I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been introduced to a fatty, salty hunk of meat and thought, “my god, I’m going to need a pickle”. I feel the same eating cheese toasties or deli sandwiches with rich mayo-based sauces. Where is the pickle, hot sauce, citrus or ferment? Even the most savoury, juicy slab of umami is a bit much without acidity to balance it.
What is the point of sauerkraut without acidity? It’s just wet, salty cabbage, and what is that for, other than deflating my spirits and inflating my gastrointestinal system? Sauerkraut should be sour; it’s the hallmark of the very thing that created it – fermentation.
Why am I saying all this? After eight friends and I tasted 21 supermarket sauerkrauts, I was shocked to find some lacked not just acidity but any vigour at all. Sure, there were a handful that were tart, funky and farty; but others were wet, soft strands of salty cabbage. Many of those have been cut from this article (you can still see how they scored in the table at the bottom).
Flabby, tangless sauerkraut wasn’t the only surprise. I had assumed the laws of fermentation meant acidity, funk and softness are interlinked. Like fame, money and narcissism, they generally come as a package deal. To get depth and acidity, you have to accept a flabby kraut, so I thought. But the best sauerkrauts were tart and crunchy.
I was also thrilled to experience a rare taste test without revulsion. Across more than 20 rounds, the lowest score I gave was 5.5. Imagine, after 30 sugar-blasted Easter eggs (including tasting the worst product in the history of this column), how relieved this panel of reviewers was to be eating consistent 7/10s. If you pick your sauerkraut via lucky dip, you may not get something sufficiently sour but I can guarantee it won’t be gross. In the field of supermarket products, those are great odds.
We did the taste test at Solstice cafe in Sydney. The sauerkrauts were served blind and we scored each on texture, taste and funk (the latter didn’t contribute to the final score). One product was excluded from the taste test because it was accidentally left in a hot car. Bread was provided as a palate cleanser and defence against the sheer number of microorganisms and low-pH foods we were about to ingest. One taste tester, who makes ferments for a living, said: “Tell your microbiome to prepare for several billion probiotic bacteria. It’s going to be like Gut Coachella.”
The best flavoured sauerkraut
Herbs of Life Sauerkraut with Seaweed, 380g, $12.99 ($3.42 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 9/10
Herbs of Life doesn’t sell traditional, unflavoured sauerkraut, so I bought three flavours to get their gist – this one, their ginger flavour and another made with red cabbage and caraway. The ginger version is a solid semi-sour kraut with a hint of spice while the red cabbage and caraway was, like its eponymous spice, very divisive. This, to quote myself, is “like a Maggi product but classier”. The other reviews had a lot of comments about MSG, high acidity, oceanic flavours, freshness, crunch and depth. Does it go in a Reuben? Inconclusive. After I looked at the ingredients, I was shocked to see it was low in sodium and had zero umami-producing flavour enhancers. Well, numbered flavour enhancers, anyway. Wakame, depending on how it’s processed, can have as much free glutamic acid as parmesan, powerful enough to make cabbage taste like it’s been jacked with MSG. There’s no other product like it but you have to decide whether that’s worth paying more than twice the price of any other kraut.
Bryne Co Sauerkraut with Garlic and Pepper, 460g, $4 (87c per 100g), available at Woolworths
Score: 9/10
This smells like the beginning of every dinner for one I’ve ever cooked: a high dosage mix of garlic, chilli and whatever ferment is gracing my fridge that month. Rather than eastern Europe, this feels like a sauerkraut made in the kitchens of Hunan. Many reviewers questioned whether it counts as sauerkraut but the same reviewers also wanted to buy it. We talked excitedly about eating it with crispy pork, chicken feet and hotdogs, and debated whether or not it should go in a Reuben (also inconclusive). One reviewer wrote six lines of praise, then ended with a question about whether they were only awarding points to their love of garlic.
The best value and the best unflavoured sauerkraut
Marco Sauerkraut, 500g, $2.55 (51c per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
At the end of the taste test, one reviewer presented a treat for me to try – shuto, a type of Japanese fermented fish guts. I remember smelling it and thinking, huh, this is less offensive than sauerkraut number nine. Unless you share my enthusiasm for intense foods, you may not know that the stinkiest items are almost always quieter on the tongue, and that’s the case here. Two reviewers recoiled when this landed but, despite the fart-talk, cheese and foot analogies, every reviewer gave it at least a six for taste. It’s bright, salty, fresh, and one of the few sauerkrauts to be both high in acid (there’s extra added) and crunch (although less consistently than other brands). The smell is just a bit of extra seasoning.
