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This cabbage roll soup has all that cozy, tomatoey, slightly sweet cabbage-roll flavor without the fuss of stuffing and rolling. It’s hearty, comforting, and easy enough for a busy weeknight. The beef, cabbage, carrots, tomato sauce, and rice make it filling without being heavy.
Why You’ll Love It
- Classic cabbage roll flavor — all the cozy tomato, beef, cabbage, and rice goodness without stuffing or rolling.
- One-pot dinner — brown the meat, add everything else, and let the soup simmer.
- Hearty but not heavy — beef, vegetables, and rice make this a satisfying meal.
- Great leftovers — the flavors are even better the next day.
Ingredient Notes
Use lean Ground Beef here if you can. Regular Ground Beef will work, of course, but then you may have more grease in the pot than you want. I’m not trying to create extra dishes by draining a skillet if I don’t have to. A nice lean beef keeps the broth cleaner and lets that tomato-cabbage flavor come through.
Green cabbage is what you want—not red cabbage, unless you are aiming for a rather alarming purplish soup. It isn’t for me. Chop the cabbage into bite-size pieces. Not tiny confetti, but not enormous floppy squares either. Somewhere in the middle, like most things in life.
For the tomato sauce, use the plain little 8-ounce cans. Nothing seasoned or fancy. This recipe has a gentle sweetness from the brown sugar, which sounds odd until you taste it. Cabbage rolls often have that sweet-and-savory tomato thing going on, and the sugar brings it together. Don’t skip it. I mean, you can, because it’s your kitchen, but I wouldn’t.
Low-sodium beef broth gives you more control over the salt. Some broths are salty enough to make your tongue file a complaint. Fresh parsley at the end is lovely and bright, though it can be omitted if needed.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- Salt and pepper, as much or as little as your family likes
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced finely
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups chopped green cabbage
- 2 medium carrots, quartered and sliced
- 4 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 3 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup uncooked white rice
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Instructions
Heat the vegetable oil in a Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef, season it with salt and pepper, and cook until it’s browned. Break it up as it cooks, but don’t obsess over making every piece exactly the same size. We are making soup, not auditioning for a food commercial.
Add the finely diced onion and minced garlic to the browned beef. Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, until the onion softens. Keep an eye on the garlic here. Burned garlic can turn a perfectly nice dinner into a bitter little disappointment.
Add the chopped cabbage, sliced carrots, beef broth, tomato sauce, uncooked white rice, bay leaf, and brown sugar. Stir it all together really well, especially along the bottom of the pot where the rice likes to settle. It will look like an awful lot of cabbage at first. Don’t panic. Cabbage cooks down faster than you’d think.
Bring the soup to a simmer. Once it’s simmering, let it cook for about 25 minutes, until the rice is tender. Stir it a couple of times during cooking so the rice doesn’t stick. The carrots should be tender too, though if you slice them thickly they may need a few extra minutes. I prefer them on the thinner side because I do not enjoy crunching into a half-cooked carrot when I’m expecting soup. Just my personal hill to die on.
Fish out the bay leaf. Please do this. It’s not dangerous in some dramatic way, but biting into one is a deeply unpleasant experience.
Sprinkle the fresh parsley over the soup and serve it hot.
Variations
Add a tiny splash of vinegar to a bowl at the end for a little lift, especially if you like a sharper, tangier flavor. I don’t put it in the whole pot, though.
You can chop the cabbage a little finer if visible vegetables are not your favorite. I have no judgment. We all have our battles. Brown rice will take longer to cook, and the soup will get thicker as it simmers. It tastes fine, but I don’t recommend reinventing the wheel on a busy night.
For extra tomato flavor, the three cans of tomato sauce are just right with the beef broth. It’s brothy, not a thick tomato stew. That distinction matters. Maybe only to me, but it matters.
Storage & Reheating
Let the soup cool, then store it in covered containers in the refrigerator. It keeps well for a few days and makes a really good lunch, especially when you’re tired of sandwiches and the leftovers in the fridge are staring back at you like a collection of bad decisions.
The rice will soak up more liquid as it sits, so the soup gets thicker overnight. I usually add a little water or beef broth when reheating it on the stove. Not a lot—just enough to loosen it back up. Heat it gently, stirring now and then.
It also freezes nicely. I portion cooled soup into freezer containers or bags, usually in amounts that make sense for one lunch or a quick dinner. Lay freezer bags flat at first if you use them; they stack better that way. Learned that after an avalanche of frozen chili landed on my foot. Nothing broken, but I used language I’m not proud of.
Final Notes
This is one of those recipes I come back to when the weather turns gray and everything seems a little tired. It isn’t glamorous. No dramatic photo of cabbage soup by a window with linen napkins and a candle burning in the background.
It’s just good food. Warm, filling, familiar in a way that sneaks up on you.
Make it on a weeknight. Make a double batch if needed, because “there’s plenty” can become a lie in about twelve minutes. Put out some dinner rolls if you have them, or don’t. Sometimes I eat it with crackers standing at the counter, watching an old episode of something I’ve already seen three times.
And that, frankly, is plenty.
Cabbage Roll Soup
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 medium yellow onion finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 4 cups green cabbage chopped
- 2 medium carrots quartered and sliced
- 4 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 3 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup uncooked white rice
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Instructions
- Heat the vegetable oil in a Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium-high heat, then add the ground beef, season with salt and pepper, and cook until browned, breaking it up as it cooks.
- Add the finely diced onion and minced garlic to the browned beef and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, until the onion softens, watching carefully so the garlic does not burn.
- Add the chopped cabbage, sliced carrots, beef broth, tomato sauce, uncooked white rice, bay leaf, and brown sugar to the pot.
- Stir everything together really well, especially along the bottom of the pot where the rice likes to settle.
- Bring the soup to a simmer, then let it cook for about 25 minutes, stirring a couple of times, until the rice is tender and the carrots are tender.
- Fish out and discard the bay leaf before serving.
- Sprinkle the fresh parsley over the soup and serve it hot.