- 1 large head of cabbage
- 1-1/2 lbs. ground beef
- 1 lb. ground pork
- 1 cup rice
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1 tsp. paprika (or to taste)
- 2 cups good quality tomato juice (or enough to cover cabbage rolls by at least 1")
- 2 cans condensed tomato soup
Let leaves cool slightly.
With a sharp knife, cut the thick membrane or stem off the back of each leaf, being careful not to cut through the leaf. Lay the leaf down flat and keep your knife horizontal to slice off the thick part of the leaf.
Continue simmering the cabbage and removing leaves.
Any leaves that cannot be used at the end, reserve for later.
Reserve cooking water (yes, we are being very frugal here!)
Prepare Filling:
Cook 1 cup of rice in 1 cup of water with 1 tsp. salt for about 7-8 minutes. Just parboil the rice.
Mix ground meats with sauteed onions and add rice. Add Worcestershire, salt and pepper and paprika. Add cooled rice and beaten eggs and mix well. Hands come in handy.
Now we can roll:
Depending how big the leaves are, place about 1/2 cup of filling towards the end of the cabbage leaf.
Roll leaf up and over meat, fold in both sides and continue to roll into a bundle.
Arrange stuffed cabbage snugly in the pot.
Add any leftover cabbage leaves to the bottom of the pot.
Add any leftover cabbage leaves to the bottom of the pot.
If there is any meat leftover, just form them into meatballs and add to the pot.
Mix the tomato soup as directed. Pour the tomato sauce over the cabbage. Add tomato juice to cover. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer, covered 2 to 2-1/2 hours. If you want to bake them, bake at 325 degrees F. covered, for the same amount of time
Get Grandma's Sauerkraut recipe here!
You can add sauerkraut to this recipe.
You can add sauerkraut to this recipe.
Grandma always served her stuffed cabbage rolls with home made mashed potatoes, adding the liquid from the stuffed cabbage rolls to the potatoes! YUMM!
Wow, I know I'd love these! This is the first I've heard of adding sauerkraut, very different:@)
ReplyDeleteThis looks so good! I bet I could eat a ton of these :) Will bookmark to try this recipe, thanks!
ReplyDeletemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteAnother polish girl right here! This looks great, and almost exactly like how we make ours! Im so proud of my family's polish recipes. And.......we call it gawumpki too! :)
ReplyDeleteI have been enjoying reading your blog as I am also Polish, and many of the recipes are things I remember my grandma making. I haven't tackled her recipe for pierogi though! My cabbage rolls are very similar to yours except for the zaprashka- I've never heard of that. My mom would take the small cabbage leaves and chop them up and layer them with sauerkraut and bake them. I love the cabbage/sauerkraut served over a bed of mashed potatoes- yummy!
ReplyDeleteTHE LITHUANIAN NAME FOR STUFFED CABBAGE AS BEST AS I CAN REMEMBER WAS KAPUSTI(sp?).
ReplyDeleteMY GRANDMOTHER MADE THESE AND THE WHOLE FAMILY LOVED THEM.
P.S.SHE DID NOT ADD SAUERKRAUT!
I ALSO SAY VERY UMMMMMMY INDEED.
I MISS MY GRANDMOTHER EVEN MORE THAN I MISS HER KAPUSTI AND THAT SAYS A LOT BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET EITHER ONE!!!
Greetings! My mother was Polish, and she'd make these. I've tried them myself but they are not as good as my Mom's were. :) I will have to try your "Zaprashka" - I never heard of that! Did you ever hear the word (and this is NOT the correct spelling) "Opruzhetch" ??? which was a word my mother used when she was like "braising" something. If you have (and you know how to spell it!), please email me, I'd love to hear from you!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Gloria
gloria(dot)vincent(at)yahoo(dot)com
p.s. Are you on Pinterest? I'd love to pin this recipe on there, or re-pin from you! Thanks!
