Did you know that you can add nutritious fruits, like açaí and blueberries, to sauerkraut? Well, you can! In this blog, I’ll teach you how to easily make sauerkraut with blueberries and açaí!

Ingredients You’ll Need to make Sauerkraut with Blueberries and Açaí

Cabbage: I suggest purple cabbage for this recipe, but you can use green cabbage too. I just think the purple cabbage looks so beautiful! A small head of cabbage will make about two jars of sauerkraut using this recipe. Look for a cabbage that still has outer leaves at the store. Usually, if a cabbage still has its outer leaves it’s more hydrated and fresh, which means more brine! I like to use the brine for all sorts of things, and even other fermentation projects like this one.
Blueberries and Açaí: Adding fruits to this recipe was interesting and successful! I’m having a good time experimenting with small amounts of fruit added to my sauerkraut fermentation projects. For this recipe, I used fresh, organic blueberries and Açaí puree from trader joes.
Caraway Seeds: Caraway seeds add a nice herby flavor and crunch to sauerkraut.
Sea Salt: I like to use unrefined solar evaporated sea salt. Any pure sea salt will do. If you like to experiment with fancy sea salt in fermentation recipes, I suggest trying out French grey sea salt.
Water: I add a bit of water to all of my cabbage fermentation recipes. Water is still drawn out of the cabbage when salt is added. However, having water as a part of this recipe accounts for seasonal changes in produce hydration levels. So no matter where you are in the world, or what your cabbage is like, or how long you had a cabbage sitting in the fridge, you should have success with this recipe.

How to Use Fruit in Fermented Vegetable Recipes

I write a lot about food safety and fermentation on our blog. Generally, the more simple sugar in the starting ingredients for fermentation, the less likely you’ll have successful lactic acid fermentation. Through extensive recipe development and testing, I’ve found that it’s best to only incorporate fruit into cabbage-based fermentation projects like sauerkraut. The first reason is that the cabbage microbiome is phenomenal for wild fermentation and seems to balance out any addition of fruit sugars. Secondly, I’ve found that if the fruit or fruit juice only makes up 1/4 of the ingredients (by mass) then the fermentation microbiome doesn’t vary by much from cabbage ferments without fruit.

Supplies You’ll Need to Ferment Sauerkraut

32 ounce Wide Mouth Mason Jar
Fermentation Weight
Standard Metal Mason Jar Lid (this can rust in the presence of salt)
OR Rust Free Plastic Lid
or you can use a Weck Jar (without the gasket; only use the clips to secure the lid)
Sea Salt
Scale
Mixing Bowl

How to Fermented Vegetables with Fruit

During the first few days of fermentation: carbon dioxide and bubbles will be produced. Sometimes, jars will become very full of liquid, and this liquid can seep out. Since this is a very colorful fermentation I suggest keeping the jar on a plate or pan to catch any liquid that seeps out. You don’t want it to stain your counter!

If using a standard mason jar lid: remove the lid and tamper everything back down using a gloved hand, tamper, or spoon. Make sure everything, including the weight, is still submerged below the brine.

Always Trust your sense of smell: Fermented cabbage should smell pleasantly sour and like strong cabbage. Never eat anything that smells repulsive or yeasty.

Never eat anything that had mold growing on it: By following directions you should not encounter this problem.

Taste test at three weeks: If you prefer the sauerkraut to be more tart and sour, you can let it ferment for four weeks.

What Temperature Should I Keep My Sauerkraut at While it Ferments?

Keep your fermenting cabbage at a temperature between 70-80 degrees F. Keep out of direct sunlight

How Long Should I Ferment My Sauerkraut with Blueberries and Açaí?

After 3 weeks, remove the fermentation weight and smell and taste test. Your fermented cabbage should smell pleasantly sour. It should taste tart, lightly salty, and cabbagey. The taste will be different from simple pickled foods because it’s mainly lactic acid and not acetic acid (vinegar) preserving the vegetables.

Do I Need to Refrigerate Sauerkraut?

After fermenting for 3 weeks, remove the weight and place a regular mason jar lid on the jar and refrigerate. Consume within 6 months for full probiotic benefits

Sauerkraut with Blueberries and Açaí Timeline

We tracked this fruity and delicious kraut throughout the fermentation process. By checking the progress of microbial stages using microscopy we have provided you with this handy timeline! If you follow our recipe and directions, your timeline of sauerkraut fermentation should approximately match ours.

24 – 48 hours: All contents in the jar should be submerged beneath the brine. At this time there are still Gram negative bacteria and possible pathogens present.

48 hours – 5 days: After 48 hours you should start to see lots of bubbles being produced. This is when the ferment enters stage two of vegetable fermentation. Leuconostoc bacteria begin to thrive and Gram negative organisms die off by day 5.

5 – 10 days: The bubbles in the brine will decrease, as the ferment leaves stage two and enters stage three. The ferment will become cloudy, the color will change and a pleasant sour smell will develop. Lactobacillus species begin to thrive in this time period. Sometimes Leuconostoc bacteria can thrive and produce bubbles up to 14 days into fermentation.

10 – 21 days: Lactobacillus make up majority or all of the microbial population. They produce copious amounts of lactic acid and make the fermented cabbage smell even more pleasantly sour. This is the time in which the vegetable mixture becomes sauerkraut and is preserved.

More Sauerkraut Recipes to Try