Making Cabbage Rolls Just Got Easier With These Quick Tips (2024)

FAQs

Why is my cabbage tough on my cabbage rolls? ›

If your cooked cabbage is tough, it's likely because the cabbage is not cooked through yet. Continue to cook the rolls until they're tender. It's also important to make sure you let the rolls rest after they're finished baking.

Prep the Cabbage

Bring a large pot of salted water (about 3 tbsp of fine sea salt) to the boil. Gently slide the leaves into the hot salted water. Scoop the leaves out to drain once they become tender enough to be pliable (about 3-4 minutes) and set them aside on a tea towel.

Any variety of green cabbage will do for this recipe, but we went with savoy cabbage because the leaves are a bit looser and easier to work with. The leaves are also just the right shape and size for this application.

You don't add baking soda. Adding baking soda to your boiling cabbage can help reduce the objectionable smell and maintain the green color long after when it typically turns grayish from cooking for too long. However, this may rid the cabbage of its nutritional value.

An old trick to use is to leave the cabbage lightly doused in vinegar water for a couple of minutes before proceeding to wash the cabbage with water. Usually between two or four minutes. Vinegar kills some types of bacteria and helps killing mold and mildew that could have grown on the cabbage.

So at first, eating the outer leaves didn't sound too appetizing. But that's the thing about growing your own food; you put so much effort into your plants so it just kills you to let anything go to waste. So I decided to make cabbage rolls with the outer leaves. My goodness they were fabulous.

We wanted to find a method that would keep the cabbage from watering down the dressing and also a way to make the salad piquant without tasting too sharp. The solution: Some recipes call for soaking cabbage in ice water to make it crisp and plump.

If you want to make stuffed cabbage leaves, you don't have to cook the leaves to make them pliable. It's a lot easier just to freeze the cabbage—an added benefit is it doesn't stink up your house.

Method #1: Cut the core out before halving the cabbage. This is how to core cabbage for cabbage rolls, because the whole leave is used for rolling. If the cabbage is halved before coring, then the whole leaf won't be there for stuffing.

How do you keep cabbage crispy? ›

– Place your cabbage in the crisper drawer and/or in a large plastic storage bag to hold in its natural moisture. – Don't cut it, ideally. When you cut a cabbage, it can start to brown and lose moisture much faster than a whole head.

The cabbage roll is a staple in the Romanian cuisine with variations of the recipe and sizing depending on the region, typically taking up to 6 hours to cook. Traditionally made with pork, beef, bacon, rice, spices and aromatics, broiled in a tomato sauce and served with polenta, sour cream and spicy pickled peppers.

Many people prefer savoy cabbage to regular cabbage because of its milder flavour and tender leaves. This is the perfect cabbage for using raw and thinly sliced in salads, stir-fries, or braised with butter. Savoy cabbage works nicely as a fresh and crunchy wrap – you can substitute it for rice paper or tortillas.

When you salt any vegetable that has high water content, the salt draws out some of the water by simple osmosis. You don't want to salt lettuce in advance — it will wilt — but salting works wonders with cabbage. The shredded leaves become more tender, and their flavor grows more concentrated.

Once people started roasting them at a high heat, perhaps with a little extra salt and fat (like bacon), it was a game-changer. You can also try slicing cabbage thin and sautéing it to maintain some of its crunchy texture.

The key to cooking cabbage: Don't overcook it.

Cabbage is sweet and aromatic when cooked correctly. But the same sulfuric compounds that provide many of its health benefits can turn saboteur when overcooked, creating a pungent, unpleasant smell.

Recipe Tips warns us that when cooking cabbage, only heat it until it is tender, if your cabbage is overcooked it will look wilted and smell like rotten eggs.