There are a lot of recipes for stuffed cabbage rolls - almost all popular cuisines of the world have in their arsenal recipes where minced meat is wrapped in cabbage or grape leaves and stewed in sauce. And although the cooking technology is almost the same, the final result depends on the taste preferences of the cook. Each country tries to appropriate the origin of the dish.
The Greeks say that it comes from Ancient Greece, but something similar was also prepared in Rus'. True, they stuffed it with millet porridge and meat, and it was called “galusha.” And the word “stuffed cabbage rolls” most likely came to us from the French. That's what they called fried stuffed pigeons. With the arrival of French cuisine in Russia in the 18th century, our “inventors” began to fry “false pigeons” - minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. As for dolma - small envelopes made of grape leaves in which beef or lamb with rice is wrapped - Turkey and Lebanon compete for the right of primacy in its origin. The Persian word dolmeh means "stuffed" or filled. Another variant of the name sarma is “wrapped”.
Stuffed cabbage rolls are loved in every family. Some people like to stew them, others fry them and then bake them in the oven. Sauces can also be very different - from French Bechamel to spicy Chinese. Even if you cook them in a banal bouillon cube, the cabbage rolls will still be tasty. Yes, and they put it in the filling - who knows what.
Stuffed cabbage rolls - food preparation
The appearance and taste of the dish largely depends on the quality and type of cabbage. To get a neat cabbage roll without the filling falling out through the holes, the cabbage must be cooked correctly. We choose young cabbage of late and medium varieties, pour boiling water over the cabbage. It is better to first cut out the stalk and add a little acid - citric or vinegar - to the water - this will keep the leaf dense and will not tear when stuffing.
The head of cabbage should be dense and even, preferably without creases or cracks. We disassemble the head of cabbage into leaves and leave to cool. Then we cut off the compacted parts. It is advisable to boil the rice a little - bring to a boil and hold for a couple of minutes. Then filter and mix it with the minced meat. Pay attention to the sauce - it should be rich so that we don’t end up with a watery dish. It is better to cook in a thick-walled pan. Cover the bottom with cabbage or grape leaves.
Stuffed cabbage rolls - the best recipes
Recipe 1: Stuffed cabbage rolls - a classic Russian recipe
Who doesn't like cabbage rolls in our country? There is probably not a single family that does not cook these delicious envelopes filled with minced meat.
Ingredients: minced meat (500 grams), onions (2 pcs. for minced meat and 2 pcs. for gravy), rice (1-1.5 cups), water (1 cup), salt, pepper, head of cabbage.
Sauce: sour cream (500 grams), tomato sauce (3-4 spoons), onion, vegetable oil, carrots (1 pc), water, pepper, salt.
Cooking method
Boil the rice in salted water and drain the water. Cool and mix with minced meat, luom, salt and pepper.
Let's prepare the cabbage - cut the stalk deep into the head, lower it into boiling water for a few minutes. Separate the softened leaves and form the basis for the cabbage roll. Young early cabbage just needs to be dipped in boiling water - the leaves will simply scatter on their own.
Winter varieties will have to be boiled a little, removing the leaves gradually. You can also warm up the cabbage in the microwave - just place the cabbage for a minute and also gradually remove the leaves. An alternative is to bake it in foil in the oven, but in this case the upper parts will fry a little, and the workpiece will acquire a specific smell. If your cabbage was frozen, no heat treatment is required.
Place the filling on the prepared sheets and wrap it in the form of an envelope, starting from the thick edge. Place everything tightly in a saucepan, add a small amount of water and put on fire.
Sauce: Sauté onions and carrots in oil in a frying pan, add tomato sauce and a little water. Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls about 20 minutes before the end of cooking. Serve with sour cream and herbs.
Recipe 2: Stuffed cabbage rolls with buckwheat and minced chicken
It turns out very interesting, be sure to try it. In this case, it is better to first fry the cabbage rolls in vegetable oil and then simmer in sour cream. With minced chicken the dish will be softer or more tender, but you can cook it with beef.
Ingredients: minced chicken (500 grams), salt, pepper, onion, sour cream (1 cup), bay leaf, vegetable oil, medium head of cabbage.
