This post contains affiliate links. When you purchase through our links, we may earn a commission.
Cabbage leaves stuffed with a savoury combination of ground beef, pork, rice and vegetables, then cooked in the oven in a creamy tomato sauce. Making cabbage rolls at home is much easier than you think!
Serve these with our Herb and Garlic Mashed Potatoes for a satisfying and cozy dinner.
Cabbage Rolls
Stuffed Cabbage rolls is a dish that every Russian and Ukrainian family makes. It’s a true comfort food for us, while managing to be quite healthy! It might be a little fiddly but not difficult at all.
Do you ever wonder how Russians survive long and cold winters without constantly coming down with colds? The secret is eating a lot of cabbage in the winter.
How is it relevant? Cabbage has LOADS of vitamin C, more than oranges! We can eat it as a salad, in soups, braised, or many other ways as well!
How to Make Cabbage Rolls
The recipe I am sharing today is my mother’s. I might’ve tweaked it a bit to make it easier but the taste remained the same.
What cabbage to use
The most traditional cabbage to use in this recipe is green cabbage, however I’ve recently been experimenting with Savoy cabbage and loved the results.
Savoy cabbage is considered to be the sweetest of all cabbages. It also adds more texture to this dish and is a dream to work with as the leaves separate much easier.
Whatever type of cabbage you use make sure it’s fresh and crispy. I found that using cabbage later in the season (around March or April) produces cabbage rolls that could be a bit tough and stringy.
Cabbage roll stuffing
These rolls are stuffed with a mixture of extra lean proteins. Ground beef and pork, caramelized onions, carrots, lots of fresh parsley and rice.
After the cabbage leaves are stuffed and rolled they are baked in a sour cream tomato sauce. It’s a one pot dish, that takes a bit of time to prepare but once it’s in the oven, it cooks hands free!
How to Separate Cabbage Leaves
My mother never did that but I use a new method for separating cabbage leaves, which is much easier and faster.
According to the traditional method you have to boil a head of cabbage for a short time until the leaves soften enough to pull them apart. Sounds easy enough but it turns out to be a lot of pain!
You have to boil it long enough for the leaves to become pliable but not too long so they turn mushy.
Then you have to pull that cabbage out of boiling water, burn your fingers in the process, cut away the outer leaves, then put it back in the water, then take it out again. Pain!
I’ve heard that it’s possible to freeze cabbage instead of boiling it with the same results. Sure enough, I froze it for a couple of days, then defrosted it and the leaves were very easy to separate and perfect for rolling! Success.
This recipe yields 10-12 servings. Basically it makes enough for two full meals.
Can I freeze cabbage rolls?
Yes! They are very freezer friendly. Just pop them in freezer bags and they will keep for at least a month. This way you’ve got delicious dinner put away for a day in the future when you don’t feel like fussing in the kitchen.
More authentic Russian cabbage recipes to try
- Braised Cabbage with Bacon and Mushrooms
- Homemade Russian Sauerkraut (Kvashenaya Kapusta)
- Beef and Cabbage Soup Shchi
- Lazy Cabbage Rolls (Easy Version)
Cabbage Rolls “Golubtsi”
Equipment
- This is an affiliate link.Cast iron casserole dish
Ingredients
For the sauce
- 250ml/1 cup This is an affiliate link.chicken stock
- 250ml/1 cup sour cream or creme fraiche, full fat
- 500ml/2 cups This is an affiliate link.canned crushed tomatoes, or passata
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Freeze the cabbages 3 days before you need it. The night before defrost cabbage and keep them in the fridge until you are ready.
- Cook rice in plenty water the same way you would pasta until al dente for approximately 5 minutes after the water boils. It shouldn't be too soft. Drain and set aside.
- In a frying pan heat olive oil and cook onions over low heat for 7-10 minutes until tender.
- Grate carrots. In a large bowl combine beef, pork, parsley, onions, carrots, rice, salt and pepper.
- In a medium bowl whisk together stock, crushed tomatoes and creme fraiche, salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Place your head of cabbage on a cutting board, cut off the bottom and pull the leaves away from the stalk. Repeat with the second head of cabbage.
- Preheat your oven to 350F/180C.
- Clear your work space, so all ingredients are within reach. Take a cabbage leaf and cut the rib down, so it's not too thick. Put 2 tbsp of filling at the bottom of the wide part of a leaf (see picture above) and roll it like a burrito, tucking sides in. Your cabbage rolls will vary in size slightly depending on the size of cabbage leaves. You will have approximately 30-32 cabbage rolls.