ReplyDeletegv
I am alone now & reminiscing about the wonderful tastes and aromas created in my mother's kitchen. Wished I spent more time with her to learn more about her soups, breads, pierogi, honey cakes, poppy seed baking and yes, golumpki (there's a squiggly across the l which makes is "w" sound) but this keyboard is strictly English. She lined and covered her cabbage rolls with large outer cabbage leaves. Though she emigrated from Poland when she was 13, she was a far superior cook to her mother. Enjoyed your page. I will try your recipe, though I try to steer away from fat. And, if your mother or grandmother is still living, spend more time in the kitchen with them! Wanda
ReplyDeleteMy grandma (Booshie) was Ukrainian. She made Kapusta ( sauerkraut rinsed and boiled,then squeezed out. Fried pieces of bacon, leaving the grease & add the kraut & brown sugar. Stir & enjoy!! She never added the kraut to the halupshe (spelling?) cabbage rolls. Good memories....
ReplyDeleteI always make mine stuffed with lamb and in a sweet-and-sour tomato sauce but your gravy sounds incredible! I'll have to make another bath up soon.
ReplyDeleteThis is the best and most thorough recipe I've ever found.I love how you suggest to trim the cabbage vein,...not cut it out.
ReplyDeleteWe like it with a little drizzling of Heinz ketchup glazing the top of the casserole baked dish.
Thank you! Donna Klimek
roux (which is called zapraska in Slovak, jíška in Czech, zasmazka in Polish, rántás in Hungarian and Mehlschwitze in German
ReplyDeleteroux - which is called zapraska in Slovak, jíška in Czech, zasmazka in Polish, rántás in Hungarian and Mehlschwitze in German
ReplyDeleteI make these all the time, the REAL Polish way. There is no way in hell that Polish people would add Worcestershire sauce to "Gołąbki" (ewww!). However, we do add diced mushrooms, crushed garlic, and tiny minced pieces of pickles (yes! pickles!) to the meat and rice filling, along with the onions already mentioned. Also, NEVER , EVER Tomato soup for sauce (ewww again!). We take fresh tomatoes, condensed tomato paste and mix them with 1/2 can of chicken broth (or hot water with chicken bouillon) + 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and at the end, we thicken the sauce with SOUR CREAM, and also season very heavily with chopped DILL and with pepper.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Paulina. Every family has their own recipe. I like the idea of adding the chicken broth to the sauce!
DeleteWe all have wonderful memories of our Polish Grandmothers, the right taste, smell, etc. I wonder if my lovely grandmother was still here if she wouldn't go ahead and use the pre-canned tomato soup! She worked very hard and to know of a little convenience item may intrigue her! And my Grandmother would never add mushrooms and pickles. Yay for your memories. Yay for mine! Thanks for sharing this recipe Patricia. I will add my own 2014 ingredients and I'm sure my Mother and Grandmother would approve! My Grandmother was from Krakow, my Mother was first generation American.
DeleteThank you Carol! Yay!
DeleteAs Carol said, we all have wonderful Polish family memories. My grandmother, a first-generation Polish-American born in New Jersey as her parents journeyed from Poland to Chicago, used soy sauce, dry onion soup mix, and canned tomato soup or juice in her recipe. She did not use pickles. Celebrate all the different choices our Polish heritage represents!
DeleteFor novices to this recipe you can see Jenny Jones (yes, the former TV talk show host is Polish and speaks it too!) actually rolling the cabbage rolls using a variation of a golabki recipe. And Patricia Stagich, you are right! EVERY Polish family has their own versions of this recipe.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely making this tonight...I may tweak it based on the comments. I'm very excited. Thanks for the very detailed recipe!
ReplyDeleteRecipes are for tweaking! No one says you have to follow every ingredient! Make it your own!
DeleteFinally a recipe that doesn't cook the rice first. Thank you! My Grandma never cooked the rice and she told me to use medium grain for a more tender roll
ReplyDeleteThank you John! I'm going to try the medium grain rice next time I make them! It always helps to get little hints here and there from Grandma! xo
DeleteI have a traditional guamki recipe my brother got from a friends Polish grandmother. I've only made it once. I'm looking for suggested side dishes (2 maybe) to serve as a Polish dinner. Any ideas would be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteWe always serve with mashed potatoes. They just seem to go together!
