Cabbage Roll Casserole is a super easy meal that you can prepare any day of the week.
Cabbage Rolls are delicious! I grew up on cabbage rolls made by my mom and grandma!
Recently, I’ve been making a cabbage roll casserole… so much quicker than rolling up the rolls themselves and equally delicious!
Here is one of my favorite things about recipes! You start with one thing and along the way the recipe gets tried and modified and shared and passed on. Finally, you may end up with something else that was just as wonderful or sometimes even better!
Last week, a reader had asked me if my Cabbage Roll Casserole recipe would work in the slow cooker… I hadn’t tried it! Well, Sue tested it out and I knew I had to try it out right away! I had a couple of different items in my pantry so I modified it a tiny bit further but let me tell you, the results were AMAZING!! This is my favorite cabbage roll dish yet! So a special thank you to Sue for inspiring this yummy recipe, you won’t be disappointed!
If you’re looking for another hearty dinner idea, be sure to check out my Cabbage Roll Soup recipe!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds lean ground beef or ground pork, or a mixture of the two
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 onion diced
- 15 ounces tomato sauce divided
- 1 cup water
- 10.75 ounces condensed tomato soup 1 can
- 28 ounces canned diced tomatoes with juices
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- ¾ cup long grain white rice uncooked
- 1 medium head cabbage
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese optional
Instructions
- Brown beef or pork, onion, garlic and seasonings over medium heat until no pink remains. Drain.
- Add 1 cup tomato sauce, 1 cup water and ½ can of tomato soup and diced tomatoes to the beef.
- Stir in rice, and mix well until heated through. Remove from heat.
- Chop cabbage into 4 wedges and remove core. Chop into chunks (mine were about ¾"x1 ½").
- Layer ½ of the meat mixture and ½ of the cabbage in the slow cooker. Repeat layers. Place half the meat and then half the cabbage in cooker.
- Combine the remaining tomato soup, remaining tomato sauce and ⅓ cup water. Pour over top of cabbage.
- Cook on low 4-6 hours or just until rice is cooked. Once done, turn slow cooker off, sprinkle cheese on top and let sit 10 minutes to set and melt cheese.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Casserole
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
I would like to make these for tomorrow and would like to know how to modify this recipe. I need to make this without the rice. Can you suggest how to modify this recipe. Thank you. Your follower from Canada’s nation capital.
If you would like to make this without rice you could add “cauliflower rice” or even quinoa in its place. To make cauliflower rice I chop it to the size of rice in my food processor and then fry it with a little bit of oil to remove the water.
You may need to keep an eye on the liquid level to avoid having a watery casserole as the rice won’t soak any of the liquid up.
Tomato soup has wheat in it so how would you adjust to make gluten free?
Because I don’t follow a gluten free diet I’m not exactly sure what products can be substituted.
I added small can of diced to tomato to replace the tomato soup . My son and grand son have to eat gluten free . I triesD that and seemed to work good.
You can take the total oz required in fresh tomatoes and put them in the blender to make your own puree! I use Romas and I don’t even peel them, I just cut them in half and throw them in and the blender chops everything up. Just add more seasonings to compensate for what isn’t in the canned goods, because this also eliminates a lot of salt and any in-house herbs or spices they’d put in at the factory. The tomatoes will cook in the slow-cooker so you don’t have raw tomato flavor at the end. It’s a great way to have a little more control over what goes into your food! :)
I (joyfully) found a head of cabbage in the bottom of my fridge yesterday that I didn’t even realize I had. Luckily, it was still fresh, so I told my husband we’d be having some form of cabbage rolls today. I stumbled upon this recipe after I googled for recipes, and worked on assembling it while my daughters ate lunch today. YUM. I did take about a half hour of prepwork, but it was so worth it (and so easy). I just taste-tested a small amount of it to see how much longer it needs to cook, and it’s delicious!!
So glad you enjoyed it!
