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Looking for a delicious cabbage dish for New Year’s Day that your guests will actually love? Look no further! This super easy, keto-friendly, gluten-free, twice-baked cabbage sauerkraut with bacon, onions, cabbage, beef broth, and tarragon is tasty and sure to please any picky eater’s pallet.

I have always loved sauerkraut. Visting Germany, it was a staple and severed alongside so many yummy sausages or schnitzels. I can’t imagine eating a bratwurst without having sauerkraut on top of it. One day, my mother-in-law showed up at our home with this delicious, dark brown, bacon-infused sauerkraut, and I was sold!

My mother-in-law got the recipe in 1966 while she and her late husband were living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their very dearest friends, the Hoeflers, sent some over for them to enjoy. They loved it so much, Lou said they would never eat it the way their mothers cooked it again! At that time, it became a favorite family recipe. Goodbye boring sauerkraut, hello bacon, onion infused, keto-friendly delicious sauerkraut.

Why Cabbage for New Year’s Day?

Growing up in California, I had never heard of the tradition of cabbage on New Year’s Day for good luck for the upcoming year. However, once I moved to Texas, all of my friends were making cabbage, black eye’d peas and greens to set up the new year for prosperity and good luck. I tend to find myself in the middle when it comes to believing in superstitions. But, with this new tradition I was watching my friends and their families all take part in, I decided I was in! I mean, why not? It’s yummy food, on New Year’s Day, and could set up some luck? Sure, bring on the new traditions!

It is said that cabbage is good luck for financial prosperity due to the leaves looking like money. I can buy that, which is why this is the first New Year’s good luck recipe I’m posting.

Picking Your Ingredients for Twice Baked Sauerkraut with cabbage, bacon and onions.

Start by picking the best, cancer-kicking ingredients. By choosing quality food and ingredients, you can ensure you are doing what you can by putting only the best in your family’s bodies.

Bacon:

Bacon got a bad reputation, but it’s not bad for you if you pick the right one. There are different types of bacon out there, and they vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Bacon goes through a curing process, which is where it usually goes wrong. Choose bacon without the curing additives nitrates and nitrites. Keeping those chemicals away is essential to maintaining a cancer-kicking diet. When cooked, nitrates and nitrites turn into carcinogens, so avoid these like the plague!

Bacon has many nutrients our bodies need, including high-quality animal protein, vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12, 89% of the RDA for selenium, 53% of the RDA for phosphorus, and a decent amount of the minerals iron, magnesium, zinc, and potassium.

The fats in bacon are about 50% monounsaturated and a large part of those is oleic acid. This is the same fatty acid that olive oil is praised for and generally considered “heart-healthy”. Read more about bacon, the good and the bad here.

Sauerkraut:

If you’re looking for the best health benefits, you’ll want to get sauerkraut from the refrigerator section. Farmhouse Culture brand has a refrigerated version. Good words to look for are raw, perishable, unpasteurized. If you can’t find this, the jarred kraut will do, but you will miss out on some of the health benefits if you’re going to save some and eat it raw. Raw sauerkraut is best for your gut, but since we are cooking this, we won’t get all of the health benefits of the natural, uncooked, unpasteurized kraut, so a Vlassic jar of sauerkraut will do just fine. I buy this one from Target: Vlassic Old Fashioned Sauerkraut.

Tarragon:

The addition of tarragon is something I added to the original version of this recipe. It adds a subtle french flavor to the dish and enhances the caraway found in the sauerkraut. Did you know that tarragon contains iron, manganese, and potassium? Manganese reduces stress, which is definitely cancer-kicking. Iron is key to cell nutrition. Tarragon is said to reduce insulin sensitivity and regulate blood sugar. Reducing inflammation is key to keeping cancer at bay, and tarragon is known to do just that. Fresh tarragon is best to reap the nutritional benefits but is mainly only found in the spring and summer. If you’re making this for New Year’s Day, and can’t find fresh, the dried will work just fine.

Prepping for Your Yummy, Twice-Baked Sauerkraut with Bacon and Onions.

Start by prepping your ingredients. 

Dice the onion: Cut the onion in half, then dice the halves into bite-sized pieces. 

Cut the bacon into slices: The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to cut the entire package of bacon in half, pull out each half, then just slice it as it lays on your cutting board into small, thin pieces. There is no need to rearrange it or make it harder than needed. 

Cut the cabbage: Slice the cabbage in half. Remove the stem if needed. Slice the half against the grain so it will naturally shred into pieces, about 1/4-1/2″ thick. If you end up with long strands, cut those down so that no pieces are longer than about 2-3″. 

Drain the Sauerkraut: Open your jar of sauerkraut. Hold the cabbage in with the lid or your hand and drain most liquid out of the jar. It’s not essential to get this 100% drained. Leave a little of the liquid. You just don’t want the vinegar flavor to overpower the mixture. I hold it upside down until it stops pouring. That leaves just enough juice to deglaze the pan. 

Cooking Twice Baked Sauerkraut with Bacon and Onions

The cooking process is very simple, but it does take some time to get the depth of flavor that makes this dish so full of flavor.

Start by adding your bacon to a medium-hot, deep pot. Cook this for about 5 minutes, or until the bacon just starts to crisp up.

Add the onion to the bacon and let them cook until medium brown, and the onion is cooked through. Getting this step nice and brown makes for the best end result.

Once browned, onion is cooked through, and bacon is crispy, add the drained sauerkraut to the pan. Leaving just a little of the vinegar juice is ok; you just don’t want all the vinegar juice. Scrape the pan immediately to get the brown bits up. Mix well and let cook together for 5-10 minutes.

Add the cabbage to the pan. Stir well. Let the mixture cook for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remember, the bacon is salty, so you don’t need much salt.

Add the can of beef broth slowly, stirring while adding and scraping the bottom of the pan.

Add the tarragon. Mix well.

Put a lid on the pot, turn down to simmer, and cook for about an hour, stirring about every 10 minutes to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn.

Your Choice / Your Preference

At this point, you could serve the twice-baked sauerkraut, or you can continue to cook it for a deeper flavor. If you want to continue to cook it (which I recommend), you can turn it down to simmer and stir every 10 minutes, so it doesn’t burn, or put it in a crockpot and let it cook for hours. The longer it cooks, the yummier it is.

If there is still a lot of liquid when you’re ready to serve, take the lid off and let the liquid reduce over medium heat.