Stuffed Cabbage Soup
Love cabbage rolls but hate making them? Stuffed Cabbage Soup has the same ingredients as stuffed cabbage rolls – ground beef, rice, tomatoes, and cabbage – minus the extra time and effort to assemble them. You can even call it an unstuffed cabbage soup that you can eat on weeknights!
I wasn’t a big fan of stuffed peppers growing up, but I loved cabbage rolls.
Same concept, different vegetable. However, I hate making them.
I’m going to make a big assumption about you feeling the same way. Love eating them. Hate making them.
You need to make sure you have enough large, unripped cabbage leaves. Then you have to roll said leaves without tearing.
It may be fine for Sunday dinner, but not during the week when you’re home from work and rushing around for your evening activities.
Or maybe you had a long day in general and don’t want to work any harder than you have to. Is that too much to ask for?
That’s why I love making this Stuffed Cabbage Soup! It’s a comforting tomato-based soup with ground beef, tender cabbage, and rice all simmered in one pot.
Why You’ll Love This Stuffed Cabbage Soup Recipe
- Less labor intensive – No need to roll cabbage!
- One pot meal – No need to cook the ground beef or cabbage separately! Even the rice can be cooked directly into the soup.
- Makes 4 servings – You don’t need to serve an army just to enjoy this unstuffed cabbage soup!
Ingredients For Stuffed Cabbage Soup
Here’s what you need to make stuffed cabbage roll soup:
- Ground beef: I used 80/20 ground beef (80% lean, 20% fat) because that’s often the most affordable.
- Onion and garlic: Aromatics to build flavor
- Diced tomatoes: Since fresh tomatoes aren’t in season in the winter, using high-quality canned tomatoes means you can make this soup all year round.
- Tomato sauce: This is tomato puree in a can, not to be confused with spaghetti sauce
- Beef stock: Complements the ground beef but can also use chicken
- Cabbage: Your standard, basic green cabbage you can find at most grocery stores
- White rice: Cooks fast directly in the soup. Please note if you use a different type of rice especially brown the cooking time will change.
- Carrot: Adds a little touch of sweetness plus more vegetables = healthy, right?
- Brown sugar: Balances the acidity from the tomatoes
- Worcestershire sauce: Adds a bit of umami flavor
- Bay leaf, salt, and black pepper: Seasonings so your soup isn’t bland
What To Do With Leftover Cabbage
If you’re cooking for 1-2 people, then you know how annoying it is to buy cabbage because they’re huge; even the smallest head weighs about 2 pounds.
Sometimes I find half a head of cabbage wrapped and sold, which is helpful for small batch cooking. However, not every store does this.
That’s why when I do buy cabbage, I have at least 2-3 leftover cabbage recipes on my menu plan.
Usually I make haluski and Shrimp with Cabbage Noodles.
When it’s March, I make Stove Top Corned Beef and Cabbage.
How To Make Stuffed Cabbage Soup
Ready to make this recipe for stuffed cabbage soup? Here’s how:
- Cook ground beef, onion, and garlic until meat is no longer pink then drain the grease.
- Stir in tomatoes, sauce, and broth then bring to a boil.
- Add cabbage, rice, carrots, and brown sugar until cabbage and rice are soft and tender.
Refrigerate leftovers for up to 4 days. The soup will absorb the broth the longer it sits, so you may need to stir more in when reheating.
How To Prepare Cabbage
When I cut cabbage, I chop it up all at once then portion them into food containers. This is helpful for two reasons:
- You only need to use the cutting board and knife once, cutting down on future dishes. I do this for onions too, so there are meals where I don’t have to cut anything at all.
- You save future prep time. The prep time on this soup recipe is a lot mainly because you have to cut the cabbage, but if it’s ready to go, you save probably 20-30 minutes.
Not sure how to chop cabbage? Check out my step by step photo process on how to cut cabbage!
More Soup Recipes
If you enjoyed this stuffed cabbage roll soup, check out my other comforting soup recipes:
- One Pot Lasagna Soup
- Kohlrabi Soup
- Chicken Pot Pie Soup
- Broccoli Cheddar Soup
- Ham and Cheese Soup
- Cream of Onion Soup
Stuffed Cabbage Soup
Love cabbage rolls but hate making them? Stuffed Cabbage Soup has the same ingredients as stuffed cabbage rolls – ground beef, rice, tomatoes, and cabbage – minus the extra time and effort to assemble them.
