I recently decided to hop on the canning bandwagon. While I'm not sitting on hundreds of jars of tomatoes or green beans, I do have one jar of homemade sauerkraut sitting on our kitchen counter.
The recipe is one I adapted from one of my favorite southern bloggers, Farmhouse On Boone. It's simple, delicious, and easily one of the few things I've fixed like this that has made me EXTREMELY proud of the outcome.
Here's What You'll Need:
One large bowl
One large head of cabbage (this makes ONE jar)
Sea salt / himalayan pink salt
Large Mason jar
Ziplock bags
Weights(Rocks work perfectly!)
Pull off a few of the outer leaves and set aside.
Next, core the cabbage and cut it into pieces small chunks. From there, dice up into small shreds. Small enough to fit in the jar but large enough to retain shape during the process.
Put the shredded cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle with salt.
For 1 head of cabbage, I used a little less than 1 tablespoon of salt. A little goes a long way.
Work the salt in with your hands until it starts to get juicy. This juice is the brine. You may have to work it for several minutes before it produces enough liquid.
Next, put all the cabbage and the brine into a half gallon mason jar. Punch it down until all the cabbage is submerged beneath the brine. This is IMPORTANT!
Fold the large cabbage leaves you reserved earlier and place on the top to keep all the cabbage down beneath the brine.
Next, fill up a small ziplock bag with a few rocks (or anything with some sort of weight). Put the ziplock on top of the folded up cabbage leaves and the weight should be enough to keep all of your shredded cabbage beneath the brine.
Leave it out on the counter for 5 days-3 weeks. It will just become more pungent as it sits. If this is your first time trying homemade sauerkraut, it may be better to ferment it for less time.
Remove the plastic bags and folded up cabbage leaves, put the lid on the jar and store in the fridge.
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