How to Make Homemade Sauerkraut - A Delicious Probiotics Rich Side Dish for Gut Health

hi sweet friends I'm Mary from Mary's nest calm and here on my youtube channel I share traditional recipes for making nutrient-dense foods using simple ingredients and today I'm going to show you how to make homemade sauerkraut it's a wonderful probiotic rich side dish today for making this homemade sauerkraut I'm going to be using green cabbage but you can also use red cabbage well now before we get started I just want to say if you're new to my channel welcome and if you like learning more about traditional foods cooking please subscribe to my channel and click on the little notification bell below and that'll let you know each time I upload a new video already let's get started first I want to discuss this green cabbage this is organic and I believe it was about $2.99 but if organic is not in your price range don't worry you can buy non-organic cabbage and simply remove some of the outer leaves and discard those put them in the compost pile or whatever you want to do with them and follow through with the same directions that we're going to do today in making this sauerkraut now the first thing that we want to do is remove some of these leaves these outer leaves we're not going to discard them unless as I said if your cabbage is not organic you can discard the first first two leaves maybe but if it's organic save save the first few leaves that we remove and put them aside and I'll explain to you what we're going to do with those later and if your cabbage is non-organic just take off take off the first two discard those and then take off another two and put those aside and save those and I'll show you how we're going to use those and a little bit already well I'm gonna go ahead I'm gonna take another leaf off of this cabbage and then I'll show you where we go from there well I've got my two big leaves to the side that I've set over there to save and now what I'm gonna do is cut this right down the middle any way you do it is fine what we're gonna do is remove the core so how we're going to do that is just put it flat like that to make it easier for you you can certainly do it like this but it's a little more wobbly so I like to always put it flat side down basically give it feet and make it a little easier to do and then you'll see the core is right here so we're just going to cut in just making a v-shape and we're gonna pull that core out now don't discard this put this aside because we're going to grind that up and we're also going to add that into our homemade sauerkraut because this is going to be very rich and when it comes to making the probiotics that will start to multiply in the homemade sauerkraut well I've removed the core from the cabbage as you see that's gone and now what I'm gonna do is just cut it in half again and half over here and then I'm just gonna begin to shred it and how you'll do that and we'll just move this to the side is just cut it as thinly as you can just like that very similar to if you were making coleslaw and just continue on down cutting it until you're all finished just getting some nice nice thin pieces or slices well I've got all my cabbage sliced up and now I'm gonna transfer it to this glass bowl but any Bowl you have will work fine I normally use a stainless steel bowl for the next step but I wanted to put it in a glass bowl so you could see what that what I was doing well I'll continue to get all this in here and then when I've got it all in I'll bring you back well I've got all the sliced cabbage in the bowl and now what I'm gonna do is add two tablespoons of coarse ground sea salt it's a very coarse ground as hopefully you can see this it's very large large grains to the salt and I like to use this salt this is a gray Celtic sea salt has a little bit of a wet feel to it and it's a as I said the coarse ground and we're just gonna sprinkle that right on top and then the next step is the fun part we're going to start mashing this down and mixing it with the salt and help the cabbage release some of its juices now I've got a crowd pounder I love this thing and this was given to me many years ago as a gift and it's just been a wonderful helper when it comes to making sauerkraut and all you're gonna want to do is do like this and we'll continue doing that but in case you don't have this I don't want you to worry you can use a metal potato masher you can use a plastic potato masher that'll do the trick if you don't have either of those no problem you can use a soup but this is cold isn't that terrible laughs a soup ladle and you can just do like that and if you don't have that don't worry if all else fails just use the back of the spoon and you're just gonna want to get in there and just smash it's a little bit of a job but it builds up muscles so what we do is start pounding this down mixing the salt into the cabbage and the cabbage is going to start to release some of its juices and it'll get watery watery ER and watery ER as we continue to do this and this takes five ten minutes it's not that long and if you have any kids in the house this is a good job for them and just keep pounding it down and when it's to the desired state that I've want it to