Stuffed Cabbage Soup

If you love stuffed cabbage you will love this easy stuffed cabbage soup recipe. Much easier than stuffing and rolling halupki you can just chop and make a big batch of this cabbage soup. Hearty enough to eat for a light meal on busy weeknights and certain to keep you warm on a cold night.

You might also like this stuffed bell pepper soup.

I love making soup in the winter and I have SO many soup recipes on this blog. But today I was in the mood for halupki otherwise known as stuffed cabbage rolls which is quite tedious to make in my opinion. So I decided to take the easy way out and make this stuffed cabbage soup.

This is a good recipe to use leftover rice. You just brown the ground beef, add all the ingredients and cook until the veggies are tender. Then add the rice and you are basically done! This pot of soup is really a complete meal when you think of it. It has meat, starch and veggies! Plus it’s much easier than traditional cabbage rolls.

So if you have a busy week ahead and need an easy recipe but one that warm, filling and quick to make, try this stuffed cabbage soup. This is a bowl of comfort food to me and is going in our winter meal rotation for sure.

Recipe ingredients I used and substitutes.

The simple ingredient I used to make this unstuffed cabbage soup is olive oil, ground beef, parmesan cheese, cabbage, broth, cooked white rice, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, yellow onion, garlic, spices and Better than Bouillon beef base.

Ground Beef
You can see below that I used a fairly lean ground beef but you can use leaner or even fattier if you have a preference. Just drain the excess grease after you brown it if you use a fattier one. You could also use ground turkey if you want.

Cabbage & Tomatoes
I used regular head of green cabbage and I think that is the kind of cabbage you want. It’s much heartier that Napa or Savoy cabbage. The tomato products I used were crushed and dices tomatoes which created a rich tomato broth. I like crushed tomatoes better than tomato sauce but you could substitute with that if you had to.

Parmesan Cheese
I use this a lot in tomato based soups for added flavor. If you are dairy free you can substitute nutritional yeast or eliminate it if you want.

Spices
I used quite a few spices to give the meat more of an Italian sausage flavor. The spices I used are salt, black pepper, paprika, hot pepper flakes, fennel seed and Italian seasoning. If you don’t have fennel seed you can eliminate it. That is one of the flavors that lend to Italian sausage flavor and is good but not necessary.

Better that Bouillon
I used this in all my soups and many other recipes. I highly recommend it as it add so much flavor. However if you don’t want to run out and buy it you can just use the beef broth or beef stock. You can also substitute with granular beef bouillon.

Rice
I used cooked long grain white rice in this recipe instead of uncooked rice to make it easier.  You could also use brown rice. You would just need to make sure it’s precooked. If you want a low carb substitution you can use cauliflower rice!

How to make this stuffed cabbage soup.

Step 1: Get out a large soup pot and heat to medium high heat. Once hot add the oil and turn the heat down to medium heat. Add the ground beef and onions and break up with a wood spoon. While the meat is cooking chop your head of cabbage into bite size pieces.

Step 2: Once the meat has almost browned completely, add the spices and mix well. Next add the cabbage, tomato products, broth, Better than Bouillon and garlic to the beef mixture. Mix well to combine.

Step 3: Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes until the cabbage has softened. Then add in the parmesan cheese and cooked rice. Let cook for a couple of minutes for the cheese to combine well and for the rice to heat up.

Step 4: This soup is pretty thick and rich. It truly is a hearty soup. If you want it a bit thinner you can always add more beef broth or stock to get it to the consistency you like.

Take off the stove, let cool a few minutes and then ladle soup into bowls. If you want you can garnish with fresh parsley or even a bit more parmesan cheese. Store leftovers in an airtight container. This also freezes well.

Please scroll down to view the printable recipe card.

You can serve this with just a green salad for a light meal. Or you can add some crusty bread too. We usually just eat this this for lunch or dinner.

To make this in the slow cooker or crock pot you would really just add everything but the rice to the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours. You just have to make sure the cabbage has softened. Add the rice and the end and let heat up and soak up some the sauce.

More hearty soup recipe you might like.

I have over 50 delicious soup recipes on this blog, many of which are low carb! However if you are looking for more of a meal in a bowl kind of recipe check out one of these homemade soups.

• creamy chicken and mushroom wild rice soup
• ham and cabbage
• creamy tortellini with spinach
• easy wedding or chicken noodle
• keto seafood chowder or Thai shrimp coconut curry soup
• pot roast soup

This stuffed cabbage soup is the perfect light dinner in the winter for me. It’s tasty and filling and keeps you warm! I hope you like this amazing soup too. And if you are on a low carb diet try substituting cauliflower rice for the long grain rice.