Fermented foods exist on every inhabited continent – sour milks, pickled vegetables, soy and seed pastes, grain beers and breads – each shaped by the local crops, climate and microbes. Below are 25 of the best known, grouped by region, with a short description of each and a link to our full guide. They’re not ranked: “best” here means widely loved and worth knowing, not a score.
What counts as fermented? An international expert panel defines fermented foods as “foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions of food components” (Marco et al., 2021). That includes foods that end up with no live microbes – bread, injera, most beer, pasteurized sauerkraut – and excludes vinegar-only pickles.
East Asia
1. Kimchi (Korea)
Napa cabbage or radish salted, then seasoned with chili, garlic, ginger and usually fish sauce, and fermented by lactic acid bacteria. Eaten raw, it brings live cultures and vitamin K to almost every Korean meal.
2. Miso (Japan)
A salty paste of soybeans, salt and koji (grain grown with the mold Aspergillus oryzae), aged for months. White miso is younger and sweeter; red miso is aged longer and saltier.
3. Natto (Japan)
Whole soybeans fermented by Bacillus subtilis var. natto at about 40°C for a day, giving sticky strings and a strong smell. Very rich in vitamin K – a concern for people on warfarin.
4. Doenjang (Korea)
Korean soybean paste made from blocks of fermented soybeans (meju) brined and aged; the liquid becomes soy sauce. Earthier and chunkier than miso – compare them in our fermented soybean guide.
5. Kombucha (China, now global)
Sweetened tea fermented by a SCOBY – a cellulose mat of yeasts and acetic acid bacteria – into a tart, lightly fizzy drink. Its often-quoted ancient history is hard to document; its modern spread is well recorded.
More from East Asia: China’s aged, microbially fermented pu-erh tea.
South and Southeast Asia
6. Tempeh (Indonesia)
Cooked, dehulled soybeans bound into a firm cake by the mold Rhizopus in about a day. A mild, nutty protein food, eaten cooked.
7. Dosa and idli batter (South India)
Soaked rice and black gram (urad dal) ground and fermented overnight until bubbly, then steamed into idli or cooked into thin dosa.
8. Tapai (Indonesia and Malaysia)
Steamed glutinous rice (or cassava) fermented with a ragi starter of molds and yeasts for a few days into a soft, sweet, slightly alcoholic food.
9. Lassi (India and Pakistan)
Plain yogurt (dahi) whisked with cold water and seasoned salty with roasted cumin or sweet with sugar and cardamom.
More from South and Southeast Asia: Myanmar’s fermented tea-leaf salad lahpet thoke, Malaysian fermented durian tempoyak, Thailand’s sour pork sausage naem, Manipur’s fermented bamboo shoots soibum and eastern India’s rice beer handia.
West Asia and the Caucasus
10. Kefir (Caucasus)
Milk fermented by kefir grains – clusters of bacteria and yeasts – into a tangy, drinkable fermented milk. Compare brands in our best kefir guide.
11. Labneh (Levant)
Yogurt strained in a cloth until thick and spreadable – a yogurt “cheese” made without rennet, eaten with olive oil and za’atar.
12. Doogh (Iran)
Yogurt blended with cold still or sparkling water, salt and dried mint – Iran’s savory drink with meals.
Africa
13. Injera (Ethiopia and Eritrea)
Teff batter fermented for two to three days, then steamed on a griddle into a spongy, sour flatbread that serves as plate and utensil.
14. Amasi (Southern Africa)
Thick, tangy milk soured at room temperature by lactic acid bacteria such as Lactococcus. At home, start from pasteurized milk and a live culture rather than raw milk.
15. Togwa (Tanzania)
A sweet-sour, non-alcoholic drink of cooked maize or sorghum porridge sweetened with malted grain flour and briefly fermented.
More from Africa: North Africa’s aged, salted butter smen.
Europe
16. Sauerkraut (Central Europe)
Shredded cabbage with about 2–2.5% salt, packed so its own juice covers it and fermented for weeks. Raw sauerkraut has live cultures; canned and shelf-stable kraut doesn’t.
17. Kvass (Eastern Europe)
Dark rye bread or rye malt fermented with water, sugar, yeast and lactic acid bacteria into a lightly sour, lightly fizzy drink.
18. Filmjölk (Sweden)
A mild, slightly thick fermented milk made at room temperature with mesophilic lactic acid bacteria.
19. Żurek (Poland)
A sour soup built on żur, rye flour and water fermented for several days, simmered with sausage and potatoes and served with egg.
20. Skyr (Iceland)
Skimmed milk fermented with skyr cultures and strained; it takes three to four times as much milk as yogurt, so it’s thick and high in protein.
More from Europe: Russia’s baked fermented milk ryazhenka, Romania’s fermented wheat bran borș, used to sour soups, and Friuli’s turnips fermented in grape pomace, brovada.
The Americas and the Pacific
21. Curtido (El Salvador)
A cabbage, carrot, onion and oregano slaw served with pupusas – made either as a quick vinegar pickle or fermented with salt like sauerkraut.
22. Chicha de jora (Peru)
An Andean beer of sprouted, dried and ground maize (jora), mashed so its enzymes make sugar, boiled and fermented.
23. Tepache (Mexico)
Pineapple peel and core fermented with piloncillo and spices for two or three days into a sweet, slightly fizzy drink.
24. Tejuino (Mexico)
Masa and piloncillo cooked, briefly fermented and served ice-cold with lime, salt and lime sorbet.
25. Poi (Hawaiʻi)
Cooked, pounded taro thinned with water, eaten fresh or left a day or more to sour as lactic acid bacteria ferment it.
More from the Americas: Bolivia’s chicha de quinoa, the Caribbean bark drink mauby and lightly fermented sugarcane juice, guarapo.
Do Fermented Foods Do You Good?
The best human evidence so far comes from a Stanford study of healthy adults (18 per group): over 17 weeks, a diet high in fermented foods – yogurt, kefir, kimchi, kombucha and similar – steadily increased gut microbiome diversity and decreased markers of inflammation, while a high-fiber diet didn’t change diversity (Wastyk et al., 2021). It’s a small study, and the benefits apply to foods that still contain live cultures. For a sensible amount, see how much fermented food to eat per day.
Some people need care: anyone who is immunocompromised or pregnant should avoid unpasteurized or raw-milk products; people taking MAOI antidepressants should limit high-tyramine foods such as aged and long-fermented products; and natto’s vitamin K interferes with warfarin. Many fermented foods – kimchi, miso, doenjang, sauerkraut – are also high in salt.
To browse every world ferment on the site by region, see our world ferments hub. To compare them side by side – how each is fermented, its main microbes, live cultures and alcohol – see the world fermented foods table.