be I'll show you and bring you back and we'll put it in the jar well I've got this about two where the consistency that I like it and what I'm gonna do now is just first I want to just get some of the cabbage off of that and I want to show you try to get a little closer to the camera you'll see that the cabbage has softened a bit it's mixed in all nicely the salt is all dissolved and it's starting to release some of its juices the cabbage juices so now what we do we get a clean jar this is a half-gallon mason jar now you want to say a word about this some people when they make this with one head of cabbage and two tablespoons of salt will use a quart sized jar and really pack it down good and definitely packing it down good as important and we'll discuss that in a minute to help the it ferment properly but I like to use a half gallon jar because I like to make sure that I get a lot of sauerkraut juice because sauerkraut juice is so rich in probiotics better than any probiotic you could ever buy over the counter in a pill and just to take about 2 ounces of the sauerkraut juice every day will do wonders for improving your gulp gut health if you have any problems with digestion and if you if you have a healthy gut health it'll just continue to keep your gut healthy so I just wanted to share that that that's why I'm using a half gallon jar so what I'm gonna do now is I'm just gonna put this in and load up this jar and when it's all filled I'll bring you back and I'll show you what our next steps gonna be well I've got all the cabbage in my jar and now I'm going to take the kraut pounder and I'm just gonna press and press and press and as we do this we're gonna see that liquid is going to start to be released and start to come up and over the cabbage and we're just going to keep doing that until we start to see even more liquid then release than what was just in the bowl when we were getting it started and I'm just gonna keep doing this and when I get some more liquid coming up to the top I'll bring you back well as you can see their cabbage is releasing more and more liquid I'm just gonna take this crap pounder out and try to see if you can see that see the cabbage is released more liquid and it's starting to soften beautifully and now the next step that we're going to do is what I like to think of as my secret ingredient and let me set that up and I'll bring you right back now when I make sauerkraut like to add one Apple to the mixture and the reason is this is an excellent source of pectin and pectin is a terrific prebiotic meaning that it helps feed the bacteria that create the probiotics so this is always my little insurance policy because some people what I want to say is when they make sauerkraut they may add the salt but they may also add way which is very rich in probiotics it's a byproduct that comes off of milk when you make yogurt cottage cheese kefir so on and so forth any of your cultured dairy and if you add a quarter cup of whey little piece of cabbage on the outside of the jar when you add a quarter cup of way you're almost guaranteeing that you've got plenty of probiotics already in the cabbage to help things really go really get started but I don't like the taste I like way I think it's wonderful and I and I enjoy drinking it over ice or mixed with sparkling water it's delightful but I don't like that I get the flavor in the sauerkraut and I don't like it so what I like to do is simply add the salt and then add a little insurance with the sweetness from the Apple and it's prebiotic nature too in cabbages of prebiotic as well and hopefully together they really give a good boost to feed the bacteria and give it what it needs to get going and make turn the cabbage into sauerkraut and it's usually always worked for me so I think it's a good trick well I've washed and dried this Apple and I'm going to just cut it up and all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna leave the skin on that's just fine I'm just gonna cut a little bit of the core out because I don't want the seeds and then I'm just gonna cut this up and put it in my blender you'll see why we're putting it in the blender in a minute and I'm gonna continue cutting this up and then I'm gonna fill you in on why I saved the core of the cabbage now I just want to I just want to say a word about these apple cores don't throw them out put them aside put them in a bag put them in your fridge and when you get a nice collection of these you can make apple cider vinegar you can even add some you know apples that maybe a little past their prime whatever the case may be or it can just be coarse scraps you can add other fruit and make a fruit scrap vinegar mixture which I have a video on and I'll link to that so that you can watch that video as well so don't throw these out save them and now why did we keep the core well the core of the cabbage well it serves the same purpose that the apples do this is very rich in prebiotics and will help additionally feed the good bacteria to help it grow and proliferate and make the cabbage a wonderful probiotic food so don't throw out in your core of the cabbage just chop it up just rough chop it's not it's not important what size of is because as you see I'm putting