Cooking method
Boil buckwheat for 5 minutes. Drain the water and place in a colander. Mix with minced chicken and onions fried in vegetable oil, salt and pepper.
We disassemble the cabbage into leaves; if necessary, scald it first. Place the filling in the middle of the cabbage leaf and roll it up into an envelope. Fry the envelopes in vegetable oil, put them in a deep pan and add water and sour cream. Salt, season with peppers and add bay leaf. Simmer for about 40 minutes.
Recipe 3: Dolma (stuffed cabbage rolls with grape leaves)
Real dolma is only lamb. However, we are our own chefs because we can replace products at our own discretion. In general, those who do not accept lamb can use beef with the same success.
Ingredients: fresh or pickled grape leaves (250 grams), minced beef or lamb (300 grams), vegetable oil (70 grams), onions (2 pcs.), short-grain rice (small glass), dill, mint, salt, pepper.
Cooking method
Wash the leaves in cold water. Soak the pickled leaves in water for an hour and then dry. Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan to fry the onions. Let it sit for a while under the lid. Add rice, spices, salt and pepper to the onion. Dolma differs from cabbage rolls in its smaller size. The doves turn out small and neat, make sure that the leaves do not unfurl.
Place the pan with dolma on the fire, sprinkle with vegetable oil, and cover with a plate. Cook over low heat for 45 minutes. Serve with sour cream, mayonnaise or sauce. The ideal oriental sauce is natural yogurt mixed with chopped garlic. Instead, you can use kefir, yogurt, matsoni. Fermented milk sauce makes dolma an even lighter dish.
Recipe 4: Dietary fasting cabbage rolls
If you are on a salt-free diet and want to diversify your diet, try cooking with curry and ginger - they help burn fat.
Ingredients: beef (300 grams), white cabbage (150 grams), celery, carrots, chicken egg (2 pcs.), curry, lemon juice (1 teaspoon), olive oil. For the gravy: kefir (100 grams), ground ginger (half a teaspoon).
Cooking method
Grind cabbage, carrots and celery in a blender. Mix and add to the minced meat along with the eggs and curry. We form the cabbage rolls: put the filling in the center of the prepared cabbage leaves and wrap them in tight envelopes. Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil and place the cabbage rolls tightly. For the gravy, mix kefir and ginger and pour on top. Bake in the oven at a temperature of 220-260 degrees.
Recipe 5: Stuffed cabbage rolls with mushrooms
Another recipe for a lean diet. You can take honey mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, but also champignons with rice as a filling for cabbage leaves - a wonderful combination. It's tasty, healthy, easy.
Ingredients: cabbage (10 steamed leaves), rice (4 tablespoons), champignons (200 grams), onion (1 piece), tomato paste, salt, vegetable oil.
Cooking method
Boil the leaves until semi-soft in salted water. Boil the rice until it remains crumbly, and cook the mushrooms separately. Chop the onion and fry it in a frying pan. Add mushrooms and combine with rice. Add a little salt. Wrap the finished filling in cabbage leaves and transfer to a saucepan. Simmer for 40 minutes, add tomato paste and spices. Serve with herbs and sour cream.
Stuffed cabbage rolls are prepared using a certain technology, but different sauces can be used.
For example:
- sour cream with chopped herbs and garlic passed through a garlic press;
- kefir with herbs and salt;
- Mix mayonnaise with onions in a blender. Add a bunch of parsley and pickled cucumber, lemon juice.
Selection and preparation of cabbage leaves
At the preparatory stage, the most important thing is to make the right choice of cabbage. When choosing a head of cabbage, first of all pay attention to its density. Too dense forks are difficult to parse into leaves. We recommend using young cabbage for cabbage rolls, then its leaves in the dish will be as juicy and tender as possible. The younger the cabbage, the softer the cabbage rolls will be. It is better to cut the leaves from the head of cabbage with a sharp knife and first boil them in boiling salted water for a couple of minutes.
Out of season, young cabbage can be cooked from old cabbage, but then you need to take a small fork and first boil it whole for about 10 minutes. Only after this should the leaves be cut off from the head of cabbage. You can also cut out the stalk with a sharp knife, place the fork cut side up in a large saucepan, add boiling water and cook, periodically removing the leaves that come away from the fork during the cooking process. Any coarse veins or thick fibers must be removed.
