3 ways to sneak fermented foods into your meals
I’m a big advocate for consuming fermented foods, because it means we’re consuming beneficial microbes to assist the process of digestion, absorption and assimilation of the foods we are eating.
Therefore it becomes vital to consume fermented foods daily, to reap their digestive benefits as they move through our gastrointestinal tract.
Below are some of my favourite ways to integrate fermented foods into our meals each day:
1. Pink Hummus (made with fermented beetroot)
Beet kvass is great as an adrenal tonic drink, good for constipation and a super blood tonic.
The leftover beets from beet kvass, can be added to any chickpea or cauliflower base hummus recipe to enhance the nutrients (and good bacteria) consumed.
Try this recipe below and swap out the roasted beets for the whole beet by-product of your beet kvass.
Roasted Beet and Cauliflower Hummus by Minimal Wellness
2. Add sauerkraut to just about anything
Sauerkraut is a versatile ferment that can be added to just about any of your meals in a few different ways:
Use red cabbage sauerkraut to brighten a garden salad.
Sauerkraut juice can be used instead of vinegar in a salad dressing.
Sauerkraut juice can be added to soups or casseroles as you are about to serve.
3. Experiment with an easy home-made ferment: dill carrots
This short (2 day) ferment is an easy home-grown starter ferment.
Use your crunchy fermented carrot sticks as the dipping sticks for dips (see pink hummus above) — they are great in lunch boxes too!
Fermented carrots can be added to soups, particularly if you have over-fermented them (more than 2 -7 days) and they have gone a little soggy.
See the Dill Carrots Stick video and full recipe below from my Home-Grown Fermentation Online Workshop.
Fermented Dill Carrot Sticks
Ingredients
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into sticks
2 sprigs of fresh dill
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 Tbsp. sea salt
Filtered water
Starter Options (choose 1)
1/2 cup of whey, or;
1/2 cup of reserved fermenting liquid from a previous vegetable ferment, or;
Commercial vegetable starter such as Caldwell’s or Body Ecology
Method
Place half the carrot sticks into a 1.5L jar. Layer half of the garlic and dill on top.
Add the remainder of the carrot sticks, then the remaining dill and garlic.
Add the salt and the starter. Gently shake the jar to settle the carrots if needed.
Fill with filtered water, covering the carrots sticks, to the shoulder of the fermenting jar.
Cover tightly and allow to sit at room temperature for 2-7 days.
Taste-test them at two days. The longer you ferment them for, the softer the carrots will become and the more tart the taste.
After fermenting at room temperature, store them in your refrigerator (they will last for months!).
