Ginger Beet Sauerkraut
This Ginger Beet Sauerkraut recipe is a nice variation for your traditional sauerkraut. I love using beets in my ferments. Not only do they add such a lovely color, but they also impart strong beneficial health properties including cardiovascular and liver benefits. When fermenting with beets, the fermentation can pick up speed fairly quickly since beets possess much more sugar than the average vegetable. As such, don’t overdo the quantity of beets that you include in this recipe. Don’t be surprised if this ferment starts to get a little bubbly froth at the surface. Seeing an active fermentation such as this is a surefire way to get me excited about how it’s going to turn out. This one is delicious.
Ingredients
- 1 head green cabbage sliced thinly (approx 2 lbs)
- 1 medium beet, grated or thinly sliced
- 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds (not the pods). This is optional but it adds a nice nuance to the flavor. You could use cardaomom powder instead.
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt
Instructions
- Prepare the veggies - Slice the cabbage thinly. Grate or thinly slice the beet. Grate or dice the ginger. I like using this Microplane Grater/Zester when grating ginger.
- Toss with salt - Mix the cabbage, beet, ginger and cardamom together in a large bowl and toss with the salt. Let it sit for 30 minutes or so until the cabbage starts to sweat.
- Place in fermentation vessel - Place the tossed ingredients into a fermentation vessel. You can use a 1 gallon Anchor Hocking Jar, a fermenting crock like this one I use, or a mason jar with an airlock on top such as these Pickle Pipes from MasonTops, this Recap Airlock and Stopper, or the Perfect Pickler. Include any liquid which may remain at the bottom
- Press the mix down with your fist or this Pickle Packer which I adore to compress it in the container and then place a weight of some sort on top of the mix and wait a few hours as the liquid is leached from the veggies and gradually rises to fully cover the veggies. If the liquid doesn't fully rise to cover the veggies, feel free to press down again to see if you can coax more liquid out.
- If after several hours, the liquid level hasn't risen above the level of the veggies, add water until all the veggies are covered by an inch or so of liquid. If adding water, you should stir the ingredients together again thoroughly to distribute the salt evenly throughout.
- Leave the weight on and cover with a towel and leave out to sit and ferment. Check it whenever you are curious and take a nibble. Leave it to ferment for a couple of weeks or until your taste is satisfied that it is ready. It should taste tangy and feel very alive in your mouth when you eat it.
Other Helpful Articles of Interest
Why Everyone Should Ferment with an Airlock
Measuring and Using Salt in Fermenting
Top Ten Tips for Successful Fermentation
pH Corner
It isn’t necessary for you measure the pH of your sauerkrauts, but if you find the science aspects of fermentation as interesting as I do, you may want to invest in a nice digital pH tester like this one which I use. These disposable testing strips are a nice lower cost alternative. The pH of this ferment seemed to stabilize around 3.1. The additional sugars in the beets end up in the development of more lactic acid during the ferment and thus eventually a more acidic dish which has a lower pH. Besides testing your veggie and alcohol ferments, it can also come in handy with kombucha making.
Serving Suggestions
My favorite use for this is simply tossing it into a green salad to add more color, taste and probiotic effect. You can top a burger (veggie or otherwise) with this.
Nice ginger and beet combination! In retrospect, it would seem that it needed to ferment longer before putting it in the refrigerator b/c it made me gassy.
I just made a batch in #3 crock. Looks great, I can’t wait to try it.
Hiii there…this is my first time trying to make red beet sauerkraut… my question is when I checked it a couple of days later there was a ring of brown gunk on top…is this normal…I removed it and wiped it clean…did I do something wrong…thanks…
Hi Badeo, It’s hard for me to diagnose without seeing it myself. Fermentations will often end up with a ring of bubbles of sorts around the edges from the gasses released by the bacteria. When I see that in my ferments, I’m quite pleased. Those bubbles, which may come to resemble foam may reflect the contents colorwise. I can’t say, however what it is that you have. Use your best judgment, err on the side of caution.
Made this a few months ago. I tossed in some of the beet greens, as well.
I was not expecting such a strong flavor. It ended up taking me a few tries, but I finally developed a taste for it. Since this made a lot, I’m just about through with the batch, and typically have it for breakfast along with my eggs and sauteed greens.
If anyone else thinks this may not taste just right, make it, give a few tries to get used to the strong ginger flavor. I enjoy the tangy taste on my tongue; a great waker-upper in the morning!
Thanks for all your recipes. Just curious at the length of fermentation you’ve suggested. Some studies decreased lactobacillus after 6-7 days… Hence they suggest to ferment it no longer than that. Curious to hear your side…. Thanks!
This looks delicious! I really wanted to try making beet sauerkraut but didn’t really know what recipe I should go for. I think this is definitely going to end up being the one I try. How long does this keep in the fridge after you make it? Thanks!
It should keep fairly indefinitely in the fridge. As the fermentation will continue in the fridge, albeit more slowly, the ferment will continue to get more sour over time. Good luck Billy!