Which Fermented Foods Can You Easily Make At Home? There are many different methods for making fermented foods that require only a few tools and ingredients. In this video I’ll explain the common methods for making fermented foods and which are the easiest to make at home.
Learn more about the Fermenting Veggies Online Course here.
Common methods for making fermented foods
Brine Pickling
The Brine Pickling method is used when making lacto-fermented pickles or veggies. The vegetables are submerged in a saltwater brine with spices and herbs. You’re probably most familiar with the classic dill pickle. Except these are not made with vinegar.
Vinegar pickles are made with salt and vinegar and then sterilized in the canning process and don’t have probiotic bacteria in them. lacto-fermented pickles are full of beneficial bacteria.
Dry Salting
Dry salting is a common method for making sauerkraut and other fermented foods. Vegetables are salted and the salt draws the liquid out of the cabbage and that liquid becomes the brine.
Culturing
Culturing is another common method for making fermented foods and drinks. This is when you add bacteria and yeast to a ferment, such as when you add a culture starter to veggies, a SCOBY for making kombucha, Kefir grains for kefir water and milk kefir, or add whey to drinks and veggies.
Which Fermented Foods Can You Easily Make At Home?
Lacto-fermented pickles
Lacto-fermented pickles are the easiest fermented foods to make. The most common made this way are dill pickles, but you can make carrot pickles, cauliflower, green bean pickles and countless more at home using the brine pickling method.
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut is easy to make at home. You make sauerkraut by dry salting it. It’s great plain or you can make it with dill and garlic, or make it spicy and even add fruit. One of my favorites is adding pineapple and turmeric for my pineapple kraut.
Kimchi
Kimchi is the iconic food from Korea. Every family has their own unique recipe. It’s similar to sauerkraut except they soak the cabbage in a salt brine first and they typically use napa cabbage and Korean red pepper. There are many variations of kimchi.
Kombucha
Kombucha is a fermented tea that’s easy to make at home. You need a culture to make it, called a SCOBY. The bacteria are fed using sugar or honey and there are many different ways to flavor it. I like to make it in the Summer time when I’m craving more liquids.
Kefir
Water kefir is fermented sugar water, but you can also use it to make fermented coconut water or milk kefir grains to ferment milk.
Other Ferments
Other ferments you can make at home are hot sauce, relishes, chutney, salsa, other condiments and even fermented fruit.
There are so many different ways to get fermented foods into your diet and you can easily make them at home.
If you’re new to making fermented foods or made fermented foods before but didn’t like the results, you should join my new online course, Fermenting Veggies.
The new course will cover everything you need to know to make Fermented Foods at home. It will cover safe fermentation, how to make pickles, sauerkraut, fermented sauces, troubleshooting and much more.
Learn more about the course and sign up for the waiting list here.