Whether you already know you love cabbage or you are trying to, this seared and cooked down cabbage recipe, also known as melting cabbage, is a new way to enjoy this amazing vegetable.
We are pairing it with a vegan miso garlic butter sauce that is so good you’re just going to want to make it by itself again.
Why You’ll Love This Cabbage Recipe
- Meal Prep Friendly – this recipe only gets better as it sits and allows the flavors to merry together and lasts for up to 4-5 days in the fridge which makes it a great option to eat all week long. It can also be frozen!
- Flavorful Restaurant Quality Meal- You won’t believe how much flavor you get out of these simple ingredients and when all combined are something incredible
- A New Way to Enjoy – Cabbage is having it’s come up moment. It’s budget-friendly and healthy and enjoying it in this sauce is a new way to find love for it
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Ingredients for Melting Cabbage:
Cabbage
We’re using green cabbage for this recipe. You want to keep it to a medium head of cabbage so that it cooks throughly in the proper amount of time. If you use a larger head of cabbage, it will take longer to roasted all the way through because there’s more layers of cabbage to cook.
Substitute: Purple cabbage would also work. Alternatively, you could do this with cauliflower as well.
Cashew Cream
When you combine raw cashews and water together it makes a thick, creamy consistency that is great for adding protein and a way to naturally thicken sauces.
You want to make sure you are using raw cashews for no flavor change in the sauce as roasted cashews will add a differently flavor profile.
Substitute: You can make this nut free by using pepita seeds. Coconut cream (the thick fatty patty of chilled canned full fat coconut milk) or extra creamy oat milk would be good subs as well.
Aromatics
We’re using shallots and garlic for our aromatics to start building flavor immediately into our dish. If you want to increase the garlic flavor even more, you can add an entire bulb of garlic or even roast the garlic prior to making the recipe. If you do that, add the garlic when you add the miso into the recipe, then continue as directed.
Substitute: Yellow and sweet onions would be a great substitute to the shallots.
Spices
Garlic powder, dried thyme, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper are the spices we are using in this recipe.
Miso
We are using white miso in this recipe. Miso adds umami, saltiness, and a flavor complexity to the dish and really elevates it to the next level.
Substitute: You can substitute the white miso for red miso but you’ll want to only use 1 tablespoon of it and omit the salt until tasting the dish once the sauce is ready. You could swap for the same amount (1 ½ tbsp) of chickpea miso.
Alternatively, you could also use tahini, but that will add more nuttiness to the dish.
Chili Oil
Oil made from soaked chili peppers in oil is what we are using here. Sometimes you can find it called chili crunch which that the chili peppers and flakes chopped inside. We are only using the oil part here. This adds some heat to the dish, but does not make it overall spicy.
Substitute: You can omit this ingredient, or you could swap with just some red pepper flakes added during the spice section.
More ways to enjoy cabbage:
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The Best Melting Cabbage Recipe
Ingredients
For the cashew cream
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ½ cup water
For the cabbage
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2-2.5 pounds green cabbage, cut into 4 wedges (core intact) (no larger than 1200g)*
- 3 tablespoon vegan butter
- 1 shallot, finely minced
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ¼ teaspoon salt, more or less to taste
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, more or less to taste
- 1 ½ cups low or no sodium vegetable broth, divided (360g)
- 1 ½ tablespoons white miso paste
- ½ cup vegan parmesan-style cheese, freshly grated, (40g)
- 2 tablespoons chili oil, more or less to taste
- ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
Instructions
For the cashew cream
- Add ½ cup cashews and ½ cup water to a high-powered blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Set aside.
For the cabbage
- Over medium, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large oven safe skillet (or large skillet if you don’t have one). Add cabbage wedges cut-side down and sear for 3–4 minutes per side, until deeply golden. Careful not to burn. Remove to a plate.
- Using the same skillet, reduce heat to medium-low. Add the 3 tablespoon vegan butter to the skillet. Once melted, add the 1 chopped shallot and 8 minced garlic cloves. Cook for about 2 minutes until softened and fragrant. Sprinkle in 1 teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon thyme, and ¼ teaspoon each smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. Stir for just about 30 seconds or until the spices are fragrant.
- Add in 1 ¼ cups of the stock and using the bottom of a spatula, scrap the all the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.