it in the blender for a reason and I'll just continue to chop up this core there we go we're going to get that in there then what we're gonna do is top this off with some spring water now you want to use spring water as opposed to tap water because tap water will have chlorine in it and that will interfere with the good bacteria as it's trying to proliferate and make the cabbage into sauerkraut and make it a wonderful probiotic rich side dish now if you don't have a source of spring water don't worry about it you can use your tap water just boil it and let it cool down to room temperature don't let you don't want it to be warm and that will help some of the chlorine dissipate you can also leave it overnight and that will help some of the chlorine to dissipate so that hopefully gives you some options already well now I'm just gonna pour in some water just enough to cover I don't even have a 100% covered we'll start with that and we'll see how it works turning it into a slurry so that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get this started and then when it's all swirled up into a nice slurry I'll bring you back well I've turned that Apple and the core of the cabbage into a nice slurry and now we're gonna pour this right in with our sliced cabbage now I just want to point out you'll see there are little red specks in here because I used a red apple many times I use a green apple but it really doesn't matter and it's just personal choice if you don't like seeing the red specks you can certainly use a green apple but I had a red apple so that's what I decided to use so now I'm just gonna go ahead and pour this right in over our cabbage excellent all righty and now let me just set this blender aside and we're gonna mix this up a little press it down again with the kraut pounder and I'll bring you back now what I'm gonna do is just mix this in with the cabbage to hopefully get it nicely mixed and get ready to just finish it off top it off with a little more water and then I'll show you why we save those cabbage leaves well I've got this nicely mixed together now I'm just going to set this fork aside I'm gonna go get my kraut pounder again and we're gonna give this some real oh look at that see how the liquids just really coming up now it's beautiful it's just released so much liquid along with what we added and it's really gonna be just wonderful and we're gonna get a lot of kraut juice out of this as well and that's what I like because I like to skim that off the top once they the cabbages turned into sauerkraut as I had mentioned earlier for drinking the crouchers which is very nutritious all righty well I think that's good where we've gotten to that point and now I want to share with you why we save those cabbage leaves what we're gonna do is take these cabbage leaves you can break them up fold them whatever you need to do the bottom line is you just need to get them into the jar and cover up the cabbage so I'm just gonna squeeze these in here like this and push those down right on top I wanted to mention make sure that your hands are clean when you're doing this because you don't want to introduce any unhealthy bacteria all righty and I'm just gonna do the same thing with this one we're gonna get that down perfect and then we're going to push everything down get everything submerged and what's nice is those outer leaves also very like much like the core are also very high in prebiotics so they add to the whole process of helping this culture beautifully and become nice and probiotic rich already now the next step is I have a little another little trick to wake this all down all I use is a simple little four ounce jelly jar these are canning jars that you use when you make jelly you can usually find these at the grocery store and at other big-box kind of stores and all I do is simply put that right in there and it just works has a weight to hold everything down and submerged under the liquid because that's what you want to achieve you want to keep everything submerged but because by keeping it submerged you prevent any bad bacteria forming mold so on and so forth keep everything submerged under the liquid under a weight and you'll be able to produce a lovely sauerkraut now there are other options if you want to use something different there's a company that sells a little glass weights and various little tops that you can put on to help with the fermentation process all of that's wonderful but I wanted to show in terms of keeping this extremely budget-friendly I wanted to show very simple things that you can use that you might even already have around your home for making sauerkraut all righty well the next step now is we're gonna want to get a a caning ring and a caning top and the reason that I like to use these is if as this ferments it's going to become very fizzy and I just find it easier to again I'm just gonna make this you know finger tight and I find it easier to loosen this let a little bit of the fizz out if necessary and then retighten it and then when I get when I start seeing it really get nice and bubbly and the color is starting to change I will take this top off and I personally just find it easier even though you might you might have really formed