Cabbage roll soup is a great way to enjoy the classic flavors of cabbage rolls with way less effort. This quick and easy recipe is perfect for any fall or winter evening meal.
What ground meat is best for soup?
In this cabbage roll soup, I used lean ground beef. You are cooking the beef and vegetables in avocado oil, so you don’t need the extra fat. If you used fattier meat, you would want to drain the fat out of the pan before making the rest of the soup.
Not so much for fear of calories but rather, excess fat dilutes the flavor of the soup. Soups and sauces should always be rather on the lower side of fat so the actual flavors come through.
For a change, you could also use ground pork, chicken or turkey.
How to make cabbage roll soup
This recipe has all the same flavors as cabbage rolls, but none of the work.
- Prepare the rice in the Instant Pot
- Stir fry the veggies
- Blend your broth. This starts with a beef broth base. But by adding tomatoes, red peppers, soy sauce, red wine vinegar, and honey to it, we end up with a deep amazing flavor. Just toss all those ingredients in the blender and add it to the veggies in the pot.
- Add the ground beef and cabbage
- Let it simmer for 30-45 minutes. Don’t overcook it. You don’t want soggy cabbage.
- Serve over rice
How to add rice to soup
For this cabbage roll soup recipe, I recommend using your Instant Pot to make the rice separately. If you don’t have an Instant Pot you can make it on the stovetop or in a rice cooker.
Cooking rice in the soup will leave your soup pasty and the rice soggy and mushy.
Plus, rice and soup can not be frozen together. If you want to freeze this recipe, you will have to freeze the rice and soup separately and then serve them together.
You have lots of choices when it comes to adding rice to soup. Wild rice is fantastic with this cabbage roll soup. Brown rice will also go well. Try making both in your Instant Pot by following these instant pot rice instructions.
Can you make cabbage roll soup in the slow cooker or Instant Pot?
While I tried this recipe on the stovetop, you can speed it up using an Instant Pot or let it simmer all day in a slow cooker.
Your Instant Pot has so many functions, it’s easy to make this soup that way. Use the saute function first to stir fry the veggies and brown the meat. Then add your broth and cabbage and set to high pressure for 15 minutes + full natural pressure release, that’s all.
In the slow cooker, I do recommend you brown the meat first. Otherwise, just put all the ingredients in the pot. Cook on low for eight hours or high for four to five hours.
Cabbage Roll Soup
Cabbage roll soup is a great way to enjoy the classic flavors of cabbage rolls with way less effort. This quick and easy recipe is perfect for any fall or winter evening meal.
Ingredients
- 1 lbs lean ground beef
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup diced celery
- 1/2 cup diced carrots
- 3-4 cups green cabbage
- 3-4 jarred roasted red bell peppers
- 1 can tomato sauce (13.5oz/400ml) or double the amount of roasted red bell peppers
- 4 cup beef broth
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1/2 Tbsp honey
- 1/2-1 cup wild rice
- sea salt
- pepper
- parsley for garnish
Instructions
Prepare Instant Pot Rice. Leave at "keep warm" function until the soup is finished. My favorite is wild rice, but brown rice is great, too.
Peel and finely chop onion and garlic.
Peel and dice carrots, wash and dice celery.
Preheat a large pot over medium heat and once hot add a little avocado oil.
Brown the onion and garlic, then add diced vegetables and stir-fry for a couple of minutes.
Add roasted bell peppers, broth, tomato sauce, soy sauce, red wine vinegar, and honey to a blender and blend on high until smooth, then add to the vegetables in the pot.
Bring soup to a boil, then add ground beef and cabbage, break the beef apart with a spatula, reduce heat to low, cover and let simmer for 30-45 minutes.
Before serving try the soup to see if it needs more seasoning with sea salt and pepper.
To serve, add 1/4 cup rice to a bowl, pour soup over it, and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley.
Recipe Video
PRINTABLE MEAL PLAN
Get your free 5-part Meal Prep Series and printable Meal Plan!
Sasha says
Hey, Lorena! How long do you cook your soup when you’re making it in the Instant Pot? I’ve loved your recipes for a while but just got my hands on an Instant Pot for Christmas and am looking for recipes to use!
