This classic Hungarian cabbage roll recipe has been a traditional dish in my family for generations. A simple comfort recipe has lots of flavour and thoroughly enjoyed during the holidays. Serve it as a side or main dish.
Mom would make these cabbage rolls during special occasions, whether it was Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving. In addition, it was expected that they would be served at Hungarian weddings. The recipe is simple, yet once you combine all of the ingredients, it has a smoky savory flavour that is so comforting and satisfying.
Every bit of cabbage is used in this recipe. Slice the extra cabbage left, as there always some leftover, after rolling out the cabbage rolls and lay the slices on top and bottom of pot. This is always served with the sauce and cabbage rolls. It is just as flavourful and hearty to add to your dish when serving. Crusty bread is most often served with this dish to wipe up every bit of sauce. I may be bias but it is such a wonderful and delicious recipe!!
RECIPE INGREDIENTS
Cabbage: choose a green cabbage with very little markings or imperfections; always peel off the outer leaves that tend to be hard and less tender
Meat: we have always used only lean ground pork for our cabbage rolls
Rice: long grain rice has been the traditional rice we use
Bacon: choose only butchers’ bacon, sometimes you can find it in the grocery stores, but your local meat deli should have it
Onion: is the only vegetables added to this recipe; onion is sauté in the bacon which adds amazing flavours
Seasonings: salt, pepper and Hungarian paprika
Sauce: tomato juice, water, salt and pepper is what the cabbage rolls are cooked in
Flour and water: to thicken the sauce at the end
HELPFUL TIPS
- First recommendation is this recipe requires time and patience. However, the end result is all worth it. It makes over 35 cabbage rolls, and that is a lot of meals!
- You can freeze the extra in a freezer zip-lock bags and I would recommend to freeze them without cooking them. Our experience has been when reheating frozen cabbage rolls that were already cooked, they contained a lot of water and tended to taste watery.
- When purchasing cabbage, the fall and early winter cabbages are more tender and require less time for steaming. The late winter, early spring cabbage after being stored over the winter tend to be more tough, and require a little longer steaming.
- To give these cabbage rolls a traditional smoky flavour, purchase the butcher’s thick cut bacon. The regular sliced store bought bacon will not give the same flavours.
- Choose lean ground pork that has been ground only once if you can. The finer ground pork, will be more compact. I purchase mine at a local butcher and ask specifically to have them ground the pork only once.
WHAT MAKES THESE CABBAGE ROLLS SO DELICIOUS
- Simple ingredients that are fresh, good quality and local
- Using Hungarian sweet paprika is important
- Using smoked butcher’s bacon to saute the onions and laying a couple of strips over the cabbage rolls during the cooking process
- The long and slow cooking time allows the flavours to maximize and deepen
STORING
Once cooked, these cabbage rolls can be stored in the refrigerator up to 3 days in a sealed container.
My experience with freezing cooked cabbage rolls can be done for up to about 1-2 months. The cabbage will be limpy and you will likely need some tomato liquid added when reheating. If you have tomato juice, whole or diced tomatoes to add to the pot creating a tomato liquid with some salt and pepper.
For best results, freeze uncooked cabbage rolls with some of the extra loose cabbage. Place in a freezer ziplock bag for up 1-2 months. Sometimes, we have made our cabbage rolls a couple of weeks before using, froze them and they were just a delicious and fresh as though they were made on the same day. A perfect way to prep before a holiday celebration.
HOW TO MAKE THESE DELICIOUS CABBAGE ROLLS......detailed images and instructions below
Hungarian Cabbage Rolls - Töltött Káposzta
Equipment
- two large sauce pots
Ingredients
- 1 head green cabbage, cored
- 1 1/2 lb lean ground pork
- 1/2 cup long grain rice, rinsed
- 2 slices of butchers bacon optional: 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp Hungarian paprika
- 1-28 oz jar tomato juice
- 14 oz water
- 1 tsp Himalayan salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 4 slices smoky butcher's bacon
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1/4 cup water
- chopped parsley for garnishing
- dollop of sour cream
Instructions
Cabbage:
- Remove a few of the outer leaves of the cabbage head and rinse well. Take a sharp knife, and carefully core the cabbage. See photo below.
- Bring a large 6 quart pot of water to a boil, and place in cored cabbage. Turn the heat down to a low boil, and rotate cabbage. This will soften the cabbage leaves, and the outer leaves will start to peel away. Use a fork to peel the leaves away from the cabbage and immerse the leaves into the boiling water to soften, and continue this process until there is only a small portion of the cabbage head remaining. Slice the remaining core and any small leaves and set aside.
- Place each leaf on a plate, and once it starts to cool, take a paring knife and slice down one side of the vein.Trim the vein off completing from the other side of the leaf. This will make rolling much easier. Option is to leave the entire leave whole, but to note that the cabbage rolls will be much larger.
Filling and Rolling:
- In a medium size skillet, fry the bacon until cooked, then remove, (or heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil) then add onion and sauté until tender and transparent. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, mix together ground pork, rinsed rice, salt, black pepper, paprika and cooked onions.
- Rolling: take one half leaf at a time, and add about one tablespoon of the mixed ground pork and place it in the center of the cabbage leaf and begin rolling lengthwise. Once halfway, tuck in end of leaf over the meat, continue rolling on a diagonal and until you reach the end of the leaf and tuck inside with fingers. See photo below. If rolling the whole leaf, it requires to be rolling halfway then tuck one side in and roll to the end of the leaf and tuck the remaining end in with fingers. Place one and half or two tablespoons for a whole cabbage leaf.
- Place half of the sliced cabbage on the bottom of a large sauce pot and begin adding the cabbage rolls. Any remaining loose cabbage, place on top and then place about 4 slices of the bacon. This will add a smoky flavour to the cabbage rolls.