a seal at that at some point while it's fermenting I find it a little easier and a little less intimidating to just take a little can opener and pop it open because sometimes it can become quite fizzy and build up a bit of pressure and so I find that if I use I'm just going to reach over and get the plastic lid this lid I sometimes find almost can be a little nerve-wracking to opening a food so that's why I often don't don't use these I prefer to use the little canning lids but certainly you you can if this is what you have and you want to use this that's fine and when I have used these lids in the past what I do is each day you know I see it's bubbling I let out a little air tighten it again next day let out a little air tighten it again to try to keep that as much oxygen as possible but at the same time release some of the carbon dioxide that's made during the fermentation process so I'm going to put the canning lid on and the canning and the canning ring and as I said just finger tight and now I'm gonna find a warm cozy place in my kitchen to put this where it can rest undisturbed but at the same time where I can check on it everyday and see how how its progressing and it's really very variable it depends on what time of year you're doing this and what the temperature is in your kit but after a few days what you can do is open it up as I said and I will if I see a lot of fizz I will loosen it let a little of the carbon dioxide out and then put the lid back on tighten it up again but that also gives you a chance to take out your weight and give it a taste and see if it's to your liking if it is perfect at that point I will then remove the canning lid and I will transfer to one of these plastic lids and refrigerate it and it's ready to eat and that's pretty much it it's such an easy probiotic rich side dish to make that while cabbage ism is in season buy it try to make up a couple of batches of this keep it in your refrigerator it's a little Laster you know good six months if it even last that long because I think everyone in the in your family yourself and your friends and family will definitely be enjoying it it's got that homemade sauerkraut has a wonderful flavor and it's also much more healthy for you than what you could buy in the store in the can now I've just put the sauerkraut in the making over there to be undisturbed and to go ahead and begin the fermentation process and I wanted to show you this is a sauerkraut that I made a couple of weeks ago and I have it in my fridge and the longer that you keep it in your refrigerator the more it will ferment it's much slower than when at room temperature but it will continue to ferment and get a little softer and so on and so forth and I just wanted to show you when this was fermenting on my counter and when I took it out and tasted it and I thought the consistency was good little little crunchy or more crunchy than you know what you would get in the can at the grocery store in the jar at the grocery store but I knew that it would continue to do a slow ferment in my fridge and so I thought well I'll leave it in there and then after we've few weeks I'll give it a taste and see how I like it so I'll give that give this a taste right now mmm that is so good when I think what's nice about homemade sauerkraut this is not as tangy as often sauerkraut sometimes you get at the store so that's a good thing especially if you're feeding children it's very flavorful and the Apple gives it a little bit of touch of sweetness and this one I had used a green apple so you don't see the little specks gives it just a little touch of sweetness and you can also if you like you can add caraway seeds there's a lot of different things you can do you can even make international versions of homemade sauerkraut like kimchi there's so many variations and definitely things that your friends and family will love and at the same time be eating something that's very probiotic rich very good for your health very good for your gut health for printable instructions on how to make this homemade sauerkraut please visit my website Mary's nest com and if you like this video I hope you'll give me a thumbs up and share it with your friends and if you'd like to learn more about traditional foods cooking I hope you'll subscribe to my channel and be sure to click on the notification bell below that'll let you know each time I upload a new video well that's all for today but thank you so much for joining me here and I look forward to having you join me again right here in my Texas Hill Country kitchen love and God bless

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 631,146

Rating: 4.9244342 out of 5

Keywords: how to make sauerkraut, sauerkraut recipe, Sauerkraut, fermented cabbage, fermented sauerkraut, making sauerkraut, homemade sauerkraut, sauerkraut making, how to ferment cabbage, how to make kraut, homemade sauerkraut recipes, fermented vegetables, how to ferment vegetables, fermentation, fermented foods, fermented food, gut health, probiotics, Mary's Nest, marys nest, Mary's Nest Cooking School, marysnest.com, probiotic, brad leone, brad makes sauerkraut, bon appetit brad

Id: EO90h3xB3oc

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 13 2018