The leaves will become softer if the thick parts of the leaf are beaten with a meat mallet or rolling pin, but here you need to be careful that the leaves do not tear. You can achieve softness by putting the purchased cabbage in a bag and putting it in the freezer. After defrosting at room temperature, even the densest sheets become much softer.
Properly prepared leaves become translucent, the filling is visible through them, but at the same time they are intact and elastic.
Stuffing for cabbage rolls
There are many variations of fillings - from vegetarian to exotic, but the classic filling is minced pork and beef, taken in a 1: 1 ratio, and cereals, such as rice or buckwheat. Vegetables and herbs are added to the minced meat. The more there are, the juicier the cabbage rolls will be. You can add sour cream and grated cheese - this will add a piquant and unusual taste to the usual cabbage rolls.
You can cook minced meat not in a meat grinder, but chop it with a sharp knife.
If you twist the meat, then it is better to do it not finely, otherwise the filling in the finished dish will be too boiled and wadded. For taste, you can add onions, garlic and herbs, but they are not added in large quantities in the classic recipe, although this is a matter of taste, of course.
The cereal is placed in the minced meat in a state of semi-preparedness, then the filling turns out more juicy and not overcooked. Rice or buckwheat should be added in a ratio of 1:3 in favor of meat. It is important to knead the resulting mixture of minced meat, cereals, onions and herbs well and beat it, throwing it on top for a few minutes on the surface. This will give the filling tenderness.
Rolling cabbage rolls
In order to roll the cabbage roll correctly, we recommend placing the filling on the inside of the leaf, covering it with the petiole part. After this, you can tuck the sides of the sheet and wrap the cabbage roll. This method allows you to form neat envelopes, closed on all sides. The filling will definitely not fall out of them during the cooking process.
The size of the envelopes depends on your desire, but small cabbage rolls cook faster and taste juicier. A medium cabbage leaf makes about 3 small cabbage rolls. If you are completely unsure of your ability to carefully roll a cabbage roll or are doing it for the first time, then the easiest way is to use chef’s thread or secure the edges with a toothpick, which will definitely prevent your dish from falling apart.
Cooking cabbage rolls
Prepared envelopes can be boiled, stewed, baked, or cooked in a slow cooker. The easiest option is to boil them in salted water or broth. To make them very juicy, try stewing cabbage rolls in kefir. You can cook them in various gravies, for example, tomato or creamy mushroom.
Stuffed cabbage rolls stewed in dry white wine, tomato or pomegranate juice are delicious. It turns out delicious if you use roasted vegetables from your favorite vegetables. When serving the dish, add a few spoons on top. If you don’t want the cabbage rolls to lose their shape, then lightly fry the envelopes on both sides in a frying pan before stewing. In this case, they will definitely not fall apart during cooking due to the resulting crust, which will not only hold the shape together, but will also seal the meat juice inside the cabbage roll.
The dish will be more aromatic if you add a couple of spoons of sour cream, a bay leaf and a pinch of rosemary when placing it in the pan. We like cabbage rolls prepared with a dressing of carrots, tomatoes and sweet peppers, fried in vegetable oil.Cook the cabbage rolls for about an hour over low heat. It is better to simmer in a form with a very thick bottom. Stew and cook with the lid closed. Bake under foil, opening a few minutes before readiness, in order to get ruddy caps. If you cook cabbage rolls in the oven, then place another pan with water under the dish with the dish, this will help keep the dish from drying out.
By following these simple cooking rules, you will definitely get a juicy and at the same time tender result.
Stuffed cabbage rolls for the lazy
If you have neither the time nor the desire to tinker with envelopes, then you can prepare a simpler option - “lazy” cabbage rolls. The main ingredients of this dish are the same - cabbage, onions, herbs, garlic. All this is either finely chopped or passed through a meat grinder. Rice or semi-cooked buckwheat is added to the resulting minced meat, raw eggs are mixed in, everything is salted, peppered and formed into cutlets or meatballs. Lazy cabbage rolls can be boiled, baked or stewed, just like regular ones.
Hello friends!
Today we will pamper our loved ones with one of the most delicious, in my opinion, dishes.