DeleteMy mom, 1st generation Polish-AmericN, always had mashed potatoes and this version of green beans... 1-2 cans of French cut or regular green beans . Drain liquid. I use microwave, cook in serving bowl with 1-2 tablespoons of margarine or 1\2 c of butter, cook about 3 minutes on high. Then coat with Italian bread crumbs. My mom used plain and seasoned with a little onion and garlic powder. I prefer using Italian bread crumbs. My babchi, used fresh everything to make this but I now use fast version. Lol.
DeleteMy grandparents were Polish and we ate a lot of Polish foods, during the holidays and always at Polish weddings. Golabki (we pronounced it gawumpki also) was made quite often in our household and made very close to this recipe but we used veal instead of pork. Thank you for posting. I'll definitely have to make them!
ReplyDeleteVeal would also be delicious! Thank you for your comment!
DeleteThis sounds so good!!! I love me a good cabbage roll.
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe much like this but I freeze the cabbage first so don't have to boil it and I don't cook the rice as the juices cook it. Add chopped onions, celery, crushed garlic and whatever spices you like. With freezing the cabbage first makes it easy to peel off the head.
ReplyDeleteIm Australian and so were my parents and I grew up on this dish in a cooler area of Australia so Im not sure where my mum got it from as she was off the land and they made the most of all food they had and made it go a long way as back in the day they had too. Im sure she used both beef and lamb mince as thats what they were graizing. We did use a can of tomato soup if we didnt have fresh tomatoes and I use to put a dash of tabasco in for that oommph lol on a cold winters night
ReplyDeleteAfter the cabbage rolls recipe is a note for Grandma's Sauerkraut. If you were adding the sauerkraut to the cabbage rolls, would you use the salt pork and gravy? Would I need more tomato product to have enough sauce?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your help.
Christine
Hi chpetunia! You could add the salt port and gravy, but I feel it would change the taste of the sauce. If you feel you need more sauce, add another can of tomato soup with water.
DeleteMy mum also adds rice ............make sure its not over cooked. After they are made we either make a tomato base sauce OR shallow fry till golden.......with bacon.........yummmmmmm!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm 65 yrs old and was a teenager in late 1960's, my Grandmother was from Warsaw. She made this dish with Campbell Tomato Soup! This is what attracted me to your recipe. I plan on making this this weekend.
ReplyDeleteI am Polish and Russian. I have made Stuffed Cabbage before. I have tried to remember my mom's recipe but it never seems to be the same. But after reading your's and making it I am in heaven. This is just how she made it. My mother's mother was from Krakow and her father was from Russia. Your web-site is a blessing. I have found just about all my childhood recipes that my mon made.
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting in all the hard work, so we can enjoy the fruits of your labor. Bless you. malvinaduane@yahoo.com
can you freeze it before you bake it or does it have to be after?
ReplyDeleteWhen do you freeze it before or after cooking?
ReplyDeleteOur cute Polish Grandmothers will be forever in our hearts . My God how I wish mine was still here with her little accent And always worrying about what she was going to cook and asking is to take seconds or thirds. I came here because the recipe she gave me before she passed didn't mention if the meat was supposed to be precooked . Looks like no ..ty for uploading and Dziękuję
ReplyDeleteThank you Shellie! It warms my heart to get lovely comments such as yours! Those memories are ours to keep forever! xo
DeleteMy Mother-in-law never used worcesteshire sauce and only raw rice which cooked as cabbage rolls cooked. Mine never taste as good as I remember. She always served it on a bed of mashed potatoes.
ReplyDeleteI made these today. They're great! I salted the water for cabbage, salted the leaves after I blanched the and also salted every other component. It still could use a little so don't be shy with it!
ReplyDelete