Baked sauerkraut with rice and smoked sausages – traditional family recipe
Sauerkraut with rice and smoked sausages, a traditional family recipe full of flavor and nostalgia.
Baked sauerkraut with rice and smoked sausages
Course: Main, Lunch, DinnerCuisine: RomanianDifficulty: Easy8
servings20
minutes3
hours20
minutes380
kcal3
hours40
minutesHave you ever heard of those dishes that feed more than just hunger? They’re the simple recipes that come packed with memories, the smell of a warm kitchen, and moments you never forget.
Sauerkraut with rice is one of those recipes for me. My grandmother used to make it often when we were children, and we would come back from playing and rush straight to the pot with our spoons while she gently told us to be patient.
Even later, during my college years, it was one of the dishes I would always ask her to pack for me. Simple, flavorful, and incredibly comforting.
Today, I make it in my own version, with smoked sausages for extra flavor, but with the same taste that instantly takes me back home.
For this recipe, I used the Nicolai Tand – Origini ceramic pot from Cooking by Heinner, which I fell in love with both for its design and for the fact that it can be used directly on the flame, not just in the oven. It’s perfect for slow-cooked dishes that need time for the flavors to blend beautifully.
Even though my grandmother is no longer with us, I want the recipes she raised us with to live on, in my own way, here on the blog. Let’s begin!
Ingredients
2 sauerkraut heads (approx. 2–2.5 kg)
4 large onions, sliced
150 g rice
300 g smoked sausages, sliced into rounds
400 ml tomato sauce
4–5 tablespoons oil
1 L sauerkraut juice
ground pepper + thyme (to taste)
2 bay leaves
Preparation method:
- We only need a few simple ingredients for a traditional dish full of flavor. The smoked meat can be replaced with anything you like or completely omitted during fasting periods.
- To begin, we finely chop the sauerkraut and set it aside. If it is too salty or too sour, we can quickly rinse it and drain it well before using.
- In the ceramic pot, we sauté the onions in oil until they become soft and lightly golden. My grandmother used lard, and if you want a more traditional flavor, you can easily replace the oil with it. We add the smoked sausages and cook them for a few minutes, just enough for them to release their aroma.
- The next ingredient we add is the rice — I didn’t rinse it, as I want the starch to give the dish extra creaminess. At this point, I also add half of the tomato sauce.
- We add the chopped sauerkraut, season with pepper, thyme, and bay leaves, then pour in the remaining tomato sauce and the sauerkraut juice. We mix well, cover the pot, and transfer everything to the oven for about 2–3 hours, until the cabbage becomes very tender and the flavors blend beautifully.
- Being slow-cooked in the ceramic pot, the dish cooks evenly and develops that perfectly rich, cohesive texture specific to homemade recipes.
Sauerkraut with rice and smoked sausages is served warm, either on its own or with hot peppers and fresh bread. It’s even better the next day, after the flavors have had time to blend and deepen beautifully. - It’s one of those recipes that proves the best dishes are often the simplest ones. Full of flavor, nostalgia, and beautiful memories, this sauerkraut with rice remains for me more than just a recipe — it’s a piece of my childhood that I try to carry forward.
