Homemade Lazy Man’s Sauerkraut is a very fast and easy way to make sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is an incredibly economical super-food that supplies us with amazing health benefits and is a tasty addition to any plate.
Homemade sauerkraut is a powerhouse of nutrition, prebiotics, and probiotics. In other words, your microbiome is in love with the stuff and wants to be consuming it every day, and so should you!
There are many variations and ways to make sauerkraut. As usual, I like to find the simplest, most efficient, and most tasty method possible. So, through a bunch of trial and error, I have developed my “Homemade Lazy Man’s Sauerkraut,” which is the only way I can make it now!
I find the end result just as good, if not better, than the regular method. With the regular method, you have to painstakingly pound the cabbage to get the juice out to make the brine. No cabbage pounding in this recipe, I guarantee it!
What You Will Need to Make Lazy Man’s Sauerkraut
1 large to medium-sized cabbage
Brine:
2 cups of clean warm (unchlorinated) water
1 tablespoon high-quality sea salt
Equipment:
1 to 2 – large glass jars with lids
1 – large measuring cup
A clean spoon or butter knife to pack down the sauerkraut.
You can really make as much of this as you like. You will just have to mix up some more brine to add to the extra cabbage. Easy peasy!
Cleanliness is Everything When Making Sauerkraut
We are surrounded by bacteria; the vast majority of it is beneficial and is what really allows us to live and thrive on the planet whether we know it or not.
Healthy, fresh vegetables are covered in large amounts of beneficial bacteria that far outnumber any of the baddies. One of their many jobs is to destroy the bad guys. Lucky for us!
Making sauerkraut is actually very easy in retrospect if you follow a few simple principles:
Pre-wash and clean all your jars and equipment prior to making your sauerkraut. Give yourself a nice, clean area to work in.
You always want to keep the cabbage below the brine and try not to contaminate it with other foods.
Sometimes you will get a kind of bubbly white residue on the surface of your ferment. But not to worry; that is actually a beneficial yeast. If you don’t like the look of it, just skim it off the stop with a clean spoon, and away you go!
But if you see any black mold forming, it is best to discard everything and start over. Make sure to re-examine your process to figure out where you went wrong.
If you do all the things I have mentioned above, you will not have any problems. Once you get into it, you will see that fermenting is actually a very easy and forgiving process.
How to Make Lazy Man’s Sauerkraut
OK, this is so simple!
Brine
Boil some water to make your brine.
Measure out 2 cups of hot water into a large measuring cup. Add 1 tablespoon of good-quality sea salt to the water. Stir to dissolve.
Let the brine cool a bit. If the water is too hot, it will kill the beneficial bacteria on the cabbage, who do all the work and magic in the fermentation process.
Cabbage
Get your cabbage, peel off the first two clean outer leaves, and set them aside.
Cut the bottom of the cabbage off.
From there, cut the cabbage in half.
Then cut out the hard triangular core at the bottom of each half.
Place the cabbage with the cut side facing down on your cutting board. With a large, sharp knife, slice the cabbage as thinly as you can.
Do that for both halves.
Packing Your Jars
Get out your clean jar or jars and, with clean hands, stuff a good inch or two of shredded cabbage into your jar.
Pour enough brine into the jar to cover the cabbage.
Use a clean spoon to push down and mix the cabbage into the brine. You want all the cabbage to be coated in brine with as few air gaps as possible.
As you go through this process, you can also just keep tapping and jiggling the jar to help the air bubbles escape.
From there, just continue layering the cabbage and brine until you get within about an inch and a half from the top.
As you are layering, continue to push the cabbage down into the brine with a clean butter knife or spoon.
It is important that there is a good inch and a half of space left at the top. Because as the cabbage starts to ferment, it will begin to bubble, and the juice from the cabbage we didn’t pound out at the beginning will start to be pushed out and processed by the beneficial bacteria as they do their work.
If you run out of brine, just whip up another batch. (2 cups warm water, 1 tablespoon sea salt).
What to Do Once You Get to the Top
Once you get to the top of your jar with some air space left, it is time to go and get the cabbage leaves you have put aside. The leaves can be used as a kind of lid or stopper to hold all the cabbage down below the brine while it ferments.
(I also like to use glass weights that are made for fermenting, but if you don’t have them, the cabbage leaves will work too.)
Just tuck the edges of the cabbage leaves down around the inside edges of the jar. Use your butter knife or spoon to gently push it all under the brine.
Proper Placement for Fermentation
Place your jar in a bowl to catch any extra brine that might overflow. The brine will overflow a bit as the cabbage undergoes the fermentation process.
You want to get a good, loose-fitting lid that will let the gasses and bubbling brine escape, but will keep any foreign debris out.
(I like using plastic canning jar lids, as the metal ones sometimes rust. Or, a glass one as seen here.)
From there, you want to place your beautiful jar of bubbling magic in a warm, shady, clean spot out of direct sunlight.
UV will kill the beneficial bacteria, who are doing all the hard and amazing work for us. And we don’t want that!
It should take about 5-7 days for the process to complete, depending on how warm your house is and if you like your sauerkraut more on the crunchy side or not.
Jiggle, tap, and turn the jar every so often when you go by to release any forming air bubbles.
Don’t be afraid to try a little with a clean fork a few days in, to observe its progression and catch the flavor just how you like it.
How to Store Your Sauerkraut
Once the sauerkraut has reached your desired flavor and texture, give the jar a whirl to release any air bubbles, tighten the lid, and place the jar in the fridge.
This lazy man’s sauerkraut will last for months in the fridge. If you don’t eat it all first! As long as the cabbage is below the brine, you are good to go.
If you start to get low on brine, just mix up another batch and add it to the top of your jar to keep the cabbage submerged.
Once the sauerkraut is placed in the fridge, the fermentation process slows down because of the low temperatures. It does not kill the bacteria, but kind of puts them into a semi-hibernation state.
Well, there you go; you have done it! You have made homemade lazy man’s sauerkraut! I hope you enjoyed the process and can sense and feel the magic of fermented foods and what they do for your body.
All the best, Violet