Yum-Yum! Moreover, fresh cabbage is already sold, how can you pass it by indifferently.
So, let's begin.
To prepare delicious cabbage rolls you will need:
Head of cabbage;
Minced meat - 0.5 kg;
Onion - 1 piece;
Carrots - 2 pcs;
Boiled rice - 200 g;
Sunflower oil;
Tomato paste, sour cream, a little flour;
Garlic, herbs, bay leaf, black pepper, meat spices, salt.
Recipe for delicious cabbage rolls:
1. Disassemble the cabbage into leaves. Oh, this is a difficult job: stripping the cabbage, but let's try to cope with it.
Many people ask: how to properly cut cabbage into cabbage rolls without breaking it. I know 3 proven methods cabbage cutting:
No matter how the cabbage was cut, I cut off the thick veins from each cabbage leaf so as not to damage the leaf itself. That is, I make the sheet flatter and less brittle.
I managed to cut the cabbage:
2. Add onion to the prepared minced meat. It is advisable to prepare the minced meat yourself. I usually do it like in . You can, of course, buy it on the market if you know good suppliers - this will save time, but I prefer to make it myself.
3. Add salt and spices.
I also add finely chopped cabbage leftovers; I can’t feed my daughter vegetables any other way, and chopped cabbage is almost invisible in the minced meat. Here's a little secret.
4. Add boiled rice and cabbage.
5. Mix everything.
The crucial moment has come: the formation of cabbage rolls.
6. Place 2-3 tbsp on the edge of the leaf (near the petiole part). filling, cover the filling from below, then fold the side parts up and wrap the top part. This is roughly what happened to me:
7. Fry the cabbage rolls in sunflower oil on both sides.
8. Place in layers in a cauldron.
9. Between the cabbage rolls, make a layer of carrots, garlic, tomato paste, bay leaf.
From the remaining minced meat I make small cutlets and also put them in the cauldron:
10. Make gravy for cabbage rolls. In a separate bowl, make a mixture: sour cream + tomato paste + water (those who cut the cabbage using method No. 2 were lucky here, you can use cabbage water) + flour.
11. Pour this mixture over the cabbage rolls and the stew over low heat for 40-50 minutes.
Now the most important thing is to be patient and wait, and this is oh how hard it is!
In the meantime, let's cook buckwheat as a side dish and make: cucumbers, tomatoes, green salad, fetax cheese and olive oil:
The end result was something like this:
And a portion for my daughter, the design is also hers:
Bon appetit!
For those who like to “hang out” in the kitchen for two or three hours, I highly recommend preparing. The dish is to die for!
And if you are going to go to nature and you have the opportunity to take a cauldron with you, then be sure to prepare or!
I suggest preparing cabbage rolls according to this recipe with step-by-step photos. Some housewives believe that the dish is very difficult to prepare. Follow all the cooking steps and you will succeed. Cooking them is not that difficult.
Ingredients:
Cabbage– 1 head of cabbage
Onion– 1 head
Minced pork and beef– 500 grams
Rice (cereal)– 0.5 cups
Tomato paste– 2 tbsp.
Sour cream– for serving
Sunflower oil– 70 ml
Spices: salt, ground black pepper, paprika, any vegetable seasoning as desired
How to make cabbage rolls
1. First of all, cut out the stalk with a sharp knife.
2
. Bring water to a boil, add a pinch of salt and add the cabbage, cut side down first. Boil for two minutes, then turn over. Using two forks, carefully remove the leaves from the head. Boil the leaves for one or two minutes, place them in a deep bowl and cover with a lid. Don't overcook the cabbage! If you have young spring cabbage, then you do not need to pour boiling water over it for a long time, just a few seconds, since young cabbage is very tender and has thin leaves.
3
. Finely chop the peeled onion. In the case, as happens with me, if children are looking for onions in any dish, then they can grate them on a coarse grater.
4
. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry for several minutes, stirring until transparent. Add minced meat to the onion, stir and fry until the meat completely changes color. Season with salt and paprika. When you add the paprika, you can immediately turn off the heat so that the pepper does not burn. Stir and add ground black pepper.
5
. Rinse the rice thoroughly in several waters. Add the meat filling and tomato paste to the rice and stir.
