How to make whole fermented cabbage heads at home – a step by step guide on how to turn your cabbage heads into a delicious pickled sauerkraut while preserving it’s entirety. Learn how people in Eastern Europe pickle their cabbages – the old-fashioned way.
Making whole fermented cabbage at home is much easier than one would think. And much tastier than store bought pickled cabbages. Besides the many health benefits of old-fashioned fermented foods, pickling your own cabbages whole gives you a variety of cooking options later on. You only need to have a little bit of time to spend each day for maintaining it until it is fully fermented.
Behind the Bites
In much of the Balkans ( think Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, parts of Greece), families traditionally fermented cabbage in large wooden barrels or clay crocks in late autumn. Today, some families have switched from wooden barrels to plastic ones for pickling cabbage, since plastic is cheaper and much easier to maintain.
Fermenting cabbage in the Balkans likely goes back at least to Roman times. The Romans already used fermented vegetables for preservation and health. Slavic migrations into the Balkans (6th-7th centuries) brought strong traditions of vegetable fermentation, especially cabbage, which grows well in temperate climates and stores easily.
Shredded sauerkraut can’t be used for wrapping fillings, but whole fermented leaves become soft, elastic, and slightly sour – ideal for rolling meat and rice mixtures. That’s why households deliberately fermented entire heads alongside shredded cabbage.
With refrigeration and commercial sauerkraut, home fermentation slowly declined in larger cities. However, many people in the country still keep the tradition alive to this day. Across the Balkans, people developed or selected local cabbage varieties specifically for whole-head fermentation (for sarma, sarmale, etc.). They share similar traits: big heads, thin elastic leaves, high sugar, and good storage.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Whole cabbages – with soft, but strong leaves (e.g. Brunswick and Late Flat Dutch)
- Sea salt – coarse
- Water – for filling the barrel
- Dried corn cobs – for better fermentation
- Red onion – for better fermentation, optional
- Horseradish – for fermentation and slightly peppery flavor – optional
- Beetroot – for pink color, optional
How to make whole fermented cabbage at home?
1st: Clean the cabbage heads from the outer leaves, remove the core and stuff the holes with coarse sea salt. Arrange the cabbages with sea-salt-side up one over the other in a large barrel.
2nd: Add in the corn cobs, onion and horseradish (and beetroot if any). Gently fill the barrel with cold water on the side, taking care not to wash the salt away from the cabbages. Help cabbages submerge in water fully by adding weights on top. Cover with lid and leave to sit for 24 hours.
3rd: Then, once daily open the barrel to love the water around. Choose a large, wide (clean) hose for moving the water inside the barrel. By gently blowing into the hose on one end – the other submerged in brine – you would help the cabbage water be moved around. If that step is skipped, the water becomes moldy and the cabbages may deteriorate.
Quick Tips
Preservation: Once the cabbage heads are fully fermented, their quality begins to decline. If they stay in the brine too long, the leaves become slimy and tear easily. It’s important to use the cabbage – or freeze it -before this stage. Check after 2-3 weeks depending on weather temperature.
Moving the brine: Whole cabbage heads ferment more slowly than shredded cabbage. Therefore, its essential that brine is moved daily to ensure even fermentation, prevent spoilage, release gas, and keep whole cabbage heads fermenting cleanly and consistently.
Freezing whole cabbages: When the cabbage reaches full fermentation, I set aside a few hours to store it. I pack the leaves into freezer bags by size. The smallest leaves get chopped like sauerkraut and used for casseroles.
Seasonality: The best time to start fermenting cabbage depends on the local growing season. In my region, peak cabbage season is late October to early November. With proper care, the cabbage is ready in about a month.
FERMENTATION BASICS
If the water doesn’t circulate during fermentation, a crust can form on the surface, and mold may eventually develop. That’s why my grandparents used an old-fashioned method to keep the water (which eventually becomes brine) clean until the cabbages had fully fermented.
