This stuffed cabbage rolls recipe is one I enjoyed from my grandma’s kitchen for years and years.
Tender cabbage leaves are filled with a beef and rice mixture and baked in with a simple tomato sauce.
This dish can be made ahead of time and reheats and freezes well.
Types of Cabbage Rolls
This cabbage rolls’ recipe comes from my grandma and my mom. My grandma immigrated from Poland so we have enjoyed many cabbage dishes or even just simple fried cabbage. Between pierogi and rouladen, Grandma’s kitchen always smelled incredible and there was always something amazing to eat!
There are many many different ways to make cabbage rolls based on family tradition and location. Polish cabbage rolls usually contain meat and rice while the Ukrainian version my friend Penny makes generally contain only rice.
While some add raw meat and rice and cook them with the cabbage, our family has always pre-cooked the rice and meat.
Ingredients in Cabbage Rolls
Cabbage
We use a head of regular green cabbage and boil it in a large pot of water to make it tender. Many people freeze the whole head of cabbage and thaw it to eliminate the boiling step but I find the cabbage isn’t as tender this way.
Meat Mixture
My grandmother always used pork in her cabbage rolls so I use a mixture of beef and pork. You can use just one or the other (or any ground meat). Cooked long-grain white rice is added to the meat along with an egg to help it hold together.
Sauce
Most Polish cabbage roll recipes are covered in tomato sauce or tomato juice. We love the addition of a can of tomato soup to tomato sauce. It may not be typical but it softens & sweetens the sauce slightly and tastes delicious!
How to Make Cabbage Rolls
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Boil cabbage until tender.
- Cook rice slightly undercooked per the recipe below. Brown the ground beef and pork while the rice is cooking. Combine remaining filling ingredients
- Add the filling to cabbage leaves and roll. Place seam side down in a casserole dish.
- Top with the sauce and bake.
Tips for Great Cabbage Rolls
- For the most tender cabbage leaves, boil them in salted water.
- Cut 1/2 inch off the head of cabbage, the leaves will fall off as they cook.
- Once boiled, use a small knife to cut the thick stem of the leaf (image above).
- Overlap smaller leaves and fill, even if they’re not pretty, they’ll cook perfectly.
- You may have leftover filling depending on the size of your cabbage. Extra filling can be added to tomato soup, or stuffed in zucchini or bell peppers.
- Cabbage rolls can be frozen before or after baking.
More From Grandma’s Kitchen
- Homemade Pierogi
- Cabbage and Noodles
- Creamy Cucumber Salad
- American Goulash Recipe
- Beef Rouladen
- Homemade Borscht
Did you make these cabbage rolls? Leave a comment and rating below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 head green cabbage
- 1 cup long grain white rice uncooked
- 1 pound lean ground pork or ground turkey
- ½ pound lean ground beef
- 2 small yellow onions diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- ½ teaspoon dried dill
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or, 1 tablespoons dried parsley
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 (14.5 ounce each) can diced tomatoes with juices
- 1 egg
- 1 ¾ cups tomato sauce divided
- 1 (10.75 ounce each) can condensed tomato soup
Instructions
- Boil cabbage leaves for about 2 minutes or until soft. (See note below for removing leaves). Set aside to cool.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Cook rice according to package directions but reduce cooking time by 5 minutes so the rice is slightly underdone. Set aside.
- Cook pork (or turkey), beef, onions, garlic, & seasonings in a pan until no pink remains. Drain any fat. Add in rice, diced tomatoes, and ⅓ cup of tomato sauce. Stir in egg.
- Mix the remaining tomato sauce and tomato soup in a bowl. Spread a very thin layer of the tomato sauce mixture in a 9x13 pan.
- Remove or thin any thick stem on cabbage leaves. Lay the cabbage leaf flat and add ¼ to ⅓ cup filling to the center of the leaf. Fold in the sides and roll the cabbage up. Place seam side down in the pan. (See note for small leaves). Repeat with remaining cabbage.
- Pour sauce over the cabbage and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 75-90 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Once boiled, use a small knife to cut the thick stem off the leaf (image above).
- Overlap smaller leaves and fill, even if they're not pretty, they'll cook perfectly.
- You may have leftover filling depending on the size of your cabbage. Extra filling can be added to tomato soup, or stuffed in zucchini or bell peppers.
- Cabbage rolls can be frozen before or after baking.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Beef, Casserole, Dinner
Cuisine Polish© 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.
Lovely recipe. Tweaked it a bit with gf breadcrumbs and a little parmigiana. Really lovely.
I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe!
Loved this recipe. The tomato soup cut down on the acidity of the tomatoes, wonderful rich flavor, like I cooked the sauce all day.
TIP I love this tip. I put my whole head of cabbage in the freezer the night before making cabbage rolls, take out of freezer next morning, thaw, the leaves are pliable and easy to handle you do not burn your fingers on boiled cabbage leaves. Also freezing the cabbage you don’t steam or boil out all the nutrients
Great tip, thank you for sharing!
Loved it!!! Had quite a bit of mixture left, so we warmed it up and added a block of cream cheese to it….AMAZING dip!
That sounds like a delicious dip!
My mother and grandmother made cabbage rolls also and of course, so do I! We are of Polish descent. We don’t cook the meat either, like one comment said, mix with cooked rice and seasonings. The one tweak which takes these rolls over the top is our tomato sauce which consists of stewed tomatoes crushed by hand in a bowl, mixed with a can of tomato soup and a cup or two of sour cream. You can double the sauce and no one will complain! Just makes a really delicious sauce. Baked in oven for 2 or 3 hours until everything is tender.
