Get the Recipe: Slow Cooker Cabbage Roll Soup
All the flavours of cabbage rolls in soup form. Let it cook away in the slow cooker or crockpot or you can make it on the stovetop as well.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons olive oil, or other cooking oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 cup onion , finely diced
- 4 cups green cabbage, coarsely chopped
- 2 cups carrots, peeled and diced or quartered and sliced
- 4 cups beef broth
- 23 oz (680 ml) canned tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 bay leaf
To add after cooking:
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked long grain or basmati rice, from 1/2-3/4 cup uncooked rice
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (or 1 Tbsp dried parsley)
Instructions
- You can also make this soup on the stovetop. Start with a large soup pot or Dutch oven, then follow the stovetop method instructions detailed in the Recipe Notes below.
- If you have a two-part slow cooker with the top part being stovetop safe, you can brown the ground beef and onion in that. Otherwise, use a skillet on the stovetop to cook the ground beef and onion and transfer it to the slow cooker when done.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet on the stovetop over medium heat. Add the ground beef and cook, stirring regularly, until the ground beef is browned, about 4-5 minutes. Add the onion and cook, stirring regularly, until the onion is softened, 2-3 minutes more.
- Transfer the ground beef mixture to the slow cooker.
- Add the cabbage, carrots, beef broth, tomato sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar to the slow cooker and stir to combine. Add the bay leaf.
- Start the rice to cook in a saucepan or rice cooker per package instructions, about 30 minutes before the soup is done.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook for 4 hours on HIGH or 8 hours on LOW. Remove and discard bay leaf.
- Tip! Alternately, you can add the cooked rice to a bowl and spoon the hot soup over it. This method keeps the rice out of the soup and prevents leftovers from becoming stew-like.
- Stir in the cooked rice and fresh parsley. Taste the soup and add salt and freshly ground pepper, as needed. *Proper salting of soup is really important. Season generously. If the soup tastes "flat" it needs more salt!
Notes
Stovetop Cabbage Roll Soup Method: Using a large soup pot or Dutch oven, prepare the recipe through step 3. Instead of transferring to a slow cooker, add the remaining ingredients to the soup pot instead. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in 1/2 cup of uncooked long-grain rice at this time if you like or cook separately if you'd like to add at the end). Simmer the soup for about 25 minutes or until the cabbage and rice is tender.
Tips!
- You might be wondering if you couldn't just add the rice to the slow cooker and skip making it separately. Adding the rice to the soup in a slow cooker is a bad idea for a couple of reasons. First, if you put it in at the start, it would be overcooked and mushy. If you put it in partly through cooking, it may be either undercooked or overcooked when the soup is done. What's more, the rice will absorb a lot of the lovely broth for this soup as it cooks together.
- Adding the rice at the end of cooking is a little extra work, but it allows you to control how much you add and it will always be perfectly cooked.
- You can also opt to keep the rice and soup separate and simply spoon the hot soup over some cooked rice in the bowl. This is a great option if you are planning for leftovers. Keeping the soup and rice separated will keep the soup from becoming stew-like in the refrigerator.
Serving: 1serving, Calories: 341kcal, Carbohydrates: 28g, Protein: 18g, Fat: 17g, Saturated Fat: 6g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 8g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 54mg, Sodium: 1215mg, Potassium: 900mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 11g, Vitamin A: 7759IU, Vitamin C: 31mg, Calcium: 86mg, Iron: 3mg
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