I haven't made them in awhile...but I precook the filling. Roll the rice and beef up in a cabbage leaf...dump red pasta sauce over the top ....bake. Otherwise....the juice from uncooked meat would make the sauce too runny.

I put the stuffing in raw and braise the rolls in a single layer in a tomato sauce made with canned tomatoes, a little vinegar and sugar, onion, garlic, herbs, etc, in a lidded casserolle on the hob. I don't have a particular recipe.

I've made a /soup recipe where you brown the ground beef and sausage/pork and then add onions, garlic, then cabbage , tomatoes , V-8 juice. Cook for a while then add rice until it's done.

Delicious, you could probably turn it into a casserole by leaving out the tomato juice.

Junco, that is more what I'm looking for, I don't want to make actual cabbage rolls today.

Although i have seen the recipes for stuff cabbage casserole I've never made one. I would boil the cabbage first, i would be afraid that the cabbage wouldn't be tender enough when the remaining ingredients were done.

FYI You can freeze the cabbage if you don't want to use it right away. When the cabbage is defrosted the leaves are tender enough to roll without boiling.

nekotish, I don’t have a TNT but a quick search for ”deconstructed stuffed cabbage” brought up several links you might check. I need to go back and check again since some looked worth it.

A friend got tired of watching her kids unwind the cabbage, so started making the filling as meatballs in the regular s&s sauce, and chopped and steamed the cabbage to serve on the side, even for company. It tasted the same as regular stuffed cabbage, with half the work. If you need a good stuffed cabbage recipe, look at Ina's. ;)

^I agree Ina’s recipe is good. I just have to omit the raisins.

I haven't made stuffed cabbage in years and instead opt for making "stuffed cabbage" soup. I use all the same ingredients but chop the cabbage instead and add it to the soup so I get the same flavors at a fraction of the work.

I stopped making them into rolls years ago--not worth the trouble. In order to roll the filling in the cabbage and get the cabbage leaves off the head whole you have to blanch the cabbage head a bit. But that is the only precooking I've ever done, rolled or casserole style. Meat/onion/rice all raw. When I make it like a casserole I chop up the cabbage raw and layer all the ingredients sort of lasagna style. It's delicious no matter how you do it--but if you want to impress then I suppose one should go with the rolls.

Yes, use raw meat because you want it to hold together. Use lean ground beef. I like plllog's idea of making meatballs in the sauce and serving them with cooked cabbage. I suppose you could also make rice on the side instead of adding it to the meat.

Question: how do you all season the meat for stuffed cabbage? Onion, garlic, anything else?

I just remembered the recipe I've had for years, which is a little different but very tasty. First of all, to answer my own question, it calls for 2 tsp. of paprika along with onion and garlic for a pound of ground beef and 1 cup of cooked rice.

After you use the outer leaves for stuffing, chop the remaining cabbage and mix with 8 oz. of drained sauerkraut. Place in a baking dish and place cabbage rolls on top.

Sauce:

16 oz. can tomatoes in sauce

4 crushed ginger snaps

2 tbsp. dark brown sugar

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 cup water

Combine sauce ingredients and pour over rolls. Cover pan with foil and bake @350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Whatever seasoning takes my fancy at the time. Caraway seed for a vaguely Eastern European vibe. Thyme, rosemary or bay for Mediterranean. Za’taar, barberries, raisins, cinnamon for Middle Eastern. And I put in vegetables like celery, carrot, leek, peas etc. Sometimes stretch the meat with lentils or mashed beans.

To season my filling, I use onion, garlic, Italian parsley, dill, and thyme.

I add gochugaru to the sauce, to make it spicy, which otherwise only has onion, garlic, tomato, and chicken stock.

I definitely would not want raisins in it, or anything sweet. I like Za'atar, but not cinnamon. I think Berbere spice might be good (which does have cinnamon, but not that much), and I make that and keep it on hand in the fridge because it has sesame seeds in it.

I steam the cabbage before making rolls, but I think you could skip that if you are making it in layers, but I would trim out the thickness of the stem parts. I do that with steamed cabbage also.

I am making cabbage roll casserole tonight for supper. The original recipe called for using tomato soup, water, 3 tbsp of rice, onion and a pound of ground beef. Pour meat mixture over chopped cabbage, do not stir, cook for about an hour covered in the oven. Now I use canned tomatoes and tomato puree, cauliflower rice, 2 lbs of ground beef and a whole head of cabbage chopped up. No onions because of an allergy in the family so I will add minced garlic instead. It tastes just like a cabbage roll without all the fuss and muss and the time of stuffing and rolling the cabbage.

