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Making your own cultured vegetables is easy and economical! Here’s a great way to make a raw food that helps improve your digestion and boost your immunity. This is a slightly sweet (and sour) cultured vegetable recipe.

Optional: While adding probiotics is not necessary, it can boost the health benefits of your cultured vegetables. There are many options to add probiotics:

Shred all vegetables (except dill and basil) in a food processor (usually you’d use the blade with tiny holes that makes julienned vegetables). Transfer to a large stainless-steel mixing bowl.

Make your brine: Take about 1 cup of the shredded vegetables, the sea salt, and the dill and basil and place in your food processor with the S-blade. Add filtered water (just keep adding filtered water so they blend completely) and blend until it’s the consistency of guacamole.

Optional: Add in the probiotic starter of your choice. You don’t need to add probiotics to cultured veggies, but it’s highly recommended so that you get more consistent results.

Add the brine into the shredded vegetables and mix well. With a wide-mouth funnel, add your vegetable-and-brine mixture into quart-sized wide-mouth Ball jars (you can usually get these in the grocery store very inexpensively). Pack the vegetables down tightly.

Add some water to cover the vegetables (make sure they’re not exposed to air). You can also put a rolled-up cabbage leaf at the top, to keep the vegetables well packed or to take up additional space between the vegetables and the top (if needed).

Screw on the top tightly and set aside for 3 days to one week at room temperature (72–75° F, but you can make these in warmer climates, too). You can take the top off and sample after 3 days. If you want them to have a more sour taste, let them ferment longer.

If this is your first time making cultured vegetables, here are some things to know:

— Most people are nervous about making cultured vegetables at first. We’re so used to refrigeration that it can feel weird to eat what may seem like “spoiled” vegetables. They are not spoiled, though! Fermentation is a way of preserving foods with good bacteria. The key is to “just do it” and see what happens. It’s a great way to reconnect with a food-preservation technique our ancestors used.

— They do smell … sometimes you can even smell them while they’re fermenting on your countertop. That’s normal! They’ll smell when you open them as well, but they’re not as smelly once they are exposed to air and on your plate.

— Sometimes liquid does seep out of the jars during fermentation, so we like to put them in a shallow baking dish just in case.

— If your veggies look moldy at the top, they were likely exposed to some air during fermentation. It’s okay to scrape the moldy part off the top, and if the vegetables underneath look good, you can still eat them. You can avoid mold by making sure your veggies are entirely covered with water, or use a rolled-up cabbage leaf to pack them down. You may need to discard the cabbage leaf if it gets moldy, but rest assured that your veggies will likely be fine underneath.

— The end result should be crisp and colorful. If your veggies taste swampy or look dull and colorless, they did not ferment well. Using Pro-Belly-Otic liquid (available at: RealFoodRealLife.tv ) as a starter will aid the fermentation process by making sure you have a hardy source of probiotics to ferment the vegetables. Once you’re more experienced at making cultured vegetables, you might try it without a starter. We like to use a starter to ensure that we get the most medicinal cultured vegetables.

— Money-saving tip: You can reserve 6 Tbsp. of your batch of cultured vegetables or liquid to create a new brine for your next batch.

— Expert cultured-vegetable makers have noticed that if they make their veggies while in a bad mood, the end result tastes bad, too. Play some music, make your vegetables with friends, or put a smile on your face and in your heart while making them. You’d be surprised at how great food can taste with this one little tip!

— Keep in mind that no experience or talent is needed to make cultured vegetables. Follow the instructions, and nature will do the rest! Experience and talent will certainly add flair to your end result, so keep practicing, and your taste buds will reap the rewards.