Making sauerkraut

The one thing that makes it different

Most vegetable ferments are submerged in brine you mixed. Sauerkraut is dry-salted: the salt goes onto the shredded cabbage directly, and osmosis pulls enough liquid out of the leaf to cover it.

That is why the recipe is a proportion rather than a quantity — the salt is a percentage of the weight of the cabbage, and getting it right means weighing the cabbage after shredding. It is also why working the cabbage matters: squeezing and pounding it breaks cells and speeds the release of liquid enormously.

If after an hour there genuinely is not enough liquid to cover the cabbage — which happens with older, drier cabbages — brine made to the same concentration is topped up to cover. That is the only water that should ever go in.

FoodHQ does not publish salt percentages, pH figures or keeping times for home preserving. Those are safety numbers, they are set by a food safety authority rather than by a cookery writer, and the right ones depend on what you are fermenting and where you are. In the UK the Food Standards Agency is the authority — use a recipe from them or from another body with the same standing, and treat this page as the explanation of why that recipe is shaped the way it is.

The method

Get the salt proportion from a food safety authority recipe; the technique is here.

1. Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage and set one or two clean ones aside — you will use them at the end.
2. Quarter the cabbage, cut out the core, and shred it finely. Fine shredding releases more liquid faster and gives a better texture.
3. Weigh the shredded cabbage. This is the number the salt is a proportion of, and it is why kitchen scales are not optional here.
4. Add the weighed salt and mix it through with your hands.
5. Squeeze, pound and massage it for several minutes. It will go from dry and springy to wet and limp, and a pool of liquid will collect in the bowl. That pool is your brine.
6. Add caraway seed, juniper, dill or shredded apple if you want them. Plain is traditional and excellent.
7. Pack it into a jar in handfuls, pressing each one down hard to drive out air pockets, until the liquid rises above the cabbage.
8. Fold a reserved outer leaf over the top to catch loose shreds, then add a weight so everything stays under the liquid.
9. Leave headspace, cover so gas escapes but air does not, and stand the jar on a plate.
10. Leave it at room temperature out of direct sun. Taste it every few days with a clean fork.
11. Refrigerate when it tastes right — anywhere from about a week in a warm kitchen to a month or more in a cold one.

What to expect

• Liquid rising in the first day. If it has not covered the cabbage within a day, press it down harder or top up with brine of the same strength.
• Bubbling and overflow in the first few days. The plate underneath is not optional.
• Cloudy brine. Normal.
• The colour dulling from bright white-green to a paler straw. Normal.
• A smell that goes from cabbagey to properly sour over a week or two. This is the thing you are waiting for.
• A flat white film on top. Kahm yeast — skim it, and check nothing is floating.
• Fuzzy growth. Mould. Discard the batch.

Variations worth making

Caraway kraut

A teaspoon or two of caraway seed. The classic central European version, and the one most people picture.

Juniper kraut

Crushed juniper berries. Excellent with pork and game.

Apple and kraut

Grated apple through the cabbage. Slightly sweeter and softer, ferments a little faster because of the extra sugar.

Red cabbage

Works identically. Bleeds a startling magenta into the brine and keeps a firmer texture.

Curtido

The Salvadoran version — cabbage with carrot, onion and oregano, usually fermented briefly.

Cabbage and carrot

Grated carrot adds sweetness and colour and is common across eastern Europe.

Common questions