Grandma’s Sauerkraut (Recipe)

Don’t let the mystique around fermented foods, like Sauerkraut, scare you away from making it.

Making Sauerkraut is as easy as mixing shredded cabbage with salt, submerging it in saltwater, and letting it set at room temperature until the practical magic of natural fermentation converts it into a delicious superfood.

I really want you to feel empowered to give this a try in your kitchen, so I’ve provided step-by-step instructions, fun secret tips I learned from my Grandma, and notes about questions that might come up along the way.

But really, if that’s all too much, just skip straight to the recipe. Grab your cabbage, knife and some salt and get fermenting!

My Grandma loved feeding people – it was her love language. What she made was farm fare, simple food learned growing up on a subsistence farm with 10 siblings… peasant wealth that money can’t buy. Egg noodles, canned peaches, pickles of all sorts – and sauerkraut.

Memories in the kitchen with Grandma are a gift she gave me, that I get to share with you who also care deeply about food as nutrition, health and love, not just a full belly.

🌟 A legacy of loving through food. And shared traditional knowledge passed down by getting your hands (and, occasionally, most of the kitchen) dirty. It’s a tradition we’re continuing in our home, and one I hope you get to enjoy in yours.

I have surprisingly few photos of Grandma in her kitchen. I guess our hands were always busy.

On quantities:

Grandma made this in a 5-gallon crock with cases of cabbage and lots of eager grandchildren. And dozens of eager family members to gift it to.

Usually I make this in 2.5 qt jars because we eat a lot of it.

But I’ve cut this recipe down so you can make just a quart jar at a time, keeping the commitment low in both time and money.

Though if you’ve got a bunch of grandchildren standing around that are old enough to trust with a big, sharp knife, the method is the same for any quantity.

On tools - you don’t need much:

• Knife
• Cutting Board
• Bowl (stainless or plastic, for pounding the kraut in)
• Glass jar or crock for fermenting in (Any old jar with a wide-ish top and a lid you can screw on later will do, doesn’t have to be special)
• Pounding tool, optional (a rolling pin with a flat end, the top of a meat mallet, your kids' baseball bat scrubbed well, a heavy bottle or can)
• Sandwich size or Quart zip top bag (as a weight on top of the fermenting vegetables)

Note - Fermenting has become quite popular in the last few years, which is awesome. I love that homemaking and homesteading skills are coming back.

But it also means it’s been commercialized and there are a ton of products on the internet for you to spend money on. Airlocks, fermenting weights, expensive jars.

Some of them can be useful if you start making a ton of ferments, but don’t spiral down a rabbit hole researching them because you don’t need ANY of them.

Remember, this is an age-old process that was perfected by people who had nothing but salt, a knife, a water-tight container, vegetables and a desperate need to preserve them.

On Salt:

The only real no-no here is iodized salt. The additives in iodized salt can mess with the fermentation process. Use sea salt, kosher salt, pickling salt, or my favorite – Redmond Real Salt. Just look at your salt box’s label – if the only ingredient is salt, you’ll be fine.

I gave a range for quantity of salt, because it depends on your taste preference. You do need some salt, because the salt inhibits the “bad guy” bacteria until the “good guy” bacteria can take over. But if you prefer or need a low-salt diet, start with the bottom of the range. You can always add more salt as you go.

Trick I learned from grandma – if you accidentally oversalt your kraut, you can wash it before using it and it will taste less salty. It’s pretty hard to actually ruin sauerkraut.

On Fermenting:

Fermenting is simply putting vegetables (or fruit, on occasion) in a salted brine and letting the lactic acid bacteria (found naturally on raw fruits and vegetables) transform it into a delicious, zippy, probiotic filled creation.

This is my favorite way of making sauerkraut – where you pound/bruise the cabbage until it releases enough water to make its own brine. I like the texture. I also think it’s fun to pound the cabbage – the kids do, too. And you get a bit of exercise in the process.

