This simple cabbage roll soup (stuffed cabbage soup) recipe is healthy, filling, and will keep you cozy all winter long!
So... is this actually unstuffed cabbage roll soup, I wonder? Because technically nothing is stuffed here. It just has similar ingredients to Polish stuffed cabbage rolls. Deconstructed stuffed cabbage soup, I suppose. 😛 Whatever you want to call it, this is one tasty soup.
This soup is the easy way to do cabbage rolls. Kinda like my stuffed pepper soup... all the taste without the work. Tender cabbage leaves, a tasty tomato broth, rice, and ground beef make this one hearty soup.
If you're looking for something that's flavorful and keeps you full, but you're watching your calories, I highly recommend this cabbage soup with hamburger recipe.
You may also like my Instant Pot Cabbage Soup.
How to make cabbage roll soup (overview):
Brown the beef & onion in a large soup pot, then stir in the garlic, cabbage, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, beef broth, water, paprika, Italian seasoning, and rice. Bring the soup to a boil, then simmer until rice is cooked. Season to taste and serve immediately. (Full ingredients and instructions are in the recipe card below)
Recipe notes & tips:
- This soup will soak up broth the longer you leave it. If you want to thin the soup when re-heating, add some more broth to it. Or leave it thick - it's delicious either way! This soup lasts a couple of days in the fridge no problem before the rice becomes too mushy.
- Swap the ground beef for ground turkey, ground pork, or even sausage meat.
Can you freeze cabbage soup?
You can, but the rice can get a little mushy when re-heating. This isn't a big deal to me, but if it bugs you and you're planning on freezing a whole batch, I'd just make it without the rice and add some cooked rice when you thaw it. That way, you won't overcook the rest of the soup (like if you added uncooked rice).
Love cabbage? Try these recipes:
- Crockpot Cabbage Soup with Beans, Sausage, and Potatoes
- Sautéed Cabbage and Kielbasa
- Simple Sautéed Cabbage
- Kielbasa Soup
- Apple Slaw Recipe
- Easy Chicken and Cabbage Stir Fry
- Simple Creamy Coleslaw Recipe
Will you give this stuffed cabbage roll soup a try?
Questions? Let me know in the comments! As always, if you've made one of my recipes, tag me #saltandlavender on Instagram so I can see it.
Stuffed Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
- 1/2 medium onion chopped
- 1 pound extra lean ground beef
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 3 cups cabbage chopped
- 1 (14 fluid ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 (28 fluid ounce) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes with juices
- 4 cups beef broth
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 2 dashes Italian seasoning
- 2/3 cup uncooked white rice (I used jasmine)
- Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Add the ground beef and onion to a large soup pot and cook it over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the beef is browned (about 8 minutes). If there's a lot of excess fat, spoon most of it out.
- Stir in the garlic, followed by the cabbage, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, broth, water, paprika, Italian seasoning, and rice.
- Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil. Once it's just started to boil, give it a good stir, then reduce the heat and cover the pot with the lid slightly ajar. Let it simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the rice is cooked. I like to stir it about halfway through to make sure the rice doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.
- Season soup with salt & pepper as needed and serve immediately.
Notes
- You may need to add more beef broth to leftovers as the rice tends to soak liquid up.
- Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy only and should be construed as an estimate rather than a guarantee. Ingredients can vary and Salt & Lavender makes no guarantees to the accuracy of this information.
Penny Eikamp says
I found it very bland…. Had to kick it up a notch with hot sauce
Lisa says
Lovely and hearty soup. I doubled the hamburger and cabbage amounts and increased liquid slightly as I made it for someone else and know that’s their preference. I do wish I had doubled and browned the onion for even more flavor. Overall, will definitely be making again. Thank you!
Natasha says
You're very welcome, Lisa!! 🙂
Gloria says
Absolutely love this soup! I make stuffed pepper soup & my husband & I like this better. This will be my 4th time making it. Wanting to double & freeze some. Do you know if it freezes well? Thank you so much for the great & easy recipe!
Natasha says
I'm thrilled to hear that! I don't think I've tried freezing this one (I have frozen other cabbage soups throughout the years, however), but I think it should be fine. 🙂 Thanks for your review, Gloria!
Denise GendreAu says
I made it with lean hamburger meat, a small cabbage and a few vidalia onions. It’s wonderful and helps with weight loss. I remember my Mom making this often. The cabbage and rice is very filling. I make it in my pressure cooker, so I made 2 cups dry rice with 4 cups of beef broth first. Once it was cooked, I put the rice in a separate container. Then made the soup in the pressure cooker too. This way you never have mushy rice. It tastes good with garlic bread or just bread and butter.
My family enjoys it as much as I do.
Natasha says
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
AngelaML says
Everyone commented how great this recipe is during the cold winter, and here I am trying it at the end of the summer! LOL We still loved it, even my son who is not a big fan of cabbage said it was "okay", he would eat it. Which is high praise!
I have no experience with a traditional cabbage roll, so had nothing to compare it to. For health reasons I substituted 99% fat free ground turkey for the ground beef. Added a little olive oil when cooking the turkey and onions. Even though I bought the smallest cabbage available, half of it was 4 cups so I used it. Used chicken broth instead of beef broth (due to ground turkey). Added 2 teas worcestershire sauce based on comments, and would add more next time. Also used smoked paprika instead of regular paprika since we all like it. Grocery store had no jasmine rice (our favorite) so used basmati instead. Still lovely.
Hubby added sour cream as garnish, and loved it! Thanks again for another hearty and healthy soup. Another delicious keeper!
