How to Cut Cabbage Perfectly

How to cut cabbage into squares, cubes, shredded for cole slaw, for boiling, frying and all the soup recipes you love is here. Then you can make all the cabbage recipes we will share here on The Typical Mom blog.

How to Cut a Cabbage

I didn’t acquire a love for this until I was in my late 30s. It was my Grandmother’s all time favorite thing to cook with, probably because it was cheap and she had a lot of kids. Never would any of it enter my mouth when I was a kid but every time I buy it now I think of her.

Fast forward 10ish years since I stepped foot into her house and now I can’t get enough of it. It’s one of the best easy side dishes ever that you can add a ton of flavor into. Using diced kielbasa sausage, ham and bacon of course is our favorite but even if you want a meat free option you can still make it taste amazing.

Here’s a step by step guide on all the different methods you’d want. You can use the same for red or green. Napa cabbage isn’t as firm thus that one really needs to be sliced for best results.

How do you remove cabbage leaves without breaking them?

This is only necessary if you are making our slow cooker stuffed cabbage rolls and want them large and whole. If you’re slicing or shredding, do NOT do this. For whole cabbage leaves, freeze the whole head for 3-4 hours first. Remove and sit on counter for 1 hour. Then slice the end off at the base where it was attached to the plant.

Start from the very end with the outer leaves one at a time. Slide your finger down to the base and lift off. Lay on paper towels on your countertop and allow them to come to room temperature and dry the cabbage too.

• If you want them a bit softer you can microwave for 15 seconds before filling with your filling and wrapping them up.
• You could also blanch leaves VERY quickly to really soften them up.

I don’t use this method very often. Cubed is what I do to make my Instant Pot fried cabbage, unstuffed cabbage and lots of other recipes I’ll share within this post.

But if I want to fill the inside and use these as a sort of tortilla to roll up the ground beef and rice stuffing for Pigs in the Blanket with Cabbage all I am doing is pulling the outer leaves off to use, no slicing needed.

How to Cut up a Cabbage

If you are going to shred cabbage or cut into squares (cubed I call it) you still will want to remove and discard the end. It is hard and there is like no way to make it edible. This does two things, gets rid of the inedible piece AND creates a flat spot so it will sit nicely on your cutting board.

Sit it down with the cut side on your board. Use a sharp chefs knife for this so you aren’t sawing. Slice thru the middle of it as you see here. Then separate the two pieces so you can lay them correctly for the next steps.

How to Cut Cabbage for Slaw

When it is sliced like you see below have two choices, basically. If you want to make red cabbage coleslaw you wouldn’t use your knife any longer, instead slice it on your mandolin or slicer like this so you get thin strands almost like shredded lettuce.

How to Cut Cabbage Steaks

To make cabbage steaks you would turn your half to it’s side, and slice into the thickness you want.

Something to remember: The larger your pieces are the firmer they will be when you cook it. Like if I’m making any of our Instant Pot cabbage recipes I make them a bit bigger, closer to 1.5-2″ pieces since pressure cooking really softens fast.

Cut Cabbage

Like I said, normally I cut into 1×1 inch squares to make almost everything. To do this you’ll want to sit both pieces on the flat side facing down. Makes sense to do this so it doesn’t roll around. I use the same technique when showing how to cut a watermelon. Now follow along for these directions and all the things I make with this size…..

How to Cut Cabbage into Wedges

I only really slice cabbage quarters when making Ninja Foodi cabbage because I pressure cook and air fry after that step which means it needs to be large and in charge. 😉

If not it would get mushy but I’m telling you this is amazing. If you are looking for new and easy Ninja Foodi recipes you should give this one a whirl for sure. As you can see you will get 4 equal pieces in one head. Half is usually plenty for one person so you’re good to feed 8 which means a really cheap side.

How to Cut Up a Cabbage

Back to cubes…… So you have two halves set down flat. Slice about 5 times across, then rotate and slice again so you get your cabbage squares of sorts. When you’re done pick them up and try to break them apart when adding into your pot so they all cook evenly.

Some of the middle sections will be whiter and stiff. I tend to discard those few. If you just transfer into your pan as is in big chunks it will take longer to soften and won’t absorb whatever seasonings and/or sauces you use.

Adding those are necessary because stand alone this is quite bland. Soy sauce and a bit of heat are usually musts.

I will recap below after mentioning a few of our favorite creations:

Cabbage Recipes

1. Jump to recipe to make our air fryer cabbage has been a hit with many.
2. We serve our corned beef with our swamp cabbage recipe now.
3. You can make slow cooker cabbage and sausage for a heartier meal. Find more Crockpot cabbage recipes here to enjoy later.
4. You might want thin sliced or shredded cabbage for savory cabbage soup. Another option is to use half “regular” and half Chinese cabbage in this.

Use a few varieties including Napa cabbage to make chicken stir fry on the stovetop or pressure cooker.