Cabbage Hive, it is our time to shine. Cabbage haters, just call us stinky and get ya ass on out the door.
I don’t know about you guys, but I just fucking LOVE me some cabbage in the winter time. It’s in my rotation every time it gets cold outside. I’m a big crockpot guy to begin with, so anything hearty I can throw in and forget about in a few hours is golden. I love how cozy it is too. Maybe I’m just a sucker for nostalgia, but there’s something about preparing dinner in the crockpot on a cold winter’s day…you find a good book, you cozy up under a blanket, and let the smells of dinner fill the house with warmth all afternoon. I love it – I mean…my wife hates it when it’s cabbage, but there’s no time for haters here today.
We circle back on the cabbage tradition every St. Patrick’s Day, which just passed. It’s corned beef and cabbage every year – a corned beef brisket with the seasoning packet, four carrots, eight Yukon gold potatoes, four cloves of garlic, and half a head of cabbage, roughly chopped. Put it in a crockpot, pour a 12oz Guinness over top of it as well as a fourth of a cup of brown sugar. Top it with a bay leaf and cook it on low for eight hours. I like my cabbage slightly above mush consistency, so I actually leave the cabbage out and put it in with six hours to go, but you do do. But, this recipe is a perfect example of why it’s so frustrating to cook with green cabbage. Every recipe calls for half a head! So, what am I supposed to do with the other half?!?! This is a real crisis, people!
Well, after all of these years, I’ve finally figured it out. I’ve found two perfect recipes for cabbage lovers to enjoy without breaking the bank (’cause let’s face it – ain’t nobody wantin’ to buy a $40 corned beef brisket for every half head of cabbage they chop up). If you’re like me and struggle with the prospects of wasting that other half head of cabbage every time you want your favorite cabbage recipe, then rest assured, we got this.
For one, my introduction to boiled cabbage came courtesy of my father. When I still lived at home, it was one of our favorite comfort foods when it was cold outside. He’d just chop up and boil a head of cabbage with some salt and pepper, and add a smoked sausage to it. A whole head is too much for me on my own (remember, my wife hates cabbage). So, any time I wanted to make it on my own as a grown adult, I’d just have this half of cabbage sitting in the fridge rotting unless I wanted to make another batch of cabbage and sausage and just eat nothing but that for a week straight.
Thankfully, my wife’s maid of honor tipped me off to one of her favorite cabbage recipes when she visited last summer: sautéed cabbage and egg noodles. That’s the beautiful thing about cabbage – it’s pure simplicity. With such a distinct flavor all its own, it doesn’t need a lot of dressing up. She told me to slice up some cabbage thinly, sauté it in some butter…get it really, really sautéed…almost to the point where it’s like caramelized. Prep half a bag of egg noodles, and then mix it all up. I love egg noodles. I love cabbage. It makes for the perfect meal.
So, that was it for me. One January day, I was craving cabbage and sausage, and when I felt my usual “what am I going to do with the rest of this cabbage?” dread, I remembered the egg noodles. I remembered the butter. And, I thought, “that’s it!” I’ve done it twice since then. Throw cabbage and sausage in the crockpot on Monday. Prep cabbage and noodles on Tuesday. Have enough leftovers for lunch the rest of the week. A real W for cabbage lovers everywhere. And, if you want it in “recipe form,” here you go. Enjoy.
Keeley’s Cabbage & Sausage
- 1/2 head of cabbage, roughly chopped
- 1 pack (2 links) of smoked sausage, chopped
- 2 cups water
- Salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste
- About a tsp of garlic powder
- About 2 tsp Old Bay
Directions: chop the cabbage, throw it in a crockpot, throw in two cups of water – put your salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, garlic powder and Old Bay on top, stir it up, top with the sausage (so that all the fat sausage juice drips down through to the cabbage (I have no idea if this really works but I like it)), cook on low for six hours.
Jess’ Cabbage & Noodles
- 1/2 head of cabbage, thinly diced into strips
- A stick of butter
- Crushed red pepper to taste
- Optional: get crazy with the seasonings. Try different things you like.
Directions: Thinly slice the cabbage and melt half a stick of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Throw the cabbage in, and cook it until it is shrunken down looking borderline burnt/caramelized/whatever. Meanwhile, throw half a bag of egg noodles in boiling water and prep them per the bag’s instructions. Once they’re done, drain the pot and put in the other half stick of butter and stir it all up to melt and coat the noodles. Once you’re confident your cabbage is ready, mix it in with the noodles, sprinkle over your crushed red pepper and any other seasonings you want to experiment with, stir more, and enjoy.
Toss the leftovers in tupperware and keep for a few days. Now, we’re living, cabbage lovers. Now, we’re living.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, third on Football & Other F Words, co-host of The Hot Read Podcast, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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