Pound-free alternative for tired arms:

An alternative method is to slice the cabbage, pack it directly into a jar, and pour saltwater brine over the top to cover. For the brine: in 4 cups of water, dissolve 2.5 T salt. This is the same brine I use with vegetables like beans and cucumbers. After covering the cabbage with saltwater, follow the same fermenting instructions as for pounded cabbage. The saltwater method is tasty and has all the benefits of a ferment. It tends to take longer to fully ferment than pounded kraut. And you can only fit about half as much in a jar.

Grandma’s Sauerkraut Recipe

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

2 lbs cabbage, shredded finely

2 -  4 tsp salt (not iodized), or more to taste

Directions

Remove outside leaves from the cabbage - do not discard. Trim off any really dirty or damaged bits then wash and set aside for later.

Cut cabbage into quarters, through the core. For a big cabbage, cut the wedges in half again. Cut out the core, cut those wedges in half again, and set aside – do not discard.

Finely slice the cabbage the short way. You’re going for a coleslaw type size. Go ahead and use an electric slicing gadget if you have one.

Grab a double handful of sliced cabbage and place it in a big stainless or plastic bowl (you could break a glass bowl while pounding). 

Sprinkle lightly with salt.

Start bruising the cabbage by pounding it with something clean and heavy. I use the end of a flat-ended rolling pin. Pound for a minute or so.

Sauerkraut is a feat of nature, not a feat of strength. Pound firmly, but not so hard you damage yourself or your counter.

Add another double handful of cabbage to the bowl, sprinkle with salt, and continue pounding for another minute.

Add any remaining cabbage, salt it, and continue pounding for a few minutes.

Ideally, pound until all the cabbage is bruised and starts to release juice. You’ll see brine start to pool at the bottom of the bowl when you press into it and the cabbage will look a bit translucent, like wilted coleslaw that’s been in the fridge too long.

Grab a pinch of the cabbage and taste it. Add salt if needed, mix it up with your hands, and taste again. Repeat until it’s as salty as you like it. I don’t like it to taste like salt the second it hits my tongue (oops, too much), but I do like it more salty than not. The flavor will blend as it ferments.

Scoop the pounded cabbage and brine into a clean quart jar, packing as you go, leaving about 2 inches space at the top. Press the cabbage down firmly. Ideally the brine will rise to cover the cabbage, but don’t worry if it doesn’t. We’ll deal with that tomorrow.

Grandma tip, optional - make kraut pickles: Take those pieces of the core you sliced at the beginning, and push them down into the cabbage. They’ll ferment along with the sauerkraut for a tasty, crunchy treat.

Grandma tip, optional - take the clean cabbage leaves you saved at the beginning and layer them on top of the kraut. This helps protect the top layer of kraut from any exposure to the air. You’ll discard these when the kraut is finished.

Keep the cabbage submerged - Weigh the kraut down by putting about ½ C water in a zip top bag and setting it on top of the cabbage leaves. If it spills out the top of the jar, dump out some of the water from the bag.

Place the jar in a pan or tub to catch any juice that runs over, then leave it on your counter at room temperature and let the fermenting magic begin.

Check the jar at 24 hours and make sure the cabbage is submerged in brine. If you didn’t pound enough brine to cover the cabbage, and it still hasn’t released enough juice by today, pour in enough water to cover the cabbage.

In a couple days, you’ll start to see bubbles forming and the brine could even froth up and run over the top of the jar. Yay, it’s working!

Check your sauerkraut at about 5 days by taste testing. Take out the bag of water, peel back the cabbage leaves, and scoop out some kraut. It’ll probably need a few more days, but if you have a warm kitchen, it ferments faster and we don’t want it to get mushy. Replace the cabbage leaves and bag of water and continue fermenting.

If you get any mold on top, no worries. Just skim it off and continue fermenting. It’s only outside the brine where the “bad guy” bacteria in the air can get to it, and it won’t affect your sauerkraut at all.

Continue fermenting until you like the texture. Crisp, but easy to chew and not mushy. Usually 1 – 2 weeks works at our house. There’s no right or wrong here, either.

When you decide it’s done, take out the water weight, remove and discard the cabbage leaves, enjoy one of the  crispy kraut pickles you tucked down into the cabbage, put an airtight lid on it, and store in the refrigerator.