How to make Italian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Recipe

In Italian, this would be better known as Cavolo Ripieno, which is a typical European style food, made with lots of vegetables wrapped in a thin and crunchy sheath of cabbage leaf. It’s a bit smoky in flavor, and of course, cheese is there to enliven the perfect Italian taste. You can also make it completely vegan, if you miss the cheese, or use Vegan cheese made of main soy, like tofu. That can be equally delicious, try it.

Other breakfast and snacks recipes you may like: Macaroni Cheese Balls, Veg paneer cheesy bites, Bread Dhokla Sandwich, Baked Italian Tokri, Homemade Cheese Garlic Bread Recipe etc.

I love cabbage, and use it a lot for everyday meals and snacks. This vegetable is so versatile, it goes well as everything, be it as a regular sabzi, any curry, salad, soup or stew or a tasty wholesome appetizer, such as the one that I am sharing with you today. I got the idea from one of my favorite celebrity chefs, Nita Mehta, and just had to try it out. And when I did, it was a complete hit in my family. The kids love it, their father loves it… what more can I ask for? Oh yes, I love it too J

Here, I am toasting the whole cabbage leaves in a tawa, if that seems too time-consuming then you can blanch them in warm water. However, remember that blanching cabbage leaves tends to soften them too soon, so pouring over the salted hot water instead of boiling the leaves in it, as an ideal to have the crunchy cabbage at its best. Meanwhile, toasting gives the leaves this mild smoky flavor that will be missed if you blanch them. So you have two options, the choice is yours, do as you like.

This recipe is a complete vegan and vegetarian recipe if you don’t use cheese. I use to make this rolls regularly for our home cooking. I generally experiment with veggies usually broccoli or other veggies. I sometimes also change seasonings to give it a nice twist.
You can use haldi or turmeric as it is a very good anti-oxidant. Read here the benefits of turmeric. This makes it healthy too. You can add any ingredients for stuffing you like. You can also add raisins, cinnamon, cayenne or quinoa.

Equipment Used:

Prestige Pan

How To make stuffed Indian cabbage rolls:

• Take one head cabbage and separate the leaves by cutting the stalk. Remove the hard part/ spine from each leaf so that it will become easy while rolling.

• Wash the leaves and pat dry all the cabbage leaves.
• Brush each cabbage leaf from both the sides with olive oil before cooking in pan.

• Heat non-stick pan on medium high flame and cook one by one cabbage leaves from both the sides by pressing it with spatula till dark brown spots/patches appears on the leaf. This way it will give nice smoky flavor and also leaves will becomes soft and get rolled easily.

• Take out the leaves to a plate and toss it lightly to make it flavorful by adding vinegar, salt and crushed black pepper.

• To make stuffing heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan, once the oil becomes slightly hot add grated ginger and crushed garlic, sauté it for few seconds.

• Now add chopped onions, beans and sauté it on medium flame till onions become translucent and beans little soft (I have added beans first because it takes time to get soft).

• Add chopped yellow and red bell pepper, boiled sweet corns, chopped olives, green capsicum and mix it well. Add salt to tatse to make the cooking fast and sauté veggies on medium flame for 4-5 minutes. Do not overcook the veggies, let it be crunchy.

• Lastly add pizza seasoning or Italian herbs’ red chilly flakes as needed (If you don’t like spicy food then skip it), vinegar and mix it until well combined.

• Remove from the heat and let it slightly cool down.
• Take one cabbage leaf at a time on a flat surface and spoon the stuffing/filling into the center of the cabbage leaves along the vein. Spread about 2-3 tbsp of mixture in each, depending upon the size of the leaves.

• Grate some mozarrella cheese on top of the stuffing (if you don’t like can skip this step)

• Roll the leaf with the filling into neat cylinder shape. Cut the rolls into 1 to 11/2 inch pieces. Now take a tooth pick, insert black olives, red bell pepper and insert the tooth pick in each stuffed cabbage rolls to seat it tightly.

• Serve the Stuffed cabbage rolls at room temperature with schezwan sauce.

Note:

• Take out the large cabbage leaves from the head of cabbage which are big enough to stuff. Cut the leaves with a sharp knife and pull out very carefully so that you get the whole leaves without damaging.
• Chop up the remaining small and damaged cabbage leaves and use it to make any stuff.