Lars, I don't know what's in Za-atar or Berbere spice, but allspice is the traditional warm spice used with beef. I think a pinch of that would be good in the meat mixture and even in the sauce. I use a pinch in my Sloppy Joe meat sauce and in my hot dog sauce (Texas wieners for anyone from the Hudson Valley).

I just use a soured head of cabbage, chop it up, mix it with partially cooked rice, dillweed, bacon, garlic and put it in the oven for a few hours.

My Ukrainian MIL used to make it like that.

I do similar to Cherryfizz, rice, hamburger, cabbage, onions, tomato sauce. I added some cheese to mine last time I made it, just because. Come to think of it, I came across 2 containers in the freezer. Sounds like a meal for tomorrow nite.

Can you explain a ’soured’ head of cabbage, roxsol?

I make mine like Junco, above, but I don't include rice. I serve it with a dollop of sour cream on top.

floral, this is a commercial soured head of cabbage that I buy.

My MIL used to sour whole heads in huge crockpots. Then she would peel off each leaf and make tiny little cabbage rolls, holopchi (pigeons). They were divine.

This is a small pan I made last year but they are time consuming to make, so I go the lazy route and chop up the soured cabbage head.

Here is a recipe something like how I do it. I like the whole head sour cabbage as opposed to sauerkraut. It tastes better IMO.

https://domesticdreamboat.com/lazy-cabbage-rolls/

Oh, and I cook it for way longer than the recipe says.

eta My MIL’s were also way tinier than mine. No more than a heaping teaspoon of filling.

We used to use a mix of ground beef and ground pork to make it more tender. We'd saute diced bacon and then add chopped onion. Once translucent, add the bacon and onion with salt and pepper and garlic powder for flavoring to the ground meat, and of course cooked rice. Cut the core out of the cabbage and steam it in a steamer or colander over simmering water. As we could, we'd peel off a leaf and cut some of the back off the heavy stem end of the leaf to make it easier to roll. Add the meat mix and roll each leaf up. We'd cover the bottom of the 9x13 pan with some of the leftover cabbage to keep them from burning and layer in the rolls. Pour pureed tomatoes over the whole thing and ...most important for flavor add dill. Mom used to just pick dill out of the garden and lay it on top before covering with foil and baking, or you can stir chopped dill into the tomatoes. But without the dill, fuggetaboutit. In later years, Mom stacked them in a crockpot to cook, though you could layer them in a heavy duty pot and let it simmer on the stove too.

Now when I make the soup, I use all the same ingredients...only beef broth instead of ground beef, and cut up cooked pork instead of ground pork, though I suppose if you wanted to, you could make meatballs of some sort. I use the petit diced tomatoes in the soup with the juice.

This is making me start to want to make stuffed cabbage soup for sure!!

Another way to soften the cabbage is to put the whole head in the freezer, just in a bag. If it was a hearty cabbage, it wouldn't go mushy, just pliable.

I tried freezing cabbage once, but wasn't happy with the results; easy to roll, near impossible to chew...

I just bought a huge head of cabbage a couple days ago, so now this thread is making me want cabbage casserole. lol.

Interesting about the sour cabbage. I’ve never seen or heard of it here.

Re rolls. I blanch the leaves and score across any thick ribs. They're quick to roll and they stay rolled because they're packed tight in the pot.

Here's the recipe from Marcus Samuelsson that I use for Berbere Spice Mix. It does have allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg, all of which I usually do not like with meat, but the quantities are small enough that they blend rather than overwhelm and are not that noticeable as individual ingredients. Also, I use this spice mix very sparingly.

I agree that dill is essential for an Eastern European flavor, but it could be lost if Middle Eastern spices are added to the sauce. I prefer a Korean style sauce using Korean chili flakes for heat. This works well with the dill and Eastern European flavors.

Here's a previous thread on cabbage rolls.

Interesting to hear about scoring the ribs on the cabbage leaves to make them easier to roll. I have just been shaving off the excess thickness after the leaves have been steamed.

I have filed these ideas away as I ended up doing a 180 and making stuffed peppers. Did not solve my problem of the languishing cabbage - I'll deal with that tomorrow, but it did take care of tahe languishing peppers.

Another use for cabbage is halušky (ha LOOSH key) which is sauted onions and cabbage in butter. I add some caraway seeds. MIL boiled egg noodles and mixed them together and served it with cinnamon and sugar. Traditionally they'd be made with a noodle like dumpling instead...more like a spaetzle. I however just use the cabbage and onions as a side dish for ham or pork. I see other recipes where they add more stuff, but I don't.