I am making this recipe right now!! I am so excited because I’ve never had a cabbage roll ever in Texas!! They sound amazing! I did add some frozen spinich into the meat and sauce mix and added chicken broth instead of water for more flavor!! Smells so good can’t wait till dinner! This filled my large crock pot to the brim! Thanks for a great recipe.
I made this last night and it is delicious. I had to make a few minor changes to use what I had in the kitchen. I used sharp cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella. and minute rice instead of regular rice. I should have used regular rice because the rice was overdone when the cabbage was done. I’ll definitely be making this again. I have loved cabbage rolls since I was a kid and my mom made them. yummmmm.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe Rhonda!
Can you please adjust the print page so that the pictures will not show? It takes up quite a bit of ink.
Thank you!!!
Thank you for letting me know Kate! I’ve updated the page!
I have made this 2 times now and it is awesome! I use maple sausage, the purple cabbage, and add mushrooms. I could eat it for days. Ty so much for this amazing recipe. =)
Excellent recipe, surprised at how easy and well it tastes. Used suggestions above (dark stout beer, and 1lb ground turkey, and 1/2lb lean beef, also used diced tomato’s with green chili’s).
Thanks!
I’m making this recipe right now since I have a craving for cabbage rolls! Recipe looks great! I’m just wondering about the cooking time when you combine the rice with the meat and sauce over medium heat. What exactly is the cooking time prior to assembling all of the ingredients in the slow cooker?
Hi Mike, great question, I’m gong to update the post to make it more clear!
It’s just a couple of minutes to heat the mixture. The rice fully cooks in the slow cooker!
This was a hit with my family. Easy to make and super tasty. I followed the recipe, substituting ground turkey only for the meat. I used Minute Rice (whole wheat). I topped the recipe off with a few shakes of Franks Hot Sauce for some kick and real Parmesan cheese flakes. I cooked for 6 hours on low and done to perfection. My family of 4 loved it and had seconds. Thank you. A favorite in my recipe box now.
:) So glad you and your family loved it Kim!
can this be made in the new crock pot casserole slow cooker and if so, are there any adjustments in the cooking time. Thanks.
I am not familiar with the New Crock Pot Casserole Slow cooker but hopefully there is some information in the manual that can help you.
This was great! Only changes were to not cook the pork beforehand, just saute the garlic and onions and seasoning. Added cumin to the crock. Very good!
Could I use arborio rice?
I haven’t tried it with arborio rice. I’m sure it would work, you just may need to adjust the liquid amount to get the desired consistency.
I just threw this together. I’m excited as I have never made cabbage rolls or otherwise…lol Always waited for my mom to make it.
I can’t have rice, so I used Quinoa instead. Hope it works. Wish me luck. lol :-)
Can I use Minute Rice It’s all I have available right now and its snowing I do not want to go out
I haven’t tried it with minute rice so I don’t know for sure how it would hold up. You might like to try slightly pre-cooking the cabbage for a few minutes to slightly soften it and then decreasing the cooking time a little bit so the minute rice doesn’t get too mushy.
Why put cheese on it?? I have never heard of cabbage rolls having cheese. That really makes it fattening–don’t you think. ?? Some people are trying to regain their waistlines. lol
The cheese is optional but we like it. If you are watching your waistline you can definitely skip it.
Trying this exact recipe i have had it on low for 4 hours and the cabbage is still hard.
It may still need another hour or two to completely soften.
Delicious!!!! Made this with grd pork, since that’s what I had. Used brown rice. Omitted the cheese. DH and I stirred some sauerkraut into our bowls with the cabbage. I will make this again and again.
So glad you enjoyed it Heidi! (I love brown rice!)
This recipe is wonderful. I made it as posted. Taste just like grandmas stuffed cabbage but so much easier. I did the prep last night and put it all together in the crockpot this morning. Came home to a delicious hearty meal.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this as much as we did Chris!
Using bottled spaghetti sauce instead of can tomatoes . I also substituted a 1/2 pound of turkey sausage for ground beef. I’ll let you know how it goes.