6
. Let's return to cabbage. Cut out the central protrusion of each leaf. Starting from the top of the leaf, tear each one into two halves. Place all waste and torn leaves on the bottom of the pan in which the cabbage rolls will be cooked. Set a few cabbage leaves aside.
7
. Take the leaf in your hands, place a tablespoon of rice filling on the edge and wrap the cabbage roll, as one would wrap bags for sunflower seeds.
8
. Close the top of the cabbage roll. Do this with the rest of the cabbage leaves. Stir the filling every time, as all the delicious juices are at the bottom of the bowl.
9
. Place the cabbage rolls in a saucepan or cauldron, the bottom of which is lined with the remaining cabbage leaves. One row after another. Send about two liters of water to the fire.
10
. Cover the top cabbage rolls with leaves and a round plate, preferably slightly smaller in diameter than the pan. Place a large mug of water on top (oppression). Pour boiling water over the cabbage rolls, 3-4 centimeters above the plate. Cook them after boiling for exactly 40 minutes. Remove from heat, remove mug and plate from pan, cover tightly with lid. Wrap the cabbage rolls and let them sit for about an hour. Serve with sour cream if desired.
Stuffed cabbage rolls according to a delicious recipe are ready
Bon appetit!
History of the dish
Culinary historians believe that cabbage rolls were first invented by the French. And in Russia they began to be prepared in the nineteenth century. First, the stuffed, wrapped cabbage leaves were baked in the oven. They were called "false doves."
According to other sources, this dish originated from Turkey. Only the Turks did not use cabbage, but grape leaves. They called it sarma. The same thing is in Georgian cuisine, but it’s called dolma. Having moved from the eastern table to the Russian one, cabbage rolls acquired new qualities. Cabbage leaves began to be used instead of grape leaves. Lamb was replaced with pork, and buckwheat with rice.
Other sources say that the Chinese were the first to use rice cereal wrapped in cabbage leaves. But every nation has its own system for preparing this dish.
Secrets of making cabbage rolls
Young cabbage is not suitable for preparing this dish. It has delicate and soft leaves that are unable to withstand minced meat inside. Cooking cabbage rolls with young cabbage is very difficult.
Stuffed cabbage rolls should be made small. It is better to take round rice. Choose a round-shaped cabbage with smooth leaves
The taste of cabbage rolls becomes clearer after they have been steeped, so there is no need to eat them immediately after cooking.
When serving the dish, to obtain a brighter and richer taste, you should put sour cream on top.
Advice from Scandinavian housewives! The dish will turn out more delicious if you put butter on each cabbage roll before putting it in the oven.
After putting the dish to stew, it is better to use not water, but the required amount of chicken, meat or vegetable broth. You can also stew it in dry white wine.
Stuffed cabbage rolls recipe in a slow cooker
You can eat cabbage rolls in any season. This delicious delicacy is prepared even on holidays. To make healthy and nutritious cabbage rolls, it is better to cook them in the spring. At this time, cabbage has a bright green color and a soft texture.
If you use a slow cooker, you can get a very tasty dish.
Ingredients
— 500 g of meat (chicken, pork or beef);
- 250 g rice;
- one onion;
- White cabbage.
For the gravy:
- one medium carrot and onion;
— 10 grams of tomato paste (can be replaced with tomatoes);
- salt, spices to taste.
Preparation
First you need to remove the stalk from the cabbage. Then the head of cabbage is released into the slow cooker and kept for some time in boiling water, then in cold water. After this, the leaves are laid out. It is better to get rid of hard veins immediately.
Let's move on to the minced meat. You need to mix the minced meat with slightly boiled or raw rice, chopped onions and spices.
Gravy. Pour 2 cups of water into the multicooker cup. Then you need to add tomato paste or grated tomatoes with chopped carrots and onions, salt and spices. All this should be cooked in the “Cooking” mode for a quarter of an hour.
While the gravy is cooking, roll the minced meat into cabbage leaves. Then the folded envelopes are placed in a slow cooker, so that the cabbage rolls are tightly spaced from each other and cannot open. We set “Stew” for half an hour.