Note: Market Grocer’s Cabbage Leaves scored slightly higher (8.5/10) but it was excluded from this taste test as the product isn’t shredded. If you’ve got a pair of kitchen scissors, and you’re happy to cut to serve (great dinner party table service theatre, by the way), it is a great product.
The rest
Always Fresh Sauerkraut – Polish, 460g, $4.30 (93c per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
One thing I’ve learned is some sauerkrauts, particularly less controlled ferments, can produce a cocktail of flavour and aroma compounds that taste weirdly like smoked cheese. This is a great example. Considering how widespread this brand is, I doubt their Polish supplier is a rickety homebrew operation – quite the opposite. But the fact they got their sauerkraut to taste like one, while still being considerably acidic, is very impressive.
Edgell Sauerkraut, 410g, $3.60 (88c per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
There was only one brand with a considerably higher funk score than the fart-cheese of Marco. But while Marco made some reviewers flinch, this just confused them. The grey-yellow colour was described, horrifically, as “shredded grandpa skin” by one reviewer. Another said it smelled like old bean sprouts and reminded her of nocino, the Italian walnut liqueur. A third wrote: “Like a natural wine, will have a cult following and traditionalist haters.” Others talked about fruity flavours, bitterness and an oddly long aftertaste. It was the only canned product we tried, which must be a factor. The heating process involved in canning kills bacteria and stops fermentation, which is going to change the flavour. I just wouldn’t have expected it to change to whatever this is.
Wicked Sinfully Sublime Sauerkraut, 460g, $3.50 (76c per 100g), available at Coles
Score: 7/10
I wouldn’t be surprised if Wicked and Always Fresh are made by the same Polish factory. They both have the same slight cheese flavour. They’re both very acidic, moderately salty, very savoury and on the medium-high end of the fresh-to-funk spectrum. They’re very approachable. “Would eat straight out of the fridge at 3am,” one reviewer wrote. The two brands also had eerily similar scores, only differing slightly on texture, with one reviewer accusing Wicked’s sauerkraut of being a bit meek. As this is 80c cheaper than Always Fresh, you’ll have to work out your own texture-to-dollar exchange rate.
Sandhurst Polish Sauerkraut, 500g, $4.50 (90c per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7/10
Most sauerkrauts came in inconsistent shreds but these are like flimsy cabbage noodles. Besides the joy of novelty, that will only affect you in two ways: they mat together in the jar, making them a little tricky to excavate, and the shape gives you some creative opportunities. They would make great hair in an elaborate and edible reconstruction of a loved one’s face; or they could be branded “nature noodles” on a woo-woo health channel. That’s all less important than how they taste – extremely sour, with a bit of Always Fresh’s smoky appeal. One reviewer asked: have these been fermented over a fire?
Coles Special Burger Slaw, 440g, $3.50 (80c per 100g), available at Coles
Score: 6.5/10
I had a daydream where I served this product to a table of German grandmas. I was imagining this scenario while the other reviewers were saying loving things about how oniony, sweet and burger-perfect this is – like eating the smell of a McDonald’s pickle, someone said. You wouldn’t say any of those things about the other sauerkrauts, which makes sense, because unlike every other product we tried, this isn’t sauerkraut in any way besides being made of cabbage and good to serve alongside extremely meaty and carby meals (the only reason it was included in the taste test). “I really love this but it’s an entirely different product,” one review wrote. My daydream ended with me being ostracised by a room of disappointed omas.
Deli Originals Sauerkraut with Beetroot and Apple, 460g, $2.59 (56c per 100g), available at Aldi
Score: 6/10
Someone wrote on their scorecard: “A side character that won’t take attention from the main.” That’s fine, true and, in this case, worthy of a 6/10. But sauerkraut’s role is to take some of the limelight. Sauerkraut is not Rose’s granddaughter in Titanic; it’s Merry and Pippin talking about second breakfast and smoking pipes during the Middle-earth apocalypse. Its role is to contrast. It has to assert itself with acidity and texture, not only to be noticed but to provide relief from something powerful, and this does neither. So while this is passable, even enjoyable, as a wet, grated salad thing, it doesn’t fulfil the role of sauerkraut.
Kühne Barrel Sauerkraut, 810g, $6.20 (77c per 100g), available at Woolworths
Score: 5/10
If Deli Originals is a supporting cast member, then Kühne had its lines cut. The one thing we served as a side, the bread, was somehow more sour and impactful. Compared with some of the horrors we’ve tried over 39 taste tests, it doesn’t even come close to bad, but without zest or va-va-voom what is it for? Imagine going to a techno concert with no beat. You won’t be traumatised by only hearing melodies but it’s missing the point. Sausages should be embarrassed to share a plate with this.