Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls
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An Easy Deconstructed Cabbage Roll Recipe you’ll love! These unstuffed cabbage rolls are hearty, healthy and so delicious!
Why you should make this recipe:
- Easy to make: All you need is one large saute pan to make this dish. Everyone loves fewer dishes after dinner! If you want more one pot meals, check out these Healthy One Pot Meals!
- Flavorful: Full of flavor, this cabbage roll recipe is packed with pantry staples and uses simple flavorful spices that give this recipe a kick.
- Done in under an hour: This recipe takes around 45 minutes to make! Traditional cabbage rolls take way longer
If you love a one pot meal as much as we do, try our Taco Skillet, Chicken Broccoli Rice, Deconstructed Pepper Skillet, or Chicken Parmesan Pasta!
Unstuffed Cabbage Recipe Ingredients:
Unstuffed Cabbage Substitutions
Extra Virgin Olive Oil: You can substitute avocado oil, butter, or ghee.
Ground Beef: We like 85/15 ground beef. Feel free to use leaner ground beef depending on what you like. Read Butcher Box Reviews to see why we love them for our ground beef! To make vegetarian you can use cooked lentils or ground beef substitute. You’ll need to adjust your cooking time. I haven’t tried making this with ground turkey or ground chicken but I think it would work.
Tomato Sauce: You can use your own homemade tomato sauce, but we prefer canned tomato sauce. Note that canned tomato sauce and jarred pasta sauce are very different, jarred pasta sauce is much thicker and usually has seasonings added to it.
Broth: Any broth or stock (broth and stock are the same) can be used in any soup recipe. Beef Broth, Chicken Broth, or vegetable broth all work interchangeably. I always use low or no-salt broth.
White rice: Brown rice should work as a white rice substitute in this recipe, but it will take much longer to cook and you may need more broth. I wouldn’t recommend subbing cauliflower rice because it would be very soggy.
Cheese: Cheese is optional on top. We like freshly grated mozzarella but you can totally make this dairy free!
How To Make Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls
- In a large sauté pan, heat olive oil. Cook ground beef for 10 minutes nicely browned. Add onions and garlic and sauté for an additional 5 minutes.
- Add spices, tomato sauce, white rice, beef broth, and cabbage to the pot. Stir together, cover, and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes, occasionally stirring until rice is cooked.
- Once rice is cooked, top with mozzarella cheese, cover, and let the cheese melt.
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Serving Options:
These deconstructed cabbage rolls are a complete meal by themselves, but you can also:
- Top with fresh mozzarella cheese (or cheese of choice) and fresh parsley
- Serve alongside a simple salad like our Greek Salad
- Serve with a side of Grilled Vegetables in Foil
FAQ’s
Savoy cabbage works best for cabbage rolls.
Stuffed cabbage is good for you for so many reasons. Cabbage is full of vitamins and minerals and it is lower in calories and carbs making it a healthy veggie everyone can enjoy!
If you are making cabbage rolls, it’s best to boil the cabbage. Boil the leaves, let them cool, them stuff, and put them in a baking dish. You don’t have to boil the cabbage for these deconstructed rolls.
Storage Options:
Storing: This will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container and is a great recipe to save some leftovers for the next day.
Can Unrolled Cabbage Rolls be frozen?: You can freeze this recipe for up to 3 months. We like these containers for freezing!
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave, toaster oven, oven, or on the stove.
Other healthy dinner recipes:
Looking for other easy meals? Check out these 40+ Healthy Dinner Recipesor 30+ Ground Beef and Rice Recipes. Click here to grab our free healthy 30 minute dinners cookbook.
Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ cup onion diced
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- 15 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 cup white rice dry
- 2 cup beef broth low or no salt
- 4 cups roughly chopped green cabbage about 1 small cabbage
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- In a large saute pan, heat olive oil ove medium high heat for 3 minutes or until oil starts to shimmer.
- Add ground beef to the heated pan and cook for 5 minutes. Make sure to break it apart well. After the beef has cooked for 5 minutes, add onions and garlic. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.
- Add dried spices, tomato sauce, white rice, beef broth and cabbage to the pot. Stir together well. Cover the pot and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally until rice is cooked.
- Once rice is cooked, top with mozzarella cheese, cover and let the cheese melt.
Great meal!! Thank you for sharing.
This was super easy and tasty. I think it only took me about 10 minutes of hands on time and then just let it simmer the 25 minutes until done. Turned out perfectly. I will definitely make again!
We love stuffed cabbage but hate the work. This is a great one put throw together meal that tastes like the original. Definitely part of our meal rotation.
Seeing that this otherwise has 40 5 star reviews, I actually think it might’ve been you and not the recipe 🙂 Did you use a different type of rice? Make any substitutions? Something clearly went wrong here.
No, I followed your recipe exactly. I even bought white rice as I don’t normally keep any on hand. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was the recipe. There are a lot of people with bland tastes and a fondness for undercooked rice, apparently.
Ok, well I’m sorry to hear that. I guess you’re right – no one here has taste buds and likes crunchy rice! 🙂
2nd time in a week making this easy and delicious recipe – I had large cabbage! Changed it this time used hi Ken sausage instead of ground meat!!
This was tasty. The only problem I had was that my rice was not completely done, and I cooked it longer to try and completely cook the rice. I will definitely try this recipe again because it’s easy and tasty.
Great dish!! So easy, and so delicious!! I will definitely make this one again!!🥰🥰
This is an easy, no fuss, delicious combination of ingredients. I made this recipe for the first time and it was excellent. I used both ground beef and ground turkey (2 lbs) because I wanted to use both packages up. Adjusted spices for 2 lbs of meat versus one. Stuck the man under the boiler for 2 minutes after adding the cheese and it was perfect. My husband who tends to not like these kinds of recipes loved this one. What I loved the most, other than the flavor, was dirtying only one pan. Always a plus for me! Excellent job Clean Eating Couple on yet another delicious recipe. Will be trying the Unstuffed Bell Pepper recipe next
This recipe is seriously so good! I made it last night and can’t wait to eat leftovers for lunch!
this is one of our favorite easy dinners!
Thank you going to try it .Looks 😋
Love stuffed cabbage but way to much work. As close to moms that I have found thus far. Like that the recipe can be adjusted from 1-20. Will definitely make again. It’s a keeper.
Why in the world do you use white rice ?? Nutrients and fiber have been stripped away…thought I would like your website.
if you don’t like white rice, either don’t make the recipe or read the substitutions where I say “Brown rice should work as a white rice substitute in this recipe, but it will take much longer to cook and you may need more broth. I wouldn’t recommend subbing cauliflower rice because I think it would be very soggy.”
We have 550 other recipes on our site you can look at as well.
Sounds DELISH!! Can this recipe/dish be cooked in the Instant Pot, crockpot or oven? If so, can you post the instructions?
Thank you,
Rachel
Hi Rachel – if it could be done in the instant pot, crockpot, or oven I would’ve included the instructions here! This recipe is super easy to make in one pan on the stove in under 45 minutes. There’s really no need to cook it any other way 🙂
What other vegetables, in addition to the cabbage, might be good to add?
We really enjoyed this recipe! We tweaked it by using turkey, cauliflower rice, and adding a can of diced tomatoes. Everything turned out delicious. Definitely going in my recipe book.
I’ve been making this Cabbage recipe for years. We grow Cabbage, and I have to be creative.