Stuffed cabbage rolls recipe in the oven
This method allows you to get a very juicy and tasty dish. Baked meat and vegetables in the oven take on a special hue. To do this you will need to use:
- cabbage;
- rice - half a glass;
- minced meat - half a kilo;
- onion and spices.
For the gravy you will need tomato sauce - 0.5 l; bulb; garlic -2 cloves; carrot; a little vegetable oil, spices and sour cream.
Cabbage should have juicy and thin leaves. The very first sheets are removed. Then cook the cabbage in a saucepan with water for five minutes on one side and three minutes on the other. You need to get rid of the central veins on the leaves.
Filling: minced meat with rice. The cereal is first cooked until half cooked if the cabbage is young. If the cabbage is hard and late, then there is no need to pre-boil the rice. Chop the onion and simmer it in a frying pan until it becomes soft and transparent. Then the minced meat is mixed with rice and onions, salt and pepper are added. Wrap the filling in cabbage in the form of envelopes. Place the envelopes on a greased baking sheet.
Gravy. Onion cubes or half rings are fried in oil. Carrots are added to the browned onions. Place on low flame and simmer. Add tomato sauce. Then this entire composition is stewed together with garlic, spices, salt and sugar. To soften the taste, add sour cream (15 g).
The prepared sauce is poured over the cabbage rolls, covered with foil and left in the oven for half an hour or 40 minutes (until the rice is cooked). The temperature should be no more than two hundred degrees.
Browned cabbage rolls smell aromatic and have a pleasant taste.
Stuffed cabbage rolls recipe in a frying pan
Ingredients:
700 g minced meat (pork, beef);
200 g rice cereal;
Onion 1 piece;
cabbage;
4 cloves of garlic;
one and a half glasses of tomato sauce.
You will also need vegetable oil, salt and spices.
In this method it is also necessary to prepare tomato-sour cream sauce. Only less than when cooking in a saucepan.
First you need to boil the cabbage in salted water, cool to room temperature, and slowly cut off the softened leaves from the head of cabbage.
The filling is made with rice and minced meat. Fry chopped onion and garlic until golden brown. Minced meat and rice are mixed with fried onions. Add salt and spices. Then they put the filling on the cabbage leaf and make an envelope. Place rolled cabbage rolls in a frying pan and pour in tomato. Cover the pan with a lid and leave to simmer over medium heat for an hour. When serving the dish to the table, sauce is poured over the cabbage rolls.
Attention! The cabbage rolls will be delicious if you don’t overcook them!
Lazy cabbage rolls recipe
This is because you don't need to use whole cabbage leaves.
Ingredients:
400 g homemade minced meat;
300 g cabbage;
150 ml water;
onion;
carrot.
You also need a little vegetable oil for frying; 1 spoon of tomato paste; salt, spices and herbs.
Fry chopped onions in oil with grated carrots until the vegetables are browned. Then add the minced meat and also stir until the products are ready within fifteen minutes. Cabbage is cut into small cubes and mixed with minced meat and vegetables and also fried for fifteen minutes. To this composition add washed rice and water. After this, add the tomato with sour cream, spices and salt. When the water boils, you can put the fire on low and leave the cabbage rolls to simmer for forty minutes.
Spicy cabbage rolls recipe
Lovers of spicy and aromatic dishes should use the recipe for cabbage rolls of our ancestors.
First, cabbage leaves are prepared. Then they move on to preparing the sauce for stewing cabbage rolls.
The onion, cut into small cubes, is fried in oil until it turns golden. Add chopped tomatoes, sour cream (6 tbsp), 150 ml water, and tomato paste (10 g) to the prepared vegetables. Stir and add some spices, pepper, salt, sugar. You need to wait until the water boils before closing the pan and simmering for fifteen minutes.
At this time, the filling is being prepared. To do this, add rice that has settled in boiled water, a couple of chopped onions, spices and salt to the minced meat (550 g). This composition is mixed. The finished filling can be used to form cabbage rolls in the form of envelopes, which are then rolled in a beaten egg mixture.
The cabbage envelopes are laid out in a saucepan, a bay leaf is added, the prepared sauce is poured on top and simmered over low flame. In forty-five minutes the dish will be ready.