Natasha says
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! I'm all about soup year-round lol.
Andrea says
I keep coming back to this recipe during this cold, snowy winter! It’s one of my favorite Salt and Lavender recipes! My only change was to add 1, 14 oz can fire roasted tomatoes and 1, 14 oz can of regular diced tomatoes. The fire-roasted flavor from the canned tomatoes was a little overpowering for my personal taste so this made it perfect!
Natasha says
I'm so happy to hear that! Stay warm! 🙂
Dave says
I made this and it was enjoyed by all of us here in the Philippines. Don’t really have all the ingredients on the list like lean beef since this is not a very beefy place so recommend definitely browning the meat alone and draining the fat off. If it were truly lean I would prefer to brown with the chopped onion and garlic. The fire roasted tomatoes I did myself fresh tomato under the broiler. My buddy in Pittsburgh makes great Galumpki’s and uses V8 and sliced keilbasa over the top. I added celery leaf and a little bit of green pepper for a V8 like flavor and no keilbasa here so used what they call here Hungarian sausage. Going to make this again tomorrow but this time going to make some pseudo sour cream to add as a topping, why not
Natasha says
I'm so glad you were able to make it work!! 🙂 That's so awesome you tried it.
Lesley P says
I've been meaning to try this recipe for a while and I'm sorry I didn't make it sooner. Easy, hearty, delicious soup. Thank you, this one is a keeper!
Natasha says
You're very welcome!! 🙂
Katie says
This was excellent! Perfect for a cold winter night. I followed the recipe exactly, but added a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce as another reader recommended.
Natasha says
Awesome!!
Mona says
Hi! I know this is quick but can I make it in the slow cooker? It's just nice to have it ready to go when I come home.
Natasha says
Hi! I think you probably could do that. The usual 6-8 hours on low. You may want to do the sautéing steps in a skillet first before adding to the slow cooker.
MONA NATWA says
Thanks!
Helen says
I added more cabbage and less rice. This is delicious! Thank you.
Natasha says
You're welcome!!
Sharon A. says
If I want to make this with some leftover cooked rice I have, should I decrease the amount of broth that goes in? Looks delicious, can’t wait to make it! Thank you!
Natasha says
Hi Sharon! Yes, I think that would probably be a good idea since you don't want to cook the rice for too long. Let me know how it goes!
Gary Z says
I'm usually not a fan of deconstructed recipes. I'm Polish and grew up with golubki. But this is pure genius. I made it but did the rice separate so we could control the density of the portion! Excellent!
Natasha says
So glad you liked it, Gary!!
Naja Aparico says
Love this super easy and yummy recipe! My 3 boys and hubby all had seconds. I used ground bison and added some Worchestershire sauce, a touch of smokey/spicy paprika and it was delish. It was a bit more watery than I wanted it so next time I will reduce water.
Natasha says
Yay that's awesome! So glad it was a hit.
Michelle says
If I make with turkey, is beef broth still ok or should I use chicken broth?
Natasha says
I'd probably use chicken broth, but both would turn out fine I'd say 🙂
Michelle says
Thank you! I’m making it according to your recipe tonight and next time, I’ll try ground turkey and chicken broth 😁
Natasha says
Awesome, hope you like it!
Courtney says
Do you think this would be okay with chicken broth over beef?
Natasha says
I do!
Jane Gothard says
Made this tonight for me and my husband. I rarely ever cook so I'm super pleased it turned out perfectly, we both had seconds! Thanks so much for this delicious and easy-to-follow recipe!
Natasha says
I am so happy you enjoyed it, Jane! 🙂
Laura says
Delicious. We love cabbage rolls. A yearly fall favorite. Made a batch of your soup for Sunday football. It’s delicious & the Seahawks won
Natasha says
So happy you enjoyed it, Laura!! 🙂 Thanks for letting me know!
Nicole says
I loved everything about this soup! It was exactly the comfort food I've been wanting without feeling guilty about it. I'm hooked!! My 10 year old loved it too! XO
Natasha says
Yay!! I am so happy you two liked it!! Thanks so much for leaving me a comment!! 😀
Bridget says
I love your recipes! Made your sausage tortellini soup last week and it was such a hit! Making this soup now and noticed it didn’t mention when to add the onion so just added it at the end. Have it simmering now and looking for forward to trying it 🙂 thank you!
Natasha says
Hi Bridget, thank you!! Sorry about that... for some reason I totally missed it when writing up the recipe. I did fix it a couple of hours ago. I added the onion in while browning the beef, but it won't make or break the soup adding it in later. Hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Ann Kay says
In the midst of making this (with ground prom instead of beef bc I don’t have beef right now). Might need to update - there’s no direction on when to add onions.
Natasha says
Hi Ann! I did update the recipe about 30 minutes ago. My apologies - sometimes despite proofreading recipes multiple times I miss things. It's fixed now. 🙂
Kate says
Hi! Add the onions when you add the garlic?
Natasha says
Hi Kate! Sorry... just updated the recipe to fix it!
Chrissy Kelly says
Soooooooooooo yummy that I actually forgot it was healthy! This will definitely be a make again on repeat for me.
Natasha says
Thanks so much for leaving me a comment, Chrissy! So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Donna Gabriele says
I think kielbasa would be delicious instead of the ground beef. What do you think?
Natasha says
Hi Donna! Sure, I mean it's not what cabbage rolls are traditionally stuffed with, but I love the stuff and I don't see why it wouldn't taste yummy in a soup. 🙂
jude says
This looks good but you don't say when to add the rice - ??
Natasha says
Step 2. My apologies - will update!