- Simmer for 1–2 minutes. While simmering, add 1 ½ tablespoon miso paste to the remaining ¼ cup vegetable stock and whisk together. Then add the mixture into the skillet, along with the cashew cream, ½ cup vegan parmesan cheese, and 2 tablespoon chili oil. Simmer for 3–4 minutes, stirring, until the sauce is smooth and lightly thickened.
- Return the cabbage wedges to the skillet, spooning sauce generously over the top. *If not using an oven safe skillet. Pour the sauce into a 9×13 baking dish, then add your cabbage and proceed with the recipe as instructed.
- Transfer the skillet to a 350°F (175°C) oven and bake uncovered for 45–55 minutes, until the cabbage is very tender and the sauce is bubbling and lightly golden. Spoon sauce from the bottom over the cabbage and garnish with ¼ cup chopped parsley. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed before serving.
Notes
Video
Nutrition
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Frequently Asked Questions:
This recipe will last up to 4-5 days in the fridge when made as instructed. Once cooled, store in an air tight container.
Yes! For the cashew cream, you can replace the cashews with pepitas or you can use coconut cream if you can have that. Alternatively, you can use a creamy non-dairy milk like creamy oat milk. Make sure to use a safe vegan butter and parmesan for your allergies.
For the miso – you can omit and just not have that flavor, or you can use chickpea miso. Another option that would change the flavor would be to use tahini if you can have sesame seeds.
Of course, recommendations would be a can of chickpeas, white beans, cubed tofu, cooked lentils, and/or serving this with grains like quinoa or farro.
This was absolutely delicious! Trying cauliflower for our second delicious staple meal. Thank you!
So glad that you enjoyed!
This is wildly delicious, and perfect over a good piece of toast. A great way to treat a cabbage 😋.
YAY! Glad you enjoyed
I made this tonight when I saw your video I noticed the sauce was reduced a lot I knew I wanted to preserve it . I seared like you the cabbage and I also added cauliflower , seasoned and baked at 400F for 20 minutes , the cabbage could have used another 15 minutes easily . Then I added the vegetables to the sauce and baked for 30 minutes . I reduced the broth to 1 cup and deglazed with 1/4 cup of wine next time I will deglaze with 1/2 cup . The sauce is a tad too thick you can either reduce the amount of cashews or add more broth either way , the cabbage takes too long to cook and the sauce reduce too much anyhow this sauce is gold , it’s so so good you can just roast a bunch of cauliflowers and then pour the sauce over and bake it until the sauce is bubbly , it’s very versatile but pre roasting the cabbage is a must to retain lots of sauce . I didn’t use Parmesan I used Nooch , I am not critizing this recipe at all I am very thankful to get wonderful free recipes , I am not new to cooking just trying to give feed backs to other cooks that do not cook a lot .
Thank you for the wonderful feedback! I love that you added cauliflower and used wine to deglaze—that sounds like a delicious twist. It sounds like you really mastered the timing to get the sauce consistency exactly how you like it. I really appreciate the constructive tips regarding the roasting time and sauce thickness; I know other cooks will find your notes very helpful. Thanks again for watching and cooking along with us!
Incredible. Even my family who are not fans of cabbage enjoyed it.
That’s amazing! We love when the whole family can enjoy one of our recipes. Thank you so much for giving it a try!
I was unimpressed. The flavor was good, and my results looked a lot like the picture, but the cabbage was not even close to melting. The middle was still very firm. A lot of work for so-so results.
Sorry to hear that you weren’t a fan. The biggest tip is making sure you are weighing the cabbage as listed and not going over that amount to make sure it’s not firm.
I made this last night and was blown away by the flavors. Since we were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day I added carrots when browning the cabbage and served over mashed potatoes. Can’t wait to make it again. Thank you for all your recipes and sharing them with us!!!
That sounds like an incredible feast! We love the addition of carrots, and serving it over mashed potatoes to soak up that sauce is just brilliant. Thank you so much for celebrating with our recipe. We are thrilled it was a hit!
This is super delicious. The sauce in unreal. I’m serving with brown rice and salad with simple lemon dressing. Excellent and would highly recommend. I steamed my cabbage wedges until crisp tender before browning them.
So glad that you enjoyed the recipe Carol!