Lorena says
Hi Sasha, there are pleeenty of recipes on the blog specifically tested in the Instant Pot. In the menu is a search bar, enter “instant pot” and all of my Instant Pot recipes are listed then. If you want to make this one though (I haven’t tested it but I’m pretty confident this will work) : Press the sauté button to heat your pot (without lid), once the display says hot, add a splash of oil and then brown you onions and ground beef in batches. Once all is browned, add all ingredients to the pot, put on the lid and seal it and set it to 5 to 15 minutes on high pressure, depending on how soft you like your veggies. Let pressure release naturally. Tomato sauce based sauces are notorious for shooting out the vent to don’t flip the valve.
Prudence Wilson says
This looks delicious and will try soon! Curious and I don’t know if you can say… can you recommend a tomato sauce? The one I like is on the sweeter side. My husband does not like that. Just thought I’d see what you used. Thank you for your time – enjoy your recipes!
Lorena says
I live in Canada so I’m not sure if our Costco has the same products as the US but I use their Kirkland brand Organic Canned Tomato Sauce and love it!
Manuela Davis says
Hello Lorena!
I am cooking your recipe right now! 😃
I’m in the last stage of it. It tastes so yummy already! Can’t wait for it to be done.
I changed a couple of things. I used baby portabella mushrooms instead of carrots, used ground turkey and hot Italian ground chicken sausage instead of beef.
The reason I changed it was only because we just had beef and I just love mushrooms way more than carrots! 😊
What do you think?
I also wanted to let you know that I made a few of your recipes and they are all so very yummy!
Thank you for all that you do! You are appreciated!
Greeting and much love from Dallas, TX
Lorena says
Manuela, your changes sound scrumptious! I love mushrooms, too :) Will have to try your version soon. I’m so happy to read my recipes inspire you. That’s exactly my goal in life. To inspire people to cook more and experiment in the kitchen. Thank you for coming back and commenting and rating the recipe.
Tara K Lochen says
I’m very excited to make this…I love your rice experiment and now make the most perfect rice. I came upon this recipe and some negativity in the comments, which makes me so sad. I know you work hard…please don’t feel discouraged. There are still good souls out here whom appreciate you very much.
Lorena says
Thank you so much for your kind words Tara. They mean so so much to me! ❤️
Randy says
why is your sodium level so high? my blood pressure went up just reading the recipe.
Lorena says
All food blogs are required by google to provide nutritional information. I find this so silly because hardly any of us are certified dietitians or nutritionists and we rely on automatic calculators. I have no idea what products are in their database, and I sure know hardly anybody making my recipes has access to the exact same products I have access to here in Montreal. Please, always take the nutritional information on absolutely every food blog with a grain of “salt”. Maybe the database has super salty beef broth? Only YOU can control how much sodium ends up in your soup. Use low-sodium broth, buy unsalted tomato sauce, don’t add any salt, don’t add any soy sauce etc etc etc.
Evelyn says
I’m wondering about the sugar content. How does the soup have 14 grams off sugar per serving when there’s only 1/2 tbsp of honey in it?
Green Healthy Cooking says
Hi Evelyn, tomatoes have sugar and bell pepper and carrots and celery have sugar, too. It’s not “added sugar” (except the honey of course) it’s just the vegetable’s carbohydrates.
Sally G says
I appreciate your recipe, and I’m sure it would be pretty tasty. And I realize people don’t cook like they used to, but best part of making a huge batch of stuffed cabbage is, like chili and beef stew, it is so much better the next day. So when I make it, I make extra, just to make soup. The cabbage is so tender and sweet and the meat/rice filling has absorbed more of the tomato sweet and sour sauce flavor. I soften some onion, carrots and celery in olive oil, add beef broth and chopped Yukon gold potatoes. When the potatoes are almouse st done add chopped leftover cabbage rolls and extra cabbage baked with the cabbage rolls in anticipation of making the soup. Add a can of crushed tomatoes, some marjoram, a wee bit of garlic, salt and pepper and simmer for about 20 minutes. I usually make 30 to 40 cabbage rolls at a time. With extra cabbage in the pans. I freeze the leftovers for future meals or soup. It is worth the time and effort on one day for meals that will take care of 6 to 8 meals in the future. And they get to the table in 40 minutes or less.
Lorena says
Hi Sally, I am very confused. You have NOT tried my recipe, clearly because you make one that you like better (fair enough), but you rated my recipe 3 stars WITHOUT having even tried it? How would you feel if I gave you 3 stars for the recipe you just posted here, just…because…? I am very sad about this.
commando says
Sally G is clearly a sex starved control freak…. nobody asked for your recipe so shove it up your not so wee arse😁