Years and years ago, way back when I first moved to Michigan, one of my partner’s friends (Hi Amanda!) made a big pot of cabbage soup. It’s a soup she loves, a comfort food soup, hearty and packed with flavor and great on a cold day.
Well, I’ve been getting more into cabbage of various sorts, and I realized: I haven’t had that cabbage soup in darn near ten years! So, we asked Amanda for her recipe. Well, I should put recipe in a big set of quotes, because the way Amanda makes this soup relies a lot less on a specific recipe and a lot more on the vibes.
Which is fine! Soup is great pretty much no matter how you make it, so it’s extremely customizable. But, since this is a food blog with a recipe plugin, I’m pinning down some quantities to use for the purposes of the post.
Be warned: this makes a lot of cabbage soup. With just the two of us eating it, it lasted us a solid week. It pretty much filled my 8 quart soup pot to the brim. Obviously, if you want less soup (though I don’t know why you would) you could cut all the ingredients in half. Or, you can freeze portions of it to save as meal prep.
Garnish with some sour cream and some chopped green onions, or as my partner loves, some pickled red onions. To make pickled red onions, just take some red onion and dice it up, put it in a bowl, and pour enough red wine vinegar over it to cover it, then fridge it overnight. Serve with some crusty bread and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal.
Cabbage Soup
Equipment
- 8 Qt Soup Pot
- Ladle
- Microwave-safe Bowl
- Long Spoon
Ingredients
Main Ingredients:
- 1 Head Green Cabbage Chopped, core removed.
- 1 Bag Frozen Mixed Veggies You can use fresh if you prefer, frozen is just easier.
- 46 Oz Tomato Juice
- 32 Oz Beef Broth
- 32 Oz Canned Beans Your choice; I used Kidney and Pinto. Drain well.
- 28 Oz Stewed Tomatoes
- 2 Lbs Ground Beef
- 1 Large Onion Diced
- 8 Cloves Garlic Minced
Your choice of herbs and spices:
- 2 Tsp Oregano
- 2 Tsp Basil
- 2 Tsp Seasoned Salt
- 1 Tsp Marjoram
- ½ Tsp Pepper
Adjust these to taste:
- 1 Cup Sauerkraut
- 2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 4 Tbsp Brown Sugar
Instructions
- Thaw your frozen veggies. You can leave them in the fridge overnight or thaw them day-of in a microwave safe bowl; nuke for a minute, stir, and one more minute should do it.
- In your soup pot over medium heat, brown the ground beef. When beef is about half browned, add in the garlic and onion.
- Add in the cabbage and cook for about 5 minutes, until it starts to sweat out some of its moisture.
- Add in the tomato juice, stewed tomatoes, and beef broth. Stir well and bring back up to temp.
- Add in your beans, oregano, marjoram, basil, salt, and pepper.
- Add in your sauerkraut, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, and brown sugar, and mix well.
- Let the soup simmer for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. Near the end of the cooking time, taste it and decide if you want to adjust anything. Too sweet, add some more Worcestershire or sauerkraut. Too tangy, add in some more sugar.
- Optional: Add in a bit of water if the liquid-to-stuff level is looking too low.
- Serve and enjoy! This soup can be eaten hot or cold.