Click here to go straight to the recipe
When I prep sauerkraut, I add salt to a bowl of chopped cabbage and other vegetables, crush the vegetables, let them sit while they release water and then pack everything into clean jars.
When I prep kimchi, I add a lot of salt to a bowl of chopped vegetables, pour in water to make a brine, let the vegetables sit for a while, strain them, add my spices to them and then pack everything into clean jars.
Both methods ferment vegetables.
But the kimchi leaves me with a large amount of salt water (a brine) that I’d prefer not to waste. This past weekend, after I prepped the Napa cabbage, daikon radish and baby leeks pictured below from a recent farmers’ market haul, I reserved the salt water.
I decided I’d ferment carrots sticks in some of the brine. Fermented vegetables have a delicious, natural pickle flavor without adding any vinegar. (If you wonder how fermentation differs from canning, click here.)
After making my kimchi, I also made ginger beer for a workshop this weekend. That meant I had a few tablespoons of minced ginger, strained from my ginger bug, with no place to go. I made hibiscus soda with about half of it and threw the other half in with the carrots. The ginger, covered in yeast and bacteria from my lively ginger bug, kickstarted the ferment.
I still had lots of brine. What other vegetables were lying around? Oooh, red onions. Those would taste good…
You can see the bubbles in the gurgling jar of carrots below. The onions—I added no starter to that jar—have fewer bubbles. But they have some, indicating that fermentation is under way.
I still have more brine. What else could I ferment? And do I need an intervention?
I put the rest of the brine in the refrigerator. It’s just salt water with some vegetable bits in it, which will be well preserved in there. When I have a few vegetables I don’t know what to do with and need to use up, I’ll prep them and put them in a jar with some of this brine—depending on the vegetable. I wouldn’t recommend fermenting winter squash, for example. (Trust me. I learned the hard way.)
Brine Fermented Vegetables
Ingredients
- Vegetables: carrot sticks, red onion slices, cauliflower florets, or green beans
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 4 cups water
Directions
1. Add salt to water and stir. It will dissolve after several minutes.
2. Prep vegetables and stuff into a clean jar.
3. Pour enough brine over the vegetables to completely cover.
4. If necessary, place a weight on the vegetables to submerge them under liquid. A small jar within the jar works well for this.
5. Close the jar with the lid and set the jar on a plate at room temperature for three to five days or until you like the flavor. Open the jar every day to release carbon dioxide and to make sure the vegetables are submerged. You’ll notice the water become cloudy as the fermentation progresses.
6. Transfer vegetables to the refrigerator. They will keep for a few months up to a year or longer, depending on the type of vegetable (carrots keep longer than cucumbers, for example).
Notes
1. Chlorine can kill the microbes necessary to ferment food. If your water contains high amounts of it, pour some into an open vessel the night before you make this. The chlorine will dissipate.
When setting vegetables in brine for three days at room temperature do they need a lid?
Hi Mary, yes they do. I’ll go add that to the post. Thanks for asking. You could leave them open with a weight on top but I always put a lid on my fermenting vegetables. ~ Anne Marie
This is a great post! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you! 🙂
I just cut up some yellow squash to ferment in a 12 oz jar! I am confused. Do I need to stir this daily or just open the lid daily? I remember you said something about making sure it’s stirred to prevent mold, but I can’t remember if that was for making vinegar or fermentation. Please let me know, my squash depends on this! thanks
Hi Selena,
When you make scrap vinegar or mead, you have to stir that daily. With vegetables, you just let them sit in the brine. Keep an eye on squash as it can turn mushy very quickly when you ferment it. If they are mushy, I would try fermenting something harder next time like carrots or cauliflower. ~ Anne Marie
Okay, it’s been fermenting for about four days. There are bubbles that go up once i take the lid off daily. At the bottom there is this thin layer of cloudyness. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t tell what mold would look like.
Some background: I have a bit of contamination OCD but i love to see you making things for yourself and it inspires me to do the same for my own life. But i do not understand this very much, so i am hoping you can help me out here. I can send pictures if you like. Also i am deeply afraid of getting botulism. And i am planning to eat the squash tonight with salad, not sure if it’ll go good together, but if it tastes like pickles it’ll be tangy and nice i hope.
Rather than leaving tap water overnight, I boil the water (And sometimes use it to sterilize lids!) and allow it to cool to room temp, or just-warm. I also then dissolve the salt in the water, ensuring it’s completely dissolved before pouring over the veg.
Boiling removes any dissolved oxygen as well as sterlising; preparing the brine first ensures it’s salty enough right from.the start, the salt dissolves better in warm water !
Once fermentation starts, carbon dioxide will push out any air above the liquid, since CO2 is denser.
have you made banana flower in brine before?
I just fermented some red onions thanks to this post! Can you tell me, are beets good for fermenting? I’ve got a couple, so I’m wondering if it’s a good way to keep them for salads over the summer instead of buying pickled beets. Thanks!
Thanks for the recipe! My carrots were pretty salty, though. Is it possible to do this either less salt?
Hi Jane,
Yes you can do it with less salt. Maybe try 2 1/2 tablespoons and see how that tastes. You have to have salt in there for the vegetables to ferment. If you still have the brine, you could dilute it and put in more vegetables. The microbes already in there will kickstart the next fermentation. I hope that helps 🙂
~ Anne-Marie
So after I do this recipe and eat all the fermented vegetables, can I reuse the brine to ferment more?
Yes that’s right Jane. The good bacteria and yeast that developed from the first ferment will help kickstart the next one.
Hi.afterv5 days only transfer veggies to fridge.
In what do you store the brined veggies in fridge
Hi Kavita,
Yes, that’s right, usually after 5 days, give or take, depending on your kitchen. You store the vegetables in the jars in the brine.
~ Anne-Marie
A few years ago I tried zucchini & yellow squash w garlic & red pepper flakes. Loved the flavor but they were a bit too soft after a couple weeks. Read somewhere to use wild grapevine leaves in the ferment to keep the veggies firm. It works! Can also use oak leaves & others but haven’t tried them yet. Thanks for sharing fermenting info with easy to understand instructions. 💚
Oh the grape leaves make a huge difference. I won’t make dill pickles without them. I’m glad you found the info in the post useful 🙂
Hi Mary. What kind of salt do you recommend? Exact brand u use?
Hi Arlene. I often use salt I buy in bulk that comes from the San Francisco Bay (very close to me). I also use Morton’s coarse kosher salt.