Beans + Sauerkraut, a Winner

Helping to hit your fiber goals this holiday season

This substack post by

TPWSYL

, which I read a few months ago, has so stuck with me, forever lodging in my brain the concepts of easy fiber and hard fiber, and also the valuable purposes of fermented foods.

As someone who is not a nutritionist and easily overwhelmed by nutritional discourse, I absolutely love the way it’s written, making the concepts easy to understand.

But even more than that, I love how it makes nutrition so interdisciplinary — linking it to the environment and farming and society, placing it as an issue at the center of all the other issues, too.

Among other things, reading it served as a reminder that I need to get a batch of kimchi going. (I’m thinking that in the new year, I will set up a live workshop on this — I have a new turmeric based kimchi recipe I’m excited about sharing. Would you be interested?)

Also: I must make sauerkraut a bit more of a thing in my day to day eating. So far, it’s not an ingredient I even think about regularly.

So that’s where today’s soup comes from. Bean and saurkraut soup is by no means a new concept — there are versions in several eastern European cuisines — though it’s often a meaty deal, incorporating rich and fatty smoked meats.

Inspired by a Rancho Gordo approach, as well as my Cheesy Cabbage & White Bean Soup, I decided to give this one a melty element. It’s a fairly hands-off, one pot affair, and like all bean soups the flavors get even better as it sits. You’ll find the recipe and several notes down below.

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A Few Healthy Comfort Dinners for December

This time of year, I often share a recipe I think of as a “post-party” appropriate — the idea being it’s the holidays, maybe you’re getting home from an after-work cocktail party where you nibbled but didn’t properly eat, and the festive spirit has you craving something comforting and also lovingly prepared, but pretty quick to come together.

This year, due to age or schedule or maybe culture shifts, holiday parties aren’t really happening for me! But since it’s a category I still love in theory, I’ve rounded up a couple ideas.

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Note: Once I’m set up in my new apartment I’ll resume the recipe videos — currently there isn’t much of a surface to film on!

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Cheesy Bean & Sauerkraut Soup