Recipe onlinefamilyhomerecipes.com/recipe/homemade-sauerkraut-in-canning-jars/Scan the code to open the recipe on your phone

Other recipes

Homemade sauerkraut in canning jars

Name: Homemade sauerkraut in canning jars
Yield: Five 1-liter jars
Cuisine: Slovak
Ingredients: 5 kg Cabbage (shredded); 20 g Salt (per 1 kg of cabbage); to taste Caraway seeds; to taste Allspice; to taste Bay leaf; Canning jars

Cabbage fermented in canning jars with salt, caraway, allspice, and bay leaves. Makes five 1-liter jars and ferments in about two weeks.

Slovak cuisine · Translated from Slovak · October 24, 2026

Save on Pinterest

Recipe at a glance

Prep time: 30 min
Servings: Five 1-liter jars
Difficulty: Medium

Jump to recipe

Make sauerkraut without a crock—all you need is ordinary canning jars. Mix shredded cabbage with salt, using 20 g per kilogram, and caraway seeds. After two hours, pack it firmly into jars in layers with allspice and bay leaves. Leave the sealed jars in a warm place to ferment; the lids will bulge during fermentation. When they return to their original position after about two weeks, the sauerkraut is ready.

Ingredients

Cabbage (shredded) 5 kg
Salt (per 1 kg of cabbage) 20 g
Caraway seeds to taste
Allspice to taste
Bay leaf to taste
Canning jars

Tick off what you already have at home. Send the rest as a shopping list.

Instructions

Tip: tap a step to mark it as done.

Mix the shredded cabbage thoroughly with the salt and caraway seeds. Once it releases its juice, press it down firmly in the container and let it rest for 2 hours. Then pack it tightly into clean canning jars, pressing down each layer as firmly as possible.
About halfway up each jar, add 2 allspice berries and 1 bay leaf.
Fill the jars, leaving about 3 cm of headspace below the rim. If the cabbage is dry and has released little juice, top it up with boiled water. Close the jars with lids and place them on a tray in a warm spot.
Let the cabbage ferment in the jars. The lids will bulge, which is normal. After about 2 weeks, look for the lids to return to their original position as a sign that the sauerkraut is ready.
Expect some juice to leak from some of the jars at the beginning of fermentation; this is normal too. Store the finished sauerkraut in the refrigerator, where, according to the U.S. National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP), it will keep for several months when tightly sealed. Use the same method for either white or red cabbage; red cabbage will retain its lovely color.

Tip: When filling the jars, press the cabbage down with your fist or a tamper until it is completely covered by its own juice. Cabbage above the liquid darkens and may spoil.

Nutrition facts

Approximate values per 100 g, calculated from the ingredients

Energy: 25 kcal
Protein: 1.3 g
Carbohydrates: 5.8 g
of which sugars: 3.2 g
Fat: 0.1 g
of which saturates: 0.0 g
Fiber: 2.5 g
Salt: 0.4 g

Calculated from the raw ingredients, without frying oil. Where an amount is “to taste”, typical amounts are used. Food composition: USDA FoodData Central and product labels.

This recipe was translated from the Slovak original: Kyslá kapusta nakladaná do pohárov – bez súdka