with your hands. When the salt is pretty evenly distributed, start pounding. Pound it, mix it, squeeze it with your hands. The goal here is to release the water from the cabbage. After a little bit you will see coming out of the cabbage. Don’t toss it! you will need it later.
- Set the cabbage aside for about 15-30 minutes. This will allow more water to be extracted from the cabbage. You can either stop here or repeat the process. Remember that the consistency created here will be final. You can repeat this whole process until it is as hard or soft as you like.
- When you have achieved your desired softness, it’s time to put it in the jar. So take all of your cabbage and ingredients and put them in a jar. Push everything down with your hands or a food tamper. You will see more water coming out, and if it covers the top that’s great. If the top of the food is not covered, add some of the water that you hopefully didn’t throw away. If order for fermentation to take place and prevent mold, all the food needs to be covered.
- Now you need to weigh down the food. You have a couple of choices. You could use fermentation weights, which are very cheap and extremely useful if you will continue fermenting. If you don’t have fermentation weights, you could use a zip lock bag filled with water. Use any leftover water from the cabbage so if the bag happens to break, your ferment is not contaminated.
- Fermentation is an anaerobic process, meaning without oxygen. We achieve this by covering the food with a brine (the salted water we got from the cabbage) and using an airlock. An airlock allows air to be released from a container, but prevents air from going in. You can technically use a normal lid, but you will need to burp it (open the jar) everyday. The problem with this is that it can introduce bacteria (the bad kind) and mold to your ferment. Do yourself a favor and just buy some airlocks. They are cheap and be used over and over.
- Now we just wait. Put your ferment in a warm place and leave it alone. After a day or two you will start to see bubbles forming. This is perfectly formal and tells you that your sauerkraut is being fermented. How long you want to leave is is up to you. I would recommend one week at a minimum, but you can go longer. My record so far has been two months. The longer you leave it, the more sour it will get and the flavors will develop more.
- You can taste your sauerkraut daily after a week or two and stop the fermentation when it reaches your desired taste. To stop the fermentation replace the airlock with a normal lid and place it in the refrigerator. It will keep for months on end.