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  • RecipesWe love to create delicious recipes with gut health in mind. By using our recipes, you can easily create any dish knowing that it’s good for gut health! Our recipe blog also includes Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes, Gluten Free Recipes, and Paleo Recipes.
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Miscellaneous Articles

15 Easy Uses for Leftover Fermented Vegetable Brine

Here are 15 functional and easy ways to use fermented vegetable brine in meals and recipes! Try different recipes with sauerkraut, pickle and kimchi brine.

Recipe Index | Miscellaneous Articles

15 Easy Uses for Leftover Fermented Vegetable Brine

Here are 15 functional and easy ways to use fermented vegetable brine in meals and recipes! Try different recipes with sauerkraut, pickle and kimchi brine.

Fun Ways To Use Fermented Sauerkraut Brine and Other Fermented Vegetable Brine

Braised Chickpeas

These Braised Chickpeas with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Kale only take about 15 minutes to prep and 45 minutes to cook! Pair the chickpeas with rice, quinoa, or barley for an easy and healthy dinner. You can also make this recipe as a meal-prep! Click Here for the recipe.

Nachos

In honor of the launch of our Fermented Jalapenos, we made vegan nachos with vegan queso! I love this vegan queso recipe. This is the creamiest, cheesiest, most delicious vegan cheese sauce around. It’s perfect for vegan nachos. Click Here for the recipe.

Vegan Alfredo Pasta Sauce

Make this simple and creamy vegan pasta with pumpkin alfredo sauce any night of the week for a quick and easy plant-based dinner! This is a delicious fall pasta recipe for any occasion and comes together in just 20 minutes. Click Here for the recipe.

Low-Sodium Fermented Carrots

The concentration of salt in vegetable fermentation greatly influences the microbial composition of fermented vegetables. Even the type of salt used can have a profound effect on which types of microbes populate fermented vegetables. Come learn the important role salt plays in vegetable fermentation and how to safely make low-sodium fermented vegetables. Click Here for the recipe.

Green Smoothies

This Healthy Green Superfood Smoothie is made with frozen banana, spinach, tahini, spirulina, maca, and dates for a creamy and nourishing drink in under five minutes! This smoothie is loaded with gut-healthy fiber, and you can easily add some organic protein powder to make this smoothie a filling meal. Did you know you can add a teaspoon of sauerkraut brine to smoothies for probiotic benefits? It doesn’t even change the flavor! Click Here for the recipe.

Heriloom Cultured Fermented Tomatoes

This is a quick and easy recipe to make probiotic fermented cherry tomatoes. You only need a few ingredients and in just 24 hours, you’ll have absolutely delicious probiotic cherry tomatoes! This is a wild heirloom culturing process that employs microbes from wild fermentation for the healthiest results. Click Here for the recipe.

Sourdough Starters

Learn how to easily make the best sourdough starter with just water and organic sprouted rye flour. With just two ingredients and seven days’ time you’ll have a healthy sourdough starter for baking flavorful, naturally leavened bread! We also included a quick 2-day sprouted sourdough starter recipe option, that incorporates fermented vegetable brine, for those of you who’d like to bake with this sprouted rye sourdough starter sooner. Click Here for the recipe.

Veggie Burgers

These Veggie Burgers with Turmeric, Chickpeas, and Sweet Potato are loaded with flavor and gut-healthy fiber. The burger patties come together in just 30 minutes and can be enjoyed baked in the oven or cooked on the grill. Click Here for the recipe.

Caesar Salad Dressing

Chickpea Caesar salad is all about the dressing and parmesan! This salad recipe includes instructions for making our homemade vegan Caesar dressing and our delicious recipe for vegan parmesan cheese. This is a perfect, filling, vegan salad for lunch or dinner! Click Here for the recipe.

Delicious Ways To Use Fermented Kimchi Brine

Kimchi Mac and Cheese

Vegan kimchi mac and cheese is easy to make and loaded with flavor! This slightly spicy mac and cheese comes together in just 30 minutes and is the perfect side dish for any family dinner. Click Here for the recipe.

Summer Roll Sauce

Making vegan summer rolls is our favorite way to get a heaping dose of many prebiotic foods. This recipe will teach you how to make a delicious summer roll and my favorite summer roll dipping sauce. You will also learn how to mix up your ingredients to keep things fresh. Click Here for the recipe.

Chili Garlic Snow Peas

These chili garlic snow peas are so easy and quick to make. Snow peas are fiber-rich and great for gut microbiome health, which makes this recipe the perfect appetizer or snack. This recipe is so simple and makes a great side dish for any meal. Click Here for the recipe.

Bloody Mary

It’s totally fine to have a drink in moderation. This is especially true when the drink is loaded with vegetables and fermented, probiotic kimchi. This Kimchi Bloody Mary Recipe is easy, refreshing, and probably the healthiest adult beverage around! Click Here for the recipe.

Spicy Fermented Onions

I LOVE fresh and pickled red onions… a lot. We always have red onions in our house and we never, ever run out. We put them in quinoa bowls, in burrito bowls, on avocado toast, and pretty much any savory meal. Want to know what we love more than pickled red onions though? Fermented Red Onions! It’s the same great taste of pickled red onions, but with awesome gut-health benefits fermented foods provide! Click Here for the recipe.