Every day, they would use a short hose to blow air into the barrel, keeping the water moving. One end of the hose went into the barrel, the other into your mouth, and you would blow for a minute or two.
HOW TO STOP FERMENTATION
Depending on the season and the temperature, it can take anywhere from 10 to 40 days for the cabbage to ferment completely. Once the cabbage heads are fully fermented, they will eventually begin to deteriorate in the barrel unless they are removed or the fermentation process is stopped.
There are several ways to prevent the beneficial bacteria from continuing to ferment the cabbage. Personally, I avoid using chemical preservatives such as sodium benzoate. Some people add lemon juice to the brine or grate horseradish into it to slow the fermentation process. In general, the cooler the environment, the more slowly fermentation continues.
My preferred method is to separate the cabbage leaves by size and freeze them (in zip bags), along with some of the brine (in bottles). Since I usually ferment more than ten cabbage heads at a time, the preservation process takes a few hours. Before freezing the leaves, I rinse them under cold water to remove some of the salt and prepare them for cooking.
TYPES OF CABBAGES for fermentation
As my grandpa used to say, not every white cabbage variety is suitable for fermentation. In the past, Bulgaria had a cabbage variety grown specifically for this purpose, called Kjose. These days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find.
More recently, we’ve been using another variety called Balkan. It has slightly softer leaves, but once fermented, they become firm and hold their shape well, making them ideal for cooking dishes such as stuffed cabbage rolls.
In general, when choosing a cabbage variety for fermentation, look for a late-season storage cabbage with large, dense heads and flexible, relatively thin leaves. If you’re in North America, Brunswick and Late Flat Dutch are both excellent choices.
How to use fermented whole cabbages?
There are a million options to use up fermented whole cabbages – some include wrapping filling in the leaves, other may require you to cut up the leaves and make a delicious casserole. Here are some ideas from my kitchen:
How to ferment whole Cabbage heads (pickled cabbages)
Equipment
- 1 large container with lid
- 1 large (but short) hose for moving water around
- 1 heavy stone 9or filled water bottles), for weighting cabbages down so they do not floa
Ingredients
- 12 medium cabbage heads
- 1 kg sea salt, coarse
- cold water, to cover cabbages completely
- 2 dried corn cobs, for fermentation
- 1 medium red onion, optional
- 1 small horseradish root, optional
Instructions
- First, remove the outer leaves from the cabbage heads and wash the heads under cold water.
- Then, with a sharp knife remove the core on each cabbage head. Fill the empty core space with coarse sea salt and tap to press it down in the whole.
- Next, in a large barrel arrange all the cabbages one over the other; the sea salt stuffed side should point upwards, so all the salt remains in the cabbage core's whole while fermenting.
- Then, stick the two dried corn cobs on the sides (where there is empty space). Add in the red onion and horseradish root (these ingredients are optional).
- Gently fill out the barrel with cold water pouring it down the sides to avoid rinsing the sea salt off the cabbages core.
- Because the cabbages will tend to float, especially in a larger barrel, place a clean plastic ring over them and weigh it down with a large, thoroughly cleaned stone. Heavy, water-filled bottles also work well as weights.
- Cover with a lid well and let the cabbages rest for 24 hours without opening the barrel.
- Once a day, place one end of the short hose into the water and blow air through the other end. This keeps the water circulating and helps prevent mold from forming.
- Depending on the temperature (inside/outside) where the barrel is stored, fermentation may take up to two months. However, check the cabbages (taste test) after 2-3 weeks to see how the fermentation is going.
- To stop the fermentation process (otherwise the cabbages will continue to ferment and eventually deteriorate), remove the cabbage heads from the brine and freeze them for future use. This is my preferred storage method.
- If using right away, drain the cabbage heads from the brine and wash gently under cold water to remove some of the salt content. Then, use as directed in the recipe.
Notes
Nutrition
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