The Greatest Stuffed Cabbage Soup

Stuffed Cabbage Soup has all the same great flavors as traditional baked cabbage rolls, but with way less work in just half the time! This cabbage roll soup is hearty, filling and the perfect choice for soup season! It’s also a healthy Keto and Whole30 cabbage soup recipe packed with all the good stuff for a healthy new year.

Forget all the stuffing and rolling involved with making cabbage rolls. This recipe is much easier to prepare. Simply brown lean ground venison (or use beef or pork) in your favorite Dutch oven or saucepan with plenty of onion, celery, carrots, peppers, garlic, and warm spices. Then give it all a good simmer in some beef consommé, tomato sauce, rice, and cabbage. The cabbage becomes tender, yielding a nutritious and filling soup that will warm you up on a cold winter night like we are having here in North Dakota.

HOW TO MAKE STUFFED CABBAGE SOUP

This soup comes together in less than an hour. The full instructions are listed below, but here is a quick preview before we get started:

Step 1. Cook ground venison (or beef), onion, celery, carrot, red bell peppers, salt, and pepper in a Dutch oven or large saucepan until meat is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cinnamon and cook 1 minute.

Step 2. Stir in consommé and tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Then stir in cabbage, rice, brown sugar, Worcestershire, smoked paprika, and bay leaf. Bring up to a boil again, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until rice is tender, about 20 minutes.

Step 3. Remove Dutch oven from heat and let stand, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf, stir in lemon juice and dill.

What you end up with is a rich and hearty soup that has complex flavors. I know in most cases simmering a soup for longer helps to develop the flavors, but for this Stuffed Cabbage Soup you don’t want to over-cook the soup, or the rice will get mushy.

CABBAGE SOUP DIET FOR A HEALTHY NEW YEAR

Do you ever resent the notion we have to choose between comfort food and healthy food? I am usually torn between getting to eat something warm, creamy and delicious and being stuck with a plate of salad greens, especially during long winters.

Most people have unrealistic expectations for themselves and want to completely change their diet when it comes to having a healthy new year. Willpower is about depriving yourself, and no one gets excited about that. But with this Stuffed Cabbage Soup, you can start your New Year's with the Cabbage Soup Diet in style!

There are plenty of cabbage soup diet recipes out there and all of them have one (obvious) ingredient in common: cabbage. Cabbage is extremely low in calories and offers lots of fiber that can help fill you up and keep you feeling satisfied. From a flavor perspective, cabbage is fairly mild compared to something like kale. That makes cabbage the perfect addition to a soup diet recipe, along with other veggies like onions, celery, carrots, and peppers. To keep the calories down even further, cabbage soup diet recipes like this one feature a broth base. You can even choose to lower the sodium levels in this healthy New Year recipe even more by using low-sodium beef broth instead of the cans of beef consommé I use here.

KETO AND WHOLE30 CABBAGE SOUP

This cabbage roll soup is also perfect for Keto and Whole30 diets to help set you up for success in order to have a healthy new year. Just make sure you make it with ground venison or ground beef for the extra fat and protein. This easy to prepare Whole30 Cabbage Soup Recipe is great for meal planning to help minimize weekday cooking.

IS DEER MEAT GOOD FOR YOU?

I know that some of you who plan to make this Cabbage Soup recipe may not have access to ground venison and will need to use ground beef instead. However, I highly recommend you asking that relative or neighbor who is an avid deer hunter if they would be willing to share a package of deer burger with you so you can try it in this soup recipe.

Is deer meat good for you? Yes! Absolutely! There are plenty of great health benefits when it comes to eating deer meat. Deer meat is the perfect protein, especially for people with cardiovascular disease. Deer meat (venison) is an extremely lean meat, low in fat and saturated fat, high in protein and packed with vitamins and minerals. This versatile game meat is full of flavor and can be used in a variety of recipes. When it comes to deer meat, you can roast it, stew it, stir fry it, or use ground venison for a Bolognese, burgers or meatballs.

STUFFED CABBAGE SOUP INGREDIENTS AND POSSIBLE SUBSITUTIONS

Lean ground venison – I used 100% lean ground venison for this recipe, but you can easily substitute lean ground beef. Ground turkey will work great too. If you aren't worried about the extra fat, you can also use a mixture of ½ ground pork and ½ ground venison or go all in with 100% ground pork.

Olive oil – Needed for browning the venison and sautéing the vegetables.

Yellow onion – Wondering how to properly chop an onion? Watch how Gordon Ramsey does it here.

Carrots – I prefer to chop them up into round disks, but you can dice them or buy a bag of shredded.

Bell Peppers - I sliced some of the mini peppers we always have on hand for snacking, but you can slice or dice any colored bell pepper. If you are on a budget, a green bell pepper is always a little cheaper than red, yellow, or orange.

Garlic – Everyone in our family LOVES garlic, especially our daughter, so it goes in almost everything!

