Canned Coleslaw

This week (ending today), our Aldi has cabbage on sale for 59 cents each. It isn’t 59 cents everywhere but it is here. Depending on the size of the head, that brings the cost to between .20 and .25/pound, which is good for our area this time of year. Sometimes it’s less around the first of the year but for the most part, I pay anywhere from .49 to .89/pound of cabbage.

We eat a lot of coleslaw and I used to buy the already made shredded broccoli slaw mix but it’s now mostly $4.99 for a 10 oz package and I said NO to that.  The shredded cabbage slaw mix is less expensive but no matter the cost of cabbage, it’s always less to buy the whole head and shred it at home.

Last year a friend mentioned she was canning coleslaw using this recipe. My concern was that it would be soggy and no longer crunchy so I asked her several times during the year if it stayed crunchy and she assured me it did. She told me that the recipe was a bit too sweet for her tastes but that it did stay nice and crunchy.

Also, I was a bit concerned about the ratio of vinegar to sugar since this is going to be processed in a water bath and not pressure canned so I did a little research and found this recipe for Pickled Cabbage and this recipe for Pickled Slaw. The Pickled Cabbage recipe probably didn’t have enough sugar for us and the Pickled Slaw probably had about the right amount. I ended up going with 1 cup of vinegar and about 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar per head of cabbage.

Thank goodness for the cabbage shredder!  We bought 8 heads of cabbage and my plan was to use 4 heads for the slaw and 4 heads for sauerkraut but because the bowl I was using would only hold three heads of shredded cabbage, I went with 3 heads for the slaw and 5 for the sauerkraut.

The big side of the sink was scrubbed and sanitized and I shredded the cabbage into there, then added the sliced onions, bell peppers and grated carrots.

It was salted and then left in the bowl for a few hours. Some recipes say to leave it overnight, some say leave it at least an hour. I left it probably 4 or 5 hours.

It produced 16 pints of slaw. 

Then, it was time for the taste test.  I had read that some serve it right out of the jar, chilled, and some drain it and mix it with mayonnaise for a more traditional cole slaw. My plan was to serve some right out of the jar and to drain some and mix it with the mayo and see which way we liked it best. Once Vince and I tasted it right out of the jar, we didn’t bother to mix it with mayo. It was so good!  Tart. Sweet. Crunchy. Everything coleslaw should be!

Vince was back by Aldi’s yesterday so he stopped and got more cabbage and I’ve already made that into slaw. We now have 36 jars . . well, 35 since I already used one. You now how I figure my food needs – one jar per week means we need at least 52 jars. Nicole loves coleslaw but Chad doesn’t so I’ll give her some. It will be convenient for her to have it for when she wants it. Usually around the first of the year, someone will have cabbage on sale so if we’re using as much of this as I think we will, I can make more then. I’m roughly calculating that with the vinegar, sugar and spices, and even adding the cost of propane for water bath canning, this probably costs about 30 cents per jar in the end. Not bad considering the cost of the pre-shredded slaw mixes.

We will use it as a salad. We will put it on sandwiches and burgers. We’ll go through lots of this stuff! Just eating it as a salad, one pint will be enough for one meal. Eating it on a sandwich or burger, one pint will be enough for several meals.