Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Jota
A Ljubljana stew of soured sauerkraut, borlotti beans, potato, and smoked pork, winter in a pot.
Slovenian · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 90 min
~381 cal · 31g protein · 38g carbs · 11g fat · 8g fiber · 1g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Jota is the taste of the Slovenian winter, a peasant one-pot from the alpine and Karst country that made a little smoked pork stretch across a whole family. Sauerkraut or soured turnip, beans, potatoes, and smoked pork ribs or sausage are simmered together slowly until everything softens and the flavours meld.
Its character comes from the meeting of three things: the tang of the cabbage, the earthy heft of the beans, and the smoke of the pork, drawn together over a long, gentle that steams up the whole kitchen. Like most such dishes it is even better reheated the next day.
It belongs to the cold months and to the border regions Slovenia shares with Italy and Austria, where versions of it turn up under other names. Humble, sour, and deeply warming, jota is exactly the kind of frugal mountain cooking that becomes a mark of home.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy-, gluten-, nut- and egg-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
1 lb smoked pork ribs
1 lb sauerkraut, drained
1.5 cups dried borlotti (cranberry) beans, soaked overnight
2 medium waxy potatoes, diced
4 cloves garlic
2 leaves bay leaf
1 tsp marjoram
Instructions
1
Simmer the soaked beans in fresh water with the bay leaf for 45 minutes until nearly tender; keep the cooking liquid.
2
In a second pot, cover the smoked ribs (or smoked tofu) with water and simmer 40 minutes to build a smoky broth.
3
Add the sauerkraut straight from its jar, drained but barely rinsed, with the potatoes, garlic and marjoram, and cook 20 minutes until the potato is soft.
✎ Chef’s note
Do not wash the sauerkraut properly and never pre-boil it. Rinsing it out is the commonest way jota goes wrong: it takes the sourness that the whole dish is built on. If your kraut is fiercely sharp, give it the briefest rinse, or cut it with fresh white cabbage at about two to one.
4
Tip in the beans with a ladle of their liquid and mash a few potatoes against the side to thicken.
✎ Chef’s note
The other traditional thickener is a podmet: a spoon of flour fried in the fat for a couple of minutes and let down with the broth. Either way, stop cooking the beans once they are tender. Left too long they collapse to paste and the jota loses its texture.
5
Simmer 15 more minutes so the flavors marry, season only now, and rest off the heat. Jota always tastes better the second day.
✎ Chef’s note
Salt at the end, not the start. Between the smoked meat and the kraut the pot is already salty, and there is no taking it back out.
Ljubljana home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Ljubljana. Ljubljana warms winter with jota, a thick soup of sauerkraut, beans, and potato with smoked pork. Slovenian cooking sits between Alpine, Balkan, and Italian worlds, in buckwheat zganci, struklji rolled dumplings, and cured Karst ham.
🗺️
Slovenia. Slovenia sits where the Alps meet the Mediterranean, and its food follows, hearty sausages and buckwheat žganci in the hills, seafood and prosciutto on the coast. Štruklji dumplings and potica nut roll are national treasures.
🌍
Europe. Europe has written a great deal of its food into law. A regulation of 1992 created the protected designation of origin and the protected geographical indication, tying a name to a place and a method, and an EU evaluation published in 2021 counted more than three thousand registered names across those schemes, from cheeses and hams down to particular shapes of bread.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Slovenia
Ajdovi ŽganciRustic buckwheat "spoonbread" crumbles served with warm milk or cracklings, Slovenian comfort.
Kranjska KlobasaThe protected Carniolan sausage, simmered and served with mustard, bread, and sauerkraut, a Slovenian icon.
Prekmurska GibanicaA grand layered pastry of poppy seed, walnut, apple, and cottage cheese, Slovenia's most celebrated cake.
Browse all Slovenia recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Stews and braises keep 3 to 4 days refrigerated and often taste better the next day. Reheat gently, adding a splash of water if it has thickened.
Make it a Slovenia meal
Prekmurska GibanicaDessert
Kranjska KlobasaLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Jota?
A Ljubljana stew of soured sauerkraut, borlotti beans, potato, and smoked pork, winter in a pot.
Where does Jota come from?
Jota is a Slovenian dish from Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Can Jota be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Jota recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Jota safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Jota take to make?
About 110 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 90 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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