Yesterday I posted our sauerkraut overview, about creating three types of sauerkraut. Yesterday’s recipe was for a green cabbage sauerkraut with garlic, black pepper and turmeric. Today I am posting the Carrot Ginger Sauerkraut recipe. We made a project out of making three types of sauerkraut at the same time. For this one we used 3 large carrots! The original recipes are from Caitlin Shoemaker at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjasIbndnA.

We used recycled mason jars (from jarred spaghetti sauce). None of the recipes that we have been viewing online seem to talk about this, but I feel that it is important to sterilize the jars and tools before starting. We boiled clean glass jars and lids in a large pot – for about 10 minutes. It’s easy, so why not? The fermenting vegetables will create their own bacteria, -you don’t need any extras!

Carrot Ginger SAuerkraut Recipe Ingredients:

This recipe made 1/2 mason jar of Carrot Ginger Sauerkraut

3 large carrots (to yield 2/12 to 3 cups when shredded)

1/2 tbsp fresh ginger

1/2 tbsp non-iodized salt (we used Kosher salt, but you can also use non-iodized sea salt or your preferred type)

CARROT GINGER SAUERKRAUT RECIPE DIRECTIONS:

Scrub and peel carrots. Shred carrots – we used a cheese grater for this. Mince fresh ginger. Add ginger and salt to carrots. Stir and massage mixture for five minutes. Set mixture aside for 1/2 hour and then stir and massage again! The salt and massaging or squeezing releases the liquid from the sauerkraut.

Ladel the carrot sauerkraut into sterilized jar. This recipe gave us about 1/2 of a 16oz. mason jar. Press the carrot mixture down as much as possible in the jar so that the solid mixture is below the liquid. We used the end of a spoon and a rounded ice cream scoop for this.

In the event that there is not enough liquid to cover the carrots – create a bowl of brine mixture to have on hand. Mix 1 cup water with 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk to dissolve salt. We made this before we made all of our sauerkraut varieties, and used a tiny bit here and there to top off the jars that had solids not quite covered by the liquid.

When carrot sauerkraut is submerged, fill a washed Ziploc sandwich bag with 2 fingers or so of water. Gently insert the bag into the jar and pull the edges of the bag back over the mouth of the jar. This should allow the water inside the jar to spread over the surface of the kraut and seal out the air. Screw on lid – loosely to hold bag in place.

Set sauerkraut jar aside in cool dark place for one week. Place a tray or plate under jars to protect your surfaces, as water may bubble up out of the jars as fermentation takes place. Some of ours overflowed a little!

Test texture and flavour after 7 days. Reseal and set aside if you feel that it could ferment a little longer. We set them aside for 2 weeks in total under a tea towel. When they are ready, remove the bags, screw on jar lids and refrigerate.

Enjoy! Tomorrow the final recipe will be posted – Beet and Red Cabbage!