Cheesy Broccoli Pasta Salad

I adore pasta salad. It’s a quick, easy and nutritious meal that’s perfect for meal preps, lunch or dinner. You can make any recipe on our website knowing that it’s good for gut health, and that includes this vegan cheesy broccoli pasta salad with buffalo chickpeas. It’s loaded with vitamins, healthy fats, prebiotic fiber, and good flavors. Click Here for the recipe.

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Kaitlynn Fenley Author, Educator, Food Microbiologist
Kaitlynn is a food microbiologist and fermentation expert teaching people how to ferment foods and drinks at home.
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hey i’m kaitlynn, i’m a microbiologist and together with my husband jon we are cultured guru.

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A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes b A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes because shelf stable pickles do not contain microbes. But with shelf stable pickles, it’s the pasteurization/sterilization via hot water bath or pressure canning that makes shelf stable pickles free of microbes.

Hot hot hot acid in a pressurized environment does kill, well…most microbes. 

Think about “refrigerator pickle” recipes, though. They need to be stored in the refrigerator because vinegar alone doesn’t stop fermentation.

Fridge pickles are made without pasteurization/sterilization (canning) so they will wild ferment without refrigeration, and not necessarily in a good way because there’s not enough salt. 

All vinegar is made via fermentation too, and vinegar fermentation involves acetic acid bacteria, but also a ton of LAB, mainly Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc (the same genera you’d find in fermented veg.)  I linked a reference paper in my fermented mushroom recipe blog, so you all can read about the LAB involved in vinegar fermentation. 

Try 🍄‍🟫googlin’🍄‍🟫“fermented mushrooms” and you’ll see my recipe, it’s the first result (usually) 🤗

#mushrooms #fermentation
I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets agai I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets again lol. Mixing with cabbage for beet sauerkraut is the best though! 

“Lacto fermented beets” was the first ferment I tried to make after learning sauerkraut in college. My best friend Sidney came over and we used these gorgeous beets from the farmers market, with 2.5% salt, and some spices. Well, it ended up tasting like beet moonshine and it was just… not good.

But it was a conduit for learning. Those beets were my first lesson in how different sugars and growth in the rhizosphere vs the phyllosphere influences fermentation. 

Cabbage and the cabbage microbiome offer a lot to balance out beets in fermentation, and I think mixing into a sauerkraut is the only way to go for lacto fermenting beets! 

Try googlin’ “beet and red cabbage sauerkraut” and you’ll see my recipe, I’m Cultured Guru.
Squash is the secret ingredient! My Roasted Butte Squash is the secret ingredient!

My Roasted Butternut Squash Hot Sauce recipe is free on my website! I didn’t cook this one, so yes it’s still probiotic.

When lactic acid bacteria ferment the starches in winter squash, they naturally convert them into emulsifying compounds called exopolysaccharides. So when we blend our hot sauce after fermentation, there’s no watery separation in the bottle. Roasting the squash with the garlic for the recipes also adds such good flavor! 

Definitely make sure it’s fully fermented and not bubbling anymore before you blend and bottle. Otherwise, it’ll carbonate in the cute little hot sauce bottles.

#hotsauce
Myth Busting: Yes, the SCOBY IS the pellicle! Plee Myth Busting: Yes, the SCOBY IS the pellicle! Pleeeease stop saying it’s not. 😌



Watch till the end, I show you how to grow one!



This is a little tidbit from what I teach in the Kombucha lesson in our Fermented Drinks Semester online course!

I also share this recipe FOR FREE just ✨GOOGLE✨ “cultured guru SCOBY” and you’ll see my full recipe with the perfect sugar to tea ratios for growing, feeding and maintaining a kombucha SCOBY.

#kombucha
And the knife stays in the box. GOOGLE “sourdoug And the knife stays in the box. 

GOOGLE “sourdough king cake” my recipe is the first one! 👑☂️💚✨

If you’re like me and prefer from scratch, homemade everything, you’ll definitely want to try this king cake for Mardi Gras! I used organic naturally dyed sprinkles and all that jazz too. 

If you just search “sourdough king cake” on google you’ll see my recipe, it’s usually the first one. 

My main tips for making this:
✨use a very active starter or throw in some instant yeast with your starter
✨make sure the dough is actually proofed before shaping it. If it’s cold in your house it will take longer. 
✨please follow directions! You can cold ferment the dough in the fridge after it doubles in size and BEFORE filling and shaping.

🎵Song is Casanova by Rebirth Brass Band
Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this e Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this earth.

When we had a food business, I could never shake the feeling that fermentation is not meant to be sold to you from a fluorescently lit grocery shelf in an endless cycle of waste. Fermentation is meant to be cultivated in your home, with your hands, with intention and love in a sustainable, grateful practice of reciprocity and nourishment. 

This is the story of how we got here. 

After so many lessons learned, our small fermentation business is now value aligned, peaceful, fulfilling, and happy.  It often seems like the gut feelings (the microbes within us) guided us in the right direction. To teach. 

You can learn for free on our blog, or you can enroll in our online courses (we extended our new year sale!) Either way, with me as your teacher, you’ll learn to adopt a holistic perspective on the microbial ecosystems that influence our food, lives, and the planet.
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