- In a large bowl, blend together tomato juice, water, salt and pepper. Pour over cabbage rolls to cover. Place pot over medium to high heat, once the liquid begins a slow boil, turn down to low gentle boil and cover slightly with lid. Cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours. Once it has cooked for over an hour, test one cabbage roll for doneness.
- To thicken the sauce, mix the flour and water in a small bowl, bring the cabbage rolls to a slow boil, gently move the cabbage rolls off to the sides and add the flour mixture. Once the sauce has thickened, remove from heat.
- Garnish with a dollop of sour cream or chopped parsley.
- Serve with crusty bread, mashed or roasted potatoes.
Nutrition
HOW TO MAKE THIS RECIPE
Cooking cabbage:
Once you have peeled off the outer leaves of the cabbage, rinsed it, then take a sharp knife and core it. Once placed in boil water, begin peeling away each leave at a time. Allow the boiling water to steam the leaves before removing.
Place the leaves on a plate, and allow to cool before removing the vein from each leave. I slice the leave in half on one side of the vein then remove the vein from the other side of the leaf.
Filling and Stuffing:
Hungarians would fry butchers bacon and use the fat to cook the onions. This adds a smoky flavour to the onions and as well to the cabbage rolls. However, a vegetable oil can be easily used to sauté the onions. Mix together the cooked onions, rice, salt, black pepper and paprika. Take half of a leave and add about one tablespoon.
Begin rolling by taking the end closest to you and tuck it over the pork mixture, and continue rolling on a diagonal, as shown in the photo.
Arrange the cabbage rolls in the pot and add the remaining loose sliced cabbage on top. As noted: these freeze really well and are super handy to pull out of the freezer for a quick meal.
Mix together the tomato juice, salt and black pepper and then pour the juice over the cabbage rolls. They should almost cover the cabbage rolls, and once it starts cooking, the cabbage will release some liquid. Lay the smoky bacon on top.
It may appear to be a lot of work to roll these cabbage rolls all in one sitting. However, to reduce the amount of time, I will sometimes steam the cabbage the day before and roll the cabbage rolls the next day.
Garnish these delicious stuffed cabbage rolls with garnished fresh parsley, or sour cream. The traditional Hungarian’s tend to add sour cream. We would have crusty bread with this dish when we ate it as a meal and used the bread to soak up the tomato sauce as we loved each lastly bite!
Thanks For Sharing this amazing recipe. My family loved it. I will be sharing this recipe with my friends. Hope the will like it.
Hello Ashok,
I am so glad you loved the Hungarian Cabbage Rolls recipe! This is my Mom’s recipe who in turn learned it from her Mom. Both my Mom and Grandma were amazing in the kitchen, rarely used recipes. You will have to let me know what your friends think.
Thank you so much!
Rose
I miss going to bingo at the only Polish church. They always teased me about going just for the halftime delicious Hungarian food! I’m definitely going to try your recipe!! I’m hungry from the pictures already! Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Donna,
A cute story!! I am so happy to hear your going to make my cabbage roll recipe! It is my Mom’s and Grandma’s recipe. I have to say it is the best cabbage rolls I have tasted. When we went to Hungarian weddings, and there were many, they would often serve cabbage rolls, and they sure weren’t like my Moms. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Rose
This is the first recipe that is closest to my mom’s and my aunts’ recipe. Only thing I didn’t know about was the bacon but that would definitely add the the flavour of the sauce that was always missing when I make them. Also…you cook them on the stove the way my mom etc did also. Thank you for this recipe!
Hi Susan,
I am so happy you emailed me and thank you for your comments. My Mom’s and Grandmas recipe is so delicious. When Mom started to add the bacon, we really enjoyed the flavour it gives the sauce. I hope you thoroughly enjoy this recipe as much as we do! You are most welcome:)
Kindly,
Rose
Hi Rose! Just saw your reply to my comment 🙂 I want you to know that your wonderful recipe turned out great! And yes! My family thought they were delicious! And like my mom’s 🙂
Also, this recipe is very easy to follow with not too many ingredients.
Thank you again for sharing your recipe!
Hi Susan,
That’s great to hear! I am so happy to hear your family enjoyed the cabbage rolls, and thrilled that they were like your mom’s recipe. 🙂
Thank you so much for your reply Susan.
Rose xo
Dear Susan, I really enjoyed this recipe that I prepared for Thanksgiving. I added a tablespoon of sugar to the sauce, and a small amount of caraway powder. My mother was born in Hungary and that’s how hers tasted. Everything else was spot on! Thank you for posting this recipe.
Hi Suzanna,
That makes me so happy you enjoyed my Mom’s recipe! It’s been in my family for generations. I like the idea of adding some sugar to the tomato juice to reduce the acidity, and I haven’t tried the caraway powder. Sounds wonderful!
Thank you so very much for your rating and comment.
Sincerely,
Rose
Uncooked rice vs cooked rice? This recipes say uncooked. I have other recipes that say cooked rice. What is the difference in final product?
Hi Candace,
We have always used uncooked rice since it cooks with the pork for about one hour which gives the rice plenty of time to cook. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, I recently moved and haven’t been on my site until now.
I hope you will love this recipe as much as we have.
I would love to hear your feedback.
Kind regards,
Rose
Stove top method and prep is the same as my Mom’s Ingredients differed a tad Hers had sauerkraut! I’ve always followed my Moms way, but also made a batch of yours Different, but yummy as well Thanks for sharing
Hi Karin,
I am glad to hear you enjoyed the cabbage rolls. They are such a family favourite…and adding sauerkraut sounds delicious!
Thank you for your comment! I love to know what you would rate this recipe…
Rose 🙂