Cabbage Roll Soup

Recipe Overview

Why you’ll love it: Cabbage roll soup is everything you love about cabbage rolls, without the painstaking process of stuffing and rolling leaves. The addition of rice and ground beef makes this cabbage soup hearty and filling.

How long it takes: 1 hour
Equipment you’ll need: large pot
Servings: 8

A bowl of cabbage roll soup garnished with herbs, next to parsley, salt, and pepper on a light surface.

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Although cabbage soup is a very stereotypical diet recipe, it’s actually surprisingly delicious. In a soup, cabbage becomes meltingly tender and all that simmering coaxes out its natural sweetness. However, diet-style cabbage soup is not very filling because the soup recipes are usually cabbage in a tomato-y broth and not much else. This cabbage roll soup makes for a satisfying (but still light!) meal thanks to the ground beef and rice.

Cabbage roll soup is quite literally all the ingredients you’d put into cabbage rolls, plus broth to make it a soup. The best part? You don’t have to assemble the rolls, making this soup recipe very easy.

Hearty Cabbage Roll Soup

Made with pantry ingredients. From the canned tomatoes to the seasonings and rice, the majority of ingredients you’ll need for this cabbage roll soup recipe are pantry staples. Buy a head of cabbage and a pound of ground meat, and you’re ready to make soup!

Easy to make. Most of the time required for this soup is hands-off simmering time while you wait for the rice to become tender. It’s a great recipe to make when you want to multitask in the kitchen. It’s not overly time-sensitive so if you’re aren’t quite ready to serve the soup, it can simmer awhile longer.

Freezer-friendly. Cabbage roll soup freezes like a dream so you can have some for dinner, and freeze some for another day, or make a double batch for those evenings when you want a home-cooked dinner without all the effort. (I also love this butternut squash soup and beef chili for freezing.)

A bowl of hearty tomato-based soup with chunks of vegetables and meat, garnished with herbs. A spoon rests inside the bowl.

Ingredient Notes

Lean ground beef: If you’re not a fan of beef, ground turkey is totally acceptable (and it’s what’s shown in our photos). Add a generous drizzle of olive oil to the pan before browning it if you swap in very lean ground turkey.
Onion and garlic: These savories form the backbone of flavor for this (and so many other!) soups. I always have a bag of yellow onions in the pantry because they don’t have to be refrigerated, and their fine texture works well for soups and stews.
Seasonings: In addition to your standard salt and pepper, I add bay leaf, paprika, dried thyme and oregano.
Cabbage: Buy a head of green cabbage. It’s inexpensive, easy to prepare, good for you, and it keeps well in the fridge.
Diced tomatoes: I recommend low-sodium or no-salt-added tomatoes. Fire-roasted tomatoes will add another layer of flavor to your soup if you want to go that route.
Tomato sauce: I use no-salt-added tomato sauce. If you compare regular canned tomato products with no-salt-added tomatoes, you may be surprised by how much sodium regular canned tomatoes contain. There is not a discernible difference in flavor.
Beef broth: And here, I also used reduced-sodium broth. By using canned goods with low or no sodium, I can control the flavor of the finished soup by adding my own seasonings.
Tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce: While you won’t need large amounts of these two ingredients, don’t skip them because they add umami and depth to the soup.
Parsley: Fresh herbs always add such a nice fresh flavor when used as a garnish.

Recipe Tip

You’ll use half a cabbage for this cabbage roll soup recipe but there are plenty of ways to use the remaining half. Whip up a batch of healthy coleslaw or cabbage salad with honey lime dressing. Make sautéed cabbage as an easy side dish later in the week. Finely sliced green cabbage can be used on tacos instead of head lettuce, too.

Ingredients for cabbage roll soup, including ground meat, chopped cabbage, canned tomatoes, rice, onions, garlic, and various seasonings, arranged on a light surface.

How to Make Cabbage Roll Soup

Brown the beef (or turkey – as photos show) and onion. Set a large pot over medium heat. Once it’s hot, add the ground beef (or ground turkey), onion, salt, and pepper. Brown the meat, using a wooden spoon to break it up as it cooks. You can drain the fat off if you’d like but if you use ground sirloin or ground round, you really won’t need to.

Close-up of browned ground meat mixed with diced onions.

Ground meat and chopped onions cooking in a pan, with minced garlic added on top.

Add the garlic and cabbage. Stir in the garlic and cook just until it’s fragrant, then add the cabbage and cook it for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want to soften it just a bit, but not all the way—the simmering will do that.

Chopped green cabbage pieces in a black pot, ready for cooking.

A pot filled with chopped cabbage and cooked ground meat on a light background.

Bring to a boil. Pour in the broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste, along with the seasonings and Worcestershire sauce. Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium low.

A pot filled with tomato sauce, diced cabbage, diced tomatoes, ground meat, and herbs, ready for cooking.

A pot of simmering soup with visible chunks of cabbage, meat, and a red broth. A spatula is being used to stir the contents.

Simmer. Stir in the rice, then simmer the soup covered for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the rice is cooked through. Stir occasionally to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Finish. Discard the bay leaf and season the soup to taste. At this point, you can add more broth if the soup seems too thick to you. Serve the soup with a sprinkle of fresh parsley. My family loves it with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, too.

A white tong holds a bay leaf over a pot of red tomato-based soup, which contains visible chunks of meat or vegetables.

Ladle