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup diced yellow or white onion
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juices
- 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce (roughly 3/4 cup)
- 2 + 1/2 cups beef broth or stock, room temperature (plus more for serving - see Note)
- 1 cup chopped green cabbage (roughly 1/4 pound)
- 1/4 cup uncooked white rice
- 1 large carrot, shredded
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- Chopped parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large pot until hot. Add the beef, onion, and a big pinch of salt. Cook until the beef is no longer pink, about 5-8 minutes, breaking it into pieces with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Drain off any excess grease.
- Add the garlic and cook 60 seconds.
- Stir in the tomatoes with juices, sauce, and broth/stock. Bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, turn the heat down to simmer then stir in the cabbage, rice, carrots, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon salt, black pepper, and bay leaf. Simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes or until the cabbage is cooked and rice is soft, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the bay leaf and taste the soup. Depending on the broth, you may need to add up to 1/2 teaspoon salt.
- Remove from the heat and serve garnished with parsley.
As the soup sits, it'll absorb the broth/stock. If it's too thick for serving, add a little more liquid.
Refrigerate leftovers for up to 4 days.
Notes
- *This soup will absorb broth as it sits. If you feel it's not soupy enough, add more broth at the end.
- If you're new to working with cabbage, check out How To Cut Cabbage including step by step photos.
- Have leftover cabbage? Check out my other cabbage recipes to use up the leftovers.
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I have to have a low sodium diet for my mom
Can I’m se water instead of beef stock
Most brands now make no salt broths, so I highly recommend using that instead. However, you can use water although it’s going to be way more bland than using broth.
I too am on a low sodium diet. Better Than Boullion low sodium is a brand I use which comes in paste form. Your other alternative is using a good grade of vegetable broth such as Pacific Foods. The broth comes in both salted and unsalted varieties.
My family has been making this old weight watcher’s recipe for thirty years. A really fast tip is to use two bags of thick-cut prepackaged coleslaw mix. It is often sold with shredded carrots in the mix. It saves a ton of chopping time. We also use tomato juice instead of canned tomatoes. I cut open and dump in a bag of rice and cook it the full ten minutes. I never tried the beef broth, or bay leaf,, but I will. Thanks, for the tips, seeing this recipe on your page, reminded me how easy and good this is, and I’m adding it to my menu this week! There are barely any calories in this, you can practically eat the whole pot!
Oh I like the idea of using coleslaw mix to save time! Beef broth adds another layer of flavor, so I recommend trying it. Enjoy!
The secret to making stuffed cabbage is to immerse your head of cabbage in boiling water until the outermost leaves are soft; cut them off, and continue in this manner until you have enough leaves. I haven’t made stuffed cabbage in years, but that’s one technique I will never forget. Softening the leaves not only enables you to get them intact off the head, but also makes rolling easier.
As for this soup, it sounds good, but I would like to know how much rice is in one of those packages. I always prefer to cook my own – somehow the 20-30 minutes doesn’t seem like too much time to me.
Great tip on the cabbage! Each package is about 1 1/2 cups rice. You can add it with the cabbage to double up on the cooking time. Keep an eye on it to see if you need to add extra broth as it cooks.
I have solved my problem of messing with cabbge, by using bagged coleslaw, especially the kind that may have carrots & purple cabbage added. This way it is easy to add as little or as much as you like.
Smart tip! I’ll have to keep that in mind for future cabbage recipes. Thanks for sharing!
Making this recipe for the first time. Stuffed cabbage rolls are my favorite. I didn’t use Brown sugar Worcestershire sauce or carrots but may in the future. Very excited about dinner tonight.
Let me know how it turns out!
I made this tonight. I let it reduce a bit to get it really close to a deconstructed cabbage roll, and the flavor is spot-on. Very happy with this one, it’s a keeper.
Glad you enjoyed the soup!
I really enjoyed this recipe. It was simple and good. I had some sliced leftover meatloaf in the freezer so cheated and used that instead of the ground beef and onions. It worked really well. Thanks for sharing this nice keeper.
I like the idea of using meatloaf to make cooking easier!
Great recipe! I spiced it up a bit using fire roasted tomatoes that were low sodium and some tomato paste as well. I went light on the brown sugar and heavier on the worcestershire, added 1 Tb of Italian spices and decided to play around with Spanish rice in a pouch. I cook for a couple of seniors in the neighborhood who still like things spicy. The soup was well received!
Love the idea of using a Spanish rice pouch.