Healthy Beef Cabbage Stew Recipe

Best ever cabbage stew recipe on stove top is easy to make. A healthy vegetarian dinner or add leftover beef for more protein. If you love simple cabbage recipes this might be your favorite one!

Cabbage Stew

If you have only made Dutch oven stew in the past, this is much lighter. You don’t even have to add protein into the mix and it is still great. Sometimes I’ll make this on the side with our corned beef brisket if I don’t want to cook it all together.

Unlike our fried cabbage that has more of a soy sauce flavor to it, this just uses broth and light seasonings. Typically I’m adding diced sausage, pork, ground turkey or shredded beef into the mix that has already been coated with a dry rub I rarely add any salt or pepper.

Cabbage and Carrots

You really could add more than just one carrot, onion and celery for this. If it is left vegetarian then you would have room for twice that. Timing will vary slightly depending on how thick you slice each piece and how tender you want your ingredients to be. We used;

• 1 medium cabbage head, stem removed, cut into 2″ squares
• A large carrot peeled, sliced into dials
• Onion sliced
• Stalk of celery chopped into large chunks, optional
• 3 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Broth add more if desired for more broth
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 lb stew meat precooked
  • or you can use leftovers for a cabbage and ham dish
  • leftover beef chopped into bite size pieces works

1 can of diced tomatoes can be added in there with all of the other things. This is optional if you want to add another vegetable and have more juice to make it more like a soup. This makes a great lean ground beef and cabbage recipe too if you have that meat to use up.

Healthy Beef and Cabbage Recipe

Heat the olive oil in a large pot or make as an easy dutch oven recipe over medium heat. Add chopped garlic, onion and carrots. Fry for 3-4 minutes on low heat to soften, stirring occasionally.

• Add chopped cabbage to skillet and fry everything together for another 2 more minutes.
• Chop up your stew meat into bite size pieces (or any precooked protein) if you’re adding meat, salt, pepper and pour the broth in.
  • (if you want to add a can of diced tomatoes for a richer flavor add that now)

Stir and cook covered over low heat for 15 – 20 minutes or until contents are as tender as you’d like them to be. Serve stewed cabbage with fresh herbs.

Instant Pot Cabbage Stew

If you wanted to make this as an amped up pressure cooker cabbage recipe, you could. I would suggest that you just use the same ingredients explained down below but it will just take 2-3 minutes! That is right since it is under high pressure and the meat is already cooked you don’t need long.

Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry

Other items you could add if you wanted to amp it up even further. You could dice up a bell pepper, green onions and/or scallions too. For an Asian flare a splash of soy sauce or stir fry sauce can be mixed in. Add 1 tbsp at a time, incorporate, taste, and adjust if you want even more.

If you’re making ground beef and cabbage with fresh meat you can brown it right in the same pot at the beginning. There are so many different tweaks you can make to make this healthy dinner in no time. Naturally gluten free ingredients are used and it can be reheated the next day if you have any leftovers too.

Love this green veggie? We have lots of others to choose from too like slow cooker cabbage rolls, lots of coleslaw dishes, and of course our Ninja Foodi corned beef recipe gets raving reviews. When you head to the store buy a few heads and make something new with it every day of the week!

If you want to save your leftover stewed cabbage it is quite easy. You will want to get out smaller sealed containers first. Allow what’s left to cool completely and then package it up tight. Store in the fridge for up to 3 days but it is really best 24 hours later. Just reheat on a new dish in your microwave for 1 minute or so until warmed.

If you wanted to add a bit of crisp since it will have wilted more as it sits you could throw it into an air fryer basket preheated to 380 F for a few minutes too.