Sauerkraut and sausage is a wholesome, delicious low calorie dinner meal. You will just need one pot and 30 mins to make this at home on your stove top.
Heat up oil into a small pan and sauté sliced onions for a few minutes over a medium heat setting, until the onion slices soften.
1-2 Tablespoon Oil, 1 Onion
Reduce the heat a bit and stir in your Sauerkraut.
1 Pound Sauerkraut
Add the seasoning, the bay leaf, black peppercorn, juniper berries and caraway seeds.
1 Large Bay leaves, 5 Piece Black Peppercorns Whole, 3 Piece Juniper Berries, 1 Teaspoon Caraway Seeds Whole
Pour in your beer and water.
1 Cup Beer, 1 Cup Water
Place your sausages into the sauerkraut. They can be frozen or thawed. Submerge and cover the Sausages with Sauerkraut.
2-4 Sausages
Keep your cooking pot with the sauerkraut over a medium-low heat setting, covered, to cook for about 20 to 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing sticks at the bottom. If it gets too hot, reduce the heat to a lower heat setting. The Sauerkraut should get infused with flavors, the beer, and water should reduce, and the sausages should cook through. If your sauerkraut is too wet looking, cook the last 10 minutes uncovered to reduce the liquids.
Take out whole spices, bay leaf, peppercorn, and juniper berries. Discard the whole spices. Season with salt to taste.
Salt
Plate up the sauerkraut with sausage. You can serve dumplings or parsley potatoes with that. Mustard and horseradish make for a fine addition as well.
Video
Notes
Plain flavored oil such as sunflower oil or vegetable oil can be used, but if you really want to add authentic flavors, add and use lard.
Caraway is a main ingredient that will add all the essential flavors. If you can't get caraway, you may use cumin seeds instead, but the flavor will change considerably. Therefore, I highly recommend adding only caraway seeds. They need to be whole and not ground.
We use wheat beer in the alps, but you can use your favorite beer, even dark ones or craft beer. Just remember, the beer flavor will transfer to the dish, so if you pick a bitter beer, the sauerkraut will turn out a bit more bitter.
In Austria and Germany, people use local sausages such as wiener, st.johanner, knacker, and käsekrainer. You can use kielbasa too and mini wieners. (see post for ideas). You can also add pork belly slabs instead of sausages in this recipe.
Season with salt to taste. Only add salt if necessary. Traditionally prepared sauerkraut contains a lot of salt, so tasting your Sauerkraut and Sausage is crucial before adding salt.
If you intend to add the white Bavarian sausage to your Sauerkraut, then please cook them separately by boiling the sausages in some water.
Vegetarians can omit adding sausages, or they can use vegan sausages. We add meats because they give flavor to the whole Sauerkraut dish, plus you won't need to take out another pot just to cook the meats.