Chicken cabbage rolls
A special taste comes from chicken cabbage rolls baked in the oven. A similar dish can be found among Italians. Cabbage leaves are prepared in the usual way. Then they make the filling. In heated oil you need to fry 300 g of minced chicken, an onion cut into small cubes, and grated carrots. Next, a few pieces of bell pepper cut into small slices, salt and spices and stew.
Stuffed cabbage rolls are made from cooled minced meat. Place them in a frying pan, pour sauce on top (thick sour cream - 3 tbsp, cream - 100 ml). Place in a preheated oven and leave to bake for half an hour.
Classic cabbage rolls with meat and rice are a favorite dish for many. The combination of juicy minced meat, soft cabbage leaves and rich tomato and sour cream sauce is incredibly tasty and satisfying! However, when preparing this popular dish, there are some points that should be taken into account to achieve the perfect result. This includes boiling cabbage, properly prepared filling, and forming cabbage rolls. In our step-by-step instructions we will consider all the stages in detail.
The most time-consuming process in the cabbage rolls recipe is preparing the cabbage. It is necessary to carefully separate the leaves from the head of cabbage so as not to tear them or damage them. This can be done in different ways (using freezing, microwave, under running water, etc.). But today we will use the traditional method.
Ingredients: 
- minced meat (pork + beef) - 0.5 kg;
- cabbage - 1 large;
- rice - ½ cup;
- carrots - 1 small;
- onion - 1 large or 2 small;
- garlic - 1-2 cloves;
- tomatoes - 2-3 pcs.;
- fresh herbs (dill or parsley) - 3-4 sprigs;
- vegetable oil - 40-50 ml;
- salt, pepper - to taste.
For the sauce:
- tomato paste - 2 tbsp. spoons;
- sour cream - 4 tbsp. spoons;
- water - about 400 ml;
- salt - to taste.
Stuffed cabbage rolls recipe step by step with photos at home
- Remove the top damaged leaves from the cabbage. Next, we make deep cuts around the stalk with a knife to separate the base of the leaves from the head of cabbage. Choose a large saucepan (ideally the cabbage should fit completely there) and fill it with water. Place the head of cabbage on a knife or fork and immerse it in boiling salted liquid.
- Gradually, the cabbage leaves will begin to separate from the head of cabbage (we carefully help them with a fork).
- When there are 3-5 leaves in the pan, remove the head of cabbage from the pan. Cook the separated leaves for 1-2 minutes (until soft and elastic), then remove with a slotted spoon. Next, place the head of cabbage in the pan again, wait for the leaves to separate, etc. We repeat the procedure until all suitable leaves are gone.
Stuffing for cabbage rolls recipe with photo
- While the cabbage leaves are cooling, prepare the meat filling for the cabbage rolls. Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil, fry finely chopped onion until soft.
- Next we add carrots to the onions. Stirring, sauté everything together for about 3 minutes.
- Add the carrot and onion mixture to the minced meat and squeeze the garlic cloves through a press. Add chopped herbs to the mixture.
- Boil the rice until half cooked and also add it to the meat mixture. For juiciness, be sure to add tomato pulp to the filling ingredients. To do this, soak the tomatoes in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then rinse them with cold water and remove the steamed skin. Grind the pulp with a knife or turn it into a “puree” using a blender.
- Salt and pepper the filling ingredients, mix thoroughly.
How to cook cabbage rolls with meat and rice
- Forming cabbage rolls. Take a cabbage leaf and remove the hard part (the stem) with a knife. Lay out a portion of the meat mass (about 2-3 tablespoons). Cover the filling with the bottom edge of the cabbage leaf.
- Then we bend the sides to the minced meat and fold the top edge. We get a completely closed “envelope”. From the amount of products indicated in the recipe you will get approximately 9-10 cabbage rolls.
- Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan or deep frying pan. We fry our semi-finished products on both sides.
- Mix sour cream and tomato paste, dilute with water, lightly salt. Pour the prepared sauce over the cabbage rolls. The liquid should cover the products almost completely (add water if necessary). Cover the pan with a lid.
- Stew cabbage rolls with meat and rice for 30-40 minutes over low heat. Serve the finished products with the sauce and add herbs.
Stuffed cabbage rolls with meat and rice are ready! Bon appetit!