The addition of sour cream would be amazing.
Is this for condensed tomato soup? I have a can of condensed, so I’m not sure if I should dilute it first. Thanks!
Yes the soup is condensed soup. You do not need to dilute it.
Your recipes never cease to amaze me. They always appear low calorie, healthy, taste wonderful and are easy, quick, and inexpensive to make! I am never disappointed. You are my favorite recipe person on the web.
This looks awesome, will have to try this soon
Thank you for the recipe. My mother always made the best. I lived on golambki and pierogi. now if you could do the recipe for farmers cheese pierogi if you have it. Life would be grand if I learned to cook both. World’s worst cook. wish I had the talent.
Thank you for sharing. Very similar to my grandmothers recipe. Except she also added a little brown sugar and lemon juice to the tomato sauce!! I will be making this soon!!
Can you please tell me how to boil the head of cabbage? Do I put the cabbage when the water is boiling or, do I put it pot of water and let it boil? How long do I cook it? Thanks
To remove leaves from head of cabbage, cut approx ¼” off the bottom of the head and place the whole head of cabbage in boiling water. Boil about 2 minutes. Peel off the softened leaves. Place remaining head back in the boiling water and repeat until all of the leaves are removed. Remove any tough stems from cooked leaves.
I would like to make these the week before I need them. What is the best way to make them ahead of time? :)
You can make them as directed and freeze before baking. I would defrost them in the refrigerator overnight.
My family recipe uses sauerkraut in the cabbage rolls, too. I have yet to see a recipe that uses thhat ingredient. My ethnicity is German, Polish. Has anyone used sauerkraut in their cabbage rolls?
I haven’t but it sounds amazing, I’m going to hve to give it a try!
I use sauerkraut in my cabbage rolls because that’s how my mom made them.
You can also buy sauer cabbage that is just like sauerkraut for making cabbage rolls with and it simplifies having to add it to the mixture.
My sister and I were just talking about how we loved our mom’s recipe and wished we would have paid more attention before she passed. She never had anything written down but I know that she used tomato soup and I haven’t had any that have compared to hers yet. Just one question…… can I use minute rice?
You can but it will likely take on a softer texture. I wouldn’t cook it all the way.
Patti there are so many variations to this recipe. Yes we also get a BIG, BIG bowl and put the three different ground meats in. Ground round, veal, and pork. We flavor this meat very well with salt, pepper a large onion. Garlic, eggs, and rice uncooked. We always had our water boiling for the cabbage. We would take the core out before we put it in boiling water. We then mixed all ingredients in the big bowl. Mom would taste a tiny bit to make sure it had plenty of seasoning.
She didn’t put any sauce in the meat. It was cooked on top of the stove for maybe 2 hrs. She had the biggest pot and would put a bag of sauerkraut in the bottom and she used big can of tomato sauce and I would add some V8 juice. She stuffed all her cabbage rolls and kept putting them on top of each other. She also made some meatballs for the kids who didn’t like cabbage. It cooked gently for at least 2 hrs or more.mom also put water in with the tomato sauce. After a lengthy time she would try one to make sure the rice was cooked. If it was finished she put 2 big Tbs of bacon grease in and mixed it. That’s what I remember. There’s no right or wrong way.
I hesitated posting, but hopefully someone else won’tmake the same error. Your recipe ingredient list calls for one cup rice. Then the instructions say to cook the rice according to pkg directions. I then added all the rice into the meat mixture, but it was far more than a cup. I didn’t realize the error till I started mixing and thought it looked dry. I added some tomato sauce and a splash of tomato juice, but these are super “ricey”. We will eat them, they will still be good. But I have enough filling to easily make 10 more!
However, when posting ingredients, it would help to say ‘1 cup “cooked” rice. In addition, you should be specific about the tomatoes. I wasn’t sure if they should be drained or not. I didn’t drain, but it was anyone’s guess.
They smell great though! I froze the other half and we will surely eat those too. Thanks for sharing.
I am super picky when it comes to cabbage rolls (my grandma made them all the time) and let me tell you, these were the bomb! I made them almost exactly as the recipe stated minus one or two tweaks in flavour,
Thanks for the awesome recipe. Will be making this one again soon!
I’m so glad you loved them Donna!
I pretty much only make these ones now, super easy recipe to follow with max flavour. I add more tomato sauce because that’s how I roll (I like em saucy) these are now my go to
Thanks Holly !
this is a comfort food, just thinking of them makes my mouth water, add a side dish as a side salad or with homemade mashpotato, a little taste of Heaven!
Very very close to my own recipe, except I cook mine in a pressure cooker. I may try baking next time. I also use tomato soup, it really gives the best flavor.
I agree, I love how the tomato soup flavors the tomato sauce!
Holly I have even used V8 juice in them also (kinda tantalizes the flavor too!) injoy
Oh yum! That would be great!
I accidentally bought spicy V8. Do you think I should use it or save it for the soup or casserole?
If you don’t mind a little bit of heat, I would say use it!
I Can’t wait to try .
Holly – I’m a busy real estate agent. Think this could be put in a crock pot instead of the oven? Would you make any changes to do so?
Although I haven’t tried it, I do think it would work. You’ll just want to ensure there is enough liquid so it doesn’t dry out.
yes we have done it make sure your setting is on low. (sorry Holly for stepping on your toe’s like this!)
Great suggestion, thank you for sharing!!
I love cabbage roll I going to use your way