Yes, I make that cabbage roll casserole. I cook the meat, garlic and onions, then add the rice and tomato to make the sauce. I slice the cabbage relatively thinly, almost like grating, or it takes way too long to cook. Layer like lasagna, cabbage/sauce/cabbage/sauce. Bake at 375 for a lot longer than any of the recipes say, because the cabbage always takes over an hour to become tender. We like it, but it's still time consuming, chopping all that cabbage. It at least gets tender, though, many times when I make cabbage rolls the filling is eaten and I find the cabbage "wrappings" left on the plate because they are tough.

Annie

Could it be your cabbage? Are you blanching the leaves? Can’t say I've ever had a problem with tough leaves.

Lol! Annie, I made golumpki last week and knew it would need hours in the oven for the cabbage to really be done. I was right.

Yes, floral, I blanch the leaves. I've also tried putting them in the microwave and freezing the head. Sometimes they are tender and sometimes they are not, and I always blamed the amount of time cabbage spends in storage. Older cabbage/tougher leaves, although I may be wrong.

PM, it always takes longer than the recipe says. I actually like to cook cabbage rolls in the crockpot because they can cook all day long and the cabbage actually gets tender that way.

Annie

The cabbage I get has seldom been stored for longer than a few days. We can get fresh cut all year round in our climate. I don’t often buy those tight white ball cabbages. I like a savoy type in winter and a green cabbage in summer. Rolls will cook thoroughly in 45 mins or so.

At the moment we are going through an energy crisis, thanks to Putin. Our gas and electricity bills are going through the roof, so switching the oven on at all takes some nerve. Energy are up by 80% this month. Many people are being thrown into debt and severe difficulty, unable heat their homes this winter.

I use Napa cabbage instead of Savoy, and it cooks faster.

I've never had the tough cabbage, but in my case it's probably dumb luck.

Dumb luck always. I prefer nappa but have had others and a large bag of baby bok choy a few months ago was so tough no mater what i did. Blanch, steam, grill, roast/braise---so tough and not freindly. My last nappa was huge and gorgeous. Made kimchi and steamed 'leaves' for rolls. Very tender. Growing conditions always come into play.

Cabbage rolls are not in our rotation but just made them a few weeks ago having such a big nappa. It was an easy weeknight meal on the heals of a Sunday braised pork shoulder with all the sides. Steamed till tender and rolled with pulled pork, chopped kimchi..tomatoes,.rice/beans, fennel/celery/red onion salad/slaw.

I've had great luck braising cabbage in my braising pan. I often add rice and beans or fake sausage and some tomato sauce, caraway and a dash of cider vinegar to the dish to make a riff on deconstructed cabbage rolls. I usually use chicken broth for the braising but water works too. We use our instapot now for making rice, freeze any leftovers.

I have some cherry tomatoes ripening, too many and a jar of Red Pepper sauce in the cabinet. I'm thawing out some ground beef and using leftover rice from yesterday and making a made up cabbage casserole. Thanks for starting this post!

Kathsgrdn--let us know how it turns out! Sounds delicious.

Well, it's done. Took a while to cook the cabbage through. I made layers at first with chopped cabbage, ground beef mixture and rice. The ground beef also had onions, tomatoes from the garden, a few green beans and okra from the garden (not enough to make anything with so I threw them in this), garlic, salt, pepper, a can of diced tomatoes, red pepper sauce, paprika, tumeric, and onion powder. After the first 20 minutes I noticed the top layers weren't cooking as well as the bottom, I mixed it all up and put it back in the oven.

Another 30 minutes and a taste test, and the cabbage on bottom was cooked more than top and it had a peppery taste that was a little more than I wanted so I boiled 3/4 cup of water in a measuring cup and added two bouillon cubes and half a can of tomato paste. I took out about 1/2 of the cubes before they dissolved because I got tired of waiting on them. I mixed it really good and stired it up in the casserole dish, hoping the less cooked cabbage would now cook through. Back in the oven for another 20 minutes. Cabbage soft and fully cooked now. It is very good! Cooling now in the fridge and I'm going to freeze a little over half and eat the rest for meals tomorrow and this weekend.

Tonight is our third supper eating cabbage roll casserole, we love it. I like mine with a dollop of thick sour cream. No leftovers for tomorrow

I made the meat mixture into meatballs like plllog suggested. I added paprika, dill, finely minced onion, raisins, and an egg to the meat but no bread crumbs. I baked them for 15 minutes so they wouldn't fall apart in the sauce. I simmered the sauce and meatballs for an hour.

I sauteed sliced cabbage and a shredded apple in a little chicken broth for a few minutes, then added the sauce and meatballs to the skillet and simmered it covered.

I served it on noodles and they really are a must with the saucy cabbage! I think the meatballs and noodles make it more of a Hungarian unstuffed cabbage recipe. It was a great autumn dish and is going into rotation at our house.