Cinnamon - The ½ teaspoon of cinnamon I add early on in this recipe will leave your soup with a hint of cinnamon that is noticeable right after you cook it but mellows dramatically when reheating the soup on day 2 or day 3. However, if you aren't a big fan of cinnamon, you can either reduce the amount to ¼ teaspoon or omit it all together.

Beef Consommé - I love using my own homemade venison broth or canned beef consommé because it seems to add more body and flavor to my soups and stews. Beef consommé is different from beef broth in that consommé typically contains gelatin and has twice the sodium. Consommé also has 5 times the calories per serving as beef broth, so if you are making this Stuffed Cabbage Soup for a healthy new year weight loss diet, be sure and use beef broth. And if you are trying to cut sodium from your diet use low sodium beef broth. Chicken broth will work great too.

Cabbage – This is the key ingredient! Pick out the smallest head of green cabbage at the store. Unless you plan to make a double batch for meal prepping. Then one large head of cabbage will be enough.

Tomato sauce – I prefer tomato sauce for this soup, but if you want a very thick consistency use crushed tomatoes.

White rice – Brown rice is a food often associated with healthier eating. Brown rice is less processed than white rice and retains the nutrients that white rice lacks such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. However, brown rice won’t really work here because it takes over twice as long to cook. If you insist on using brown rice to help meet your healthy new year goals, you should pre-cook the brown rice, adding it near the end.

Brown sugar – this adds a nice background sweetness but omit if you are making this cabbage soup for the cabbage soup diet. If you aren't dieting but don't have brown sugar, white sugar would work fine too.

Worcestershire sauce – this adds great depth of flavor. A little goes a long way. And if you are me, you pronounce it "Where's your sister sauce".

Fresh dill – this adds a nice pop of fresh color and flavor.

HOW TO CLEAN CABBAGE AND HOW TO CORE A CABBAGE

To clean and prep cabbage for cooking, start by removing any damaged or shriveled leaves from the head. Next cut the head of cabbage into quarters through the middle of the core. Cut away the hard white piece of core at the bottom of each quarter. Separate the cored cabbage into stacks and flatten when lightly pressed. Using a sharp knife, cut each stack into the desired size you want. For this cabbage soup recipe, we want 1-inch pieces that will fit on a soup spoon.

MAKING A DOUBLE BATCH OF SOUP FOR LEFTOVERS

I sometimes make a double batch of this Cabbage Roll Soup so we have leftovers to eat for a few days. And like a good chili recipe, this soup tastes even better the next day. It’s absolutely perfect for a cold night, and the quick prep time makes it ideal for a busy weeknight when kids are back in school after Christmas break. For as much as I love classic cabbage rolls, there really is nothing better than coming home to a meal ready to heat up in minutes and serve up to hungry family members.

HOW TO FREEZE STUFFED CABBAGE SOUP

Let the soup cool for a while (I like to let it cool about 45 minutes) and then transfer to airtight containers.

When making this soup in advance for meal prepping, I like to pour 2 cups of cabbage soup into each of these 25-ounce containers. It's a perfect portion to take to work for lunch or a solo dinner at home. That amount also allows me to leave about ½-inch at the top of the container for the soup to expand when freezing so the container doesn’t break.

Transfer the containers of soup to a freezer and freeze up to 3 months. Thaw overnight and reheat the following day on the stove or in the microwave.

CONNECT WITH ME AND JOIN OUR WILD GAME COOKING COMMUNITY

If you make this Stuffed Cabbage Soup, I’d love for you to join our community and connect with me so we can all see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #wildgameandfish

Did you enjoy this Stuffed Cabbage Soup Recipe? Be sure to leave a 5-star rating RIGHT HERE!

4.84 from 42 votes

Print Rate

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cabbage roll soup, cabbage soup, cabbage soup diet, healthy new year, how to clean cabbage, how to core a cabbage, is deer meat good for you, stuffed cabbage soup, whole30 cabbage soup

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 35

Resting time before serving: 10

Total Time: 55

Servings: servings

Author: Jeff Benda

Ingredients

1 pound ground venison (or beef or pork)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced (about 2 cups)
2 carrots, sliced or diced (about 1 cup)
1 red bell pepper, diced (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 10-ounce cans beef consommé (2 ½ cups broth)
3 ½ cups tomato sauce (from one 28-ounce can)
2 cups water
6 cups chopped green cabbage (from 1 small head)
½ cup uncooked long-grain white rice
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 dried bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Instructions

Over medium-high heat, combine ground venison, salt, pepper, olive oil, onion and carrots to a Dutch oven or large saucepan. Stir often for about 5 minutes until the meat is no longer pink.
Stir in bell pepper, garlic, and cinnamon, and cook another 3 minutes.
Add beef consommé, tomato sauce, and water. Increase heat to high and bring to a quick boil.
Stir in cabbage, rice, smoked paprika, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and bay leaves. Return to a boil again, then reduce heat to low and cover with a lid. Simmer for about 20 minutes until rice is tender.
Remove from heat and let stand, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Now remove and discard bay leaves. Stir in lemon juice and dill, ladle soup into bowls, and serve immediately.

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4.84 from 42 votes (40 ratings without comment)

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