How to Cook Red Cabbage

Red cabbage, or any form of cabbage, is often thought of as being tasteless, unappetising or worse. This is for more than any other reason that cabbage is all too often cooked in an inappropriate fashion or to excess. This page will look at how to cook red cabbage with a variety of different ingredients to ensure both that it retains its nutritional value and that it forms a tasty component part of a meal.

Check out also the, "Useful Links," section I will include further down this page for lots more ideas on how to cook red cabbage.

Traditionally, the most common way of cooking cabbage is to boil it in water. This has the double drawback, however, of both removing much of the taste and nutritional value from the cabbage, as well as making it prone to being overcooked, limp and soggy.

This incredibly simple - and quicker - way of cooking red cabbage effectively sautes it in olive oil and the added ingredients improve the flavour many times over.

For two people, this recipe calls for a quarter of a red cabbage, one moderately soft pear, a pinch of nutmeg, one tablespoon of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. The cores should be removed from the red cabbage and the pear before they are sliced as shown to the right.

The olive oil should be gently heated in a wide-bottomed pan. The red cabbage, pear and nutmeg are then added and cooked over a fairly high heat, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or spatula, for seven to eight minutes. The cabbage should then be seasoned to taste.

I served this red cabbage and pear with casseroled shoulder of pork and garlic and herb mashed potatoes, as pictured above.

The red cabbage is in this instance cooked exactly the same way as above but is this time accompanied by white onion and garlic. For quarter of a red cabbage, one small, sliced white onion and one large clove of garlic, also sliced, should be used.

This red cabbage, onion and garlic is served with a Melton Mowbray pork pie, a hard boiled egg, salad and pickled beetroot, as seen below.

This combination can make in itself a delicious and nutritious lunch. The first step is to cook the bacon by grilling it. It should then be cut in to strips and set aside while the red cabbage and onion is sauteed in the fashion already described.

The bacon strips should be added to the red cabbage and onion for the last couple of minutes' cooking time, simply to heat through. Note that alsthough black pepper should be added to this dish, enough salt is likely to be obtained from the bacon to eliminate the need for the addition of any more.