- Pour a cup of the sauce on the bottom of your cast iron casserole or any other heavy bottom casserole dish and start stacking your cabbage rolls. Half way through add a couple of bay leaves and 1/3 of the sauce and continue stacking until all cabbage rolls are gone.
- Pour the remaining sauce over cabbage rolls, cover with a lid and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Then take the lid off and bake for 30 more minutes. Serve with additional sour cream or creme fraiche and fresh herbs like dill and parsley.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Thank you for the recipe. Please note however that the dish’s origin is Polish and that It is called “GOลABKI” which simply means “peageons”.
When you place the cabbage in the freezer do you put it in aziploc? Or just uncovered?
I put it in a ziplock.
These are similar to the ones my Ukranian mom makes except no carrots or parsley in them. She covers them with tomatoe soup mixed with carnation milk and tomatoe juice. Have to try your version!
It seems that eastern European countries all have some version of this dish. My mother was Polish. She would use tomato soup instead of canned tomatoes for a mellower flavor.
Sometimes, she would crumble crisped bacon in the mix. That was my favorite! A Polish woman I know said they would add chopped mushrooms as a variation. I’ll definitely try the freezer trick.
Wow! This takes me back to simpler, humbler times. Yet we had everything we needed, and didn’t know it.
Hello! I was excited when I saw this recipe because it is exactly like a Lithuanian dish that my husband and I have fallen in love with. I worked all day making this dish and, sadly, the meat never finished cooking inside the rolls! I halved the recipe and put the rolls and sauce in an oven safe dish. Since I didn’t have a dish with a lid, I used aluminum foil instead. After 1 hour of cooking covered and 30 minutes uncovered, the meat was still pink. So, I cooked them covered for another hour and they were still pink. I then decided to try to finish them in the slow cooker and put the rolls, sauce, and extra chicken stock in the slow cooker on high for 3 hours. The meat was still pink and inedible. Do you have any suggestions for next time?
Hi Hannah, I am sorry this was your experience. Ground beef should never be cooked this long, so it’s no surprise it was inedible after 6.5 hours of cooking. My only guess is maybe the oven was on a wrong setting and the meat was not actually cooking or it was just pink but not raw. The amount of time indicated in the recipe is more than enough for the meat to cook all the way through and be safe to eat. If you are in doubt you can always check the internal temperature, which should read 160F according to health and safety. Best wishes, Julia
Go in to a Doar Store and buy an oven thermometer. The kind that hangs off the bottom of the oven rack. Set hour oven at 350 to bake and leave it to heat 30 minutes. Your thermost at may be off. [F after 30 minutes oven isn’t yet at 350, raise the temp and see where you need to set it to reach 350. It may simply be a quirky temperamental thermostat.
Made these tonight and they are wonderful!!!! I paired them with a really dense, crusty bread to sop up the sauce. So, so, so fantastic!
Every dish I’ve made from your blog has been unbelievable! Thanks so much for all your effort!!
Thank you so much, Jessica! What a sweet comment!! Thank you for following. ๐
Can I use minute rice uncooked instead of long grain cooked rice.????
Marie, I’ve never used that product, so I can’t be really sure…I suppose so.
I am kind of new to cooking. I was wondering what else I could use if I don’t have a cast iron pot?
Kristin, you don’t have to use a cast iron pot, you can use any oven-proof dish that is big and deep enough. ๐
My sister just reminded me that we also put a large sliced white onion in with the crushed tomatoes. Again, thanks so much for sharing!
You are welcome and thank you for sharing your family recipe. ๐
I am just now coming across your recipe. This is the first meal I EVER learned to prepare (I was probably 4). Cabbage rolls are our traditional family meal. We make them a bit differently than you do, but yours sound wonderful as well. We had always known that their origin was somewhere across The Pond, but we were’t really sure where. We do core and freeze our cabbage beforehand. We also simmer a pot of water, stab the middle of the cabbage, and dunk it in and out quickly to peel the leaves. We stuff it with a pound of hot sausage, a pound of mild sausage, and rice mixed in until it “feels” right. We roll each up, and lay them seam side down in the pot. We open two large cans of crushed tomatoes and pour them over, juice and all. Then we sometimes add a couple of cans of drained diced tomatoes. About a tablespoon of ketchup to cut the acidic taste of all those tomatoes. We usually eat so many of them that we don’t need a side dish. Thank you so much for sharing this and helping me learn more about their origins!