Stuffed Cabbage for the Freezer – Recipe
One of my favorite memory meals from childhood is stuffed cabbage. My grandmother would make it for us and once in a blue moon my mother would too. I have figured out a stuffed cabbage recipe that is as close to what I remember from my childhood.
Since it does take a bit of time and effort to make it I love to really go all out and make a lot of it. It freezes beautifully and then I have easy meals to just pull out and thaw when I want a good dinner.
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Stuffed Cabbage (for a crowd or to freeze)
3 LBS ground meat
3 cups cooked rice (I used Jasmine rice)
1 egg
1 TBS garlic powder
1 onion, cut into small dice
1 TBS olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
large outer leaves of one large cabbage
For the Sauce:
2 quarts tomato juice (I used home canned)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
salt to taste
Heat the olive oil in a fry pan. Add the diced onion and cook until the onion is just slightly browned. Mix the ground meat, cooked rice, egg, garlic powder and onion in a large bowl. Set aside.
Carefully remove the outer leaves from the cabbage. Fill a large pot with salted water. Bring the water to a boil. Add a few leaves at a time to soften them up – immediately remove them to a sink or bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.
Take one leaf at a time and cut out the hard part of the core. This will make the cabbage easier to roll.
Take a handful of the meat mixture and place it at the bottom of the remaining cabbage.
Fold up the bottom, fold in the sides and roll up!
Do this until you have used up all of the meat mixture and cabbage leaves.
Make the sauce: add the tomato sauce, sugar and vinegar to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Taste and adjust with salt to taste.
For the cabbage rolls I was putting in the freezer I parceled out into containers and I added the sauce and they went into cold storage for later.
To serve for dinner:
Place a cabbage leaf or two on the bottom of a saucepan. Add the cabbage rolls you will be cooking – I used three – and pour in sauce and add another cabbage leaf on top. Cook until the sauce boils, lower the heat so it simmers. Cook for about half an hour.
To serve add the cabbage rolls to a bowl, add some sauce and top with chopped fresh parsley.
The sauce was a delightful mix of sweet and sour and perfect compliment to the cabbage and ground meat.
