Quick & Simple Cabbage Rolls
Nothing says fall like cozy little bundles of cabbage and rice covered in a hearty pan-seared tomato sauce.
Recipe Overview – Simple Cabbage Rolls
🔪 The Recipe: Simple Cabbage Rolls
⏲️ Estimated Time: about 35 minutes from scratch.
💵 Cost to make: $1.89 USD / $2.61 CAD
🍽️ Servings: Around 6-12 servings
🕹️ Difficulty: Easy
The Menu
Tender cabbage leaves encase a hearty filling of rice, spices, and seasonal sunflower seeds for added depth, all simmered in a rich, pan-blistered grape tomato sauce. These simple cabbage rolls capture the essence of cozy, autumn flavors while using common, humble ingredients, making it a seasonal favorite.
Nourishing, flavorful, and affordable, these cabbage rolls are the perfect comfort food—celebrating the simplicity and goodness of wholesome, traditional ingredients.
Coming Soon: WFPB Broccoli Cheddar Soup (📺)
Also, stay tuned for this week’s surprise dessert/snack recipe, and maybe even a comfort salad! If you haven’t already subscribed then do so now so you don’t miss any of my upcoming recipes!
Why I Had To Make Simple Cabbage Rolls WFPB
I had to create this Simple Cabbage Rolls recipe because cabbage rolls are definitely high on the comfort food ladder—cozy little bundles of tastiness covered in a hearty sauce.
But I wanted to make them healthy and whole food plant-based, so you get all the warmth and satisfaction without the heaviness or harm. Traditional versions are often loaded with processed meats, oils, or other unhealthy ingredients, but these cabbage rolls are light, wholesome, and made with simple, seasonal, plant-powered goodness—perfect for anyone looking for a healthier take on a classic dish that’s better for both you and your health.
I’ve kept them as minimalist as possible to honor the tradition of cabbage rolls as humble fare. But if you want more substance and protein, then try adding some lentil tofu (soy-free) as seen in the Gyros / Donairs recipe, spiced with a touch of fennel, rosemary, and black pepper 😋
“I absolutely love making these Simple Cabbage Rolls! They're such a perfect blend of comfort and nourishment. The combination of tender cabbage, hearty rice, and sunflower seeds, all simmered in that rich, blistered tomato sauce, brings so much flavor with just a few simple ingredients. This dish is always a hit, whether I’m meal prepping for the week or making them for family and friends. The best part is how easy and affordable they are to make while still being filling and delicious”
- Chef Rob (me)
Hot Tap Water IS NOT SAFE FOR COOKING
Cooking with hot water from the tap not only affects the taste and texture of your food from potential minerals, salts, and sediment buildup in the water heater, but it can also add harmful substances like lead, and even viruses that can cause diseases like Pontiac Fever or Legionair’s Disease or other health issues.
As a chef you never use hot water from the tap since it comes from the hot water heater which is rarely, if ever, cleaned. A peer-reviewed field survey study from 2020 of 30 residential homes in Michigan found that after cleaning the hot water tanks in the homes, the levels of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc, silica, and aluminum all “[…] decreased by 64% […]” These minerals and metals can have huge effects and not only alter the taste and texture of the food, but it can even affect the cooking time.
If flavor, texture, and even time aren’t of concern then there is also the lead content which also decreased by 64%, and L. pneumophila and Legionella spp. viruses that cause Pontiac Fever and Legionair’s Disease decreased by 98% and 83%, respectively, after the tanks were cleaned. There is also concern about aluminum since people with Alzheimer’s tend to have higher amounts of aluminum in their brains than people without.
Hopefully, you only use cold water already in the kitchen—ideally even filtered, or better—but if not then I hope the health and culinary points I’ve made will make you rethink before cooking with hot water from the tap next time, and if you have any questions or concerns then please send me a message.
P.S. If you have an expensive on-demand water heater then there’s no tank so you needn’t worry.
Back to the food…
Simple Cabbage Roll Recipe
🧰Equipment
1 Spice / Coffee Grinder
1 Pot
🥣Ingredients
RICE & CABBAGE
1 cup rice dried I use brown rice
6-12 ea cabbage leaves whole
½ tsp garlic granulated or 1 tbsp fresh or ¼ tsp powdered
3 tbsp sunflower seeds hulled
1 ea bay leaf dried
¼ tsp celery seed ground
BLISTERED TOMATO SAUCE
1.5 cups tomatoes skins on
1 cup tomato paste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
½ tsp garlic granulated
1 cup water
🔪Instructions - Simple Cabbage Rolls
The full Simple Cabbage Rolls recipe can be found here:
(including step-by-step photos and more detailed instructions and tips.)
Basic Directions
RICE & CABBAGE
Cook your rice until there is about 10-15 minutes left. Add your whole cabbage leaves directly on top of the rice and replace the lid so it steams if at the same time. No steamer needed!
Hint: if you tear the cabbage leaves a bit it's not a big deal, try using a knife to cut the leaf at the thickest part and then peeling the leaf off from the thinnest part of the leaf.Remove your cabbage leaves from the rice pot when they are softened and bright green, run them under cold water, and set them aside. Blend your dried granulated garlic, sunflower seeds, celery seeds and bay leaf into a powder and add all but 1 tablespoon to the rice (we will be adding the 1 tablespoon to the tomato sauce.)
Reserve your rice so we can reuse the pot for the tomato sauce.
BLISTERED TOMATO SAUCE
Bring a pot up to medium heat and add your tomatoes; cook until they start to caramelize a bit a blister, not burn. At that point you want to mash them up a bit with grape tomatoes I just "burst" them by pressing them against the edge of the pot with a spoon.
Now add 1 tablespoon of the sunflower/celery seed/bay-leaf powder to the tomatoes as well as the garlic powder, balsamic, and tomato paste, mix well. Cook until the tomato paste darkens then add the water.
As the sauce thickens we'll stuff the cabbage rolls. Add about 1 half a cup of the rice mix to the leafy (thinner) side of the cabbage leaf, now fold over the left and right sides, and then finally roll the cabbage into a little burrito shape. Place all cabbage rolls in the pot and sink them in the sauce. Cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes, or longer if you like, on low heat.
Great dipped in a side of sour creamy sauce, pierogies, and a warm bowl of borscht!
Updates
Under the PlantBasedProof.com/research you can now find science-based research on:
and more to come! Requests welcome!
Under the PlantBasedProof.com/ingredients you will find all of the ingredients I use and research data on which diseases they help to fight—in progress still, but the list is growing each day.
For a single page filled with the positive effects and science-backed research on plant-based eating then check out PlantBasedProof.com/proof. That resource is mostly to share with people who ask us to back up claims on a plant-based lifestyle or have concerns about your protein or calcium intake etc., hopefully, these resources will help to make things easier.
That’s all for today.
Have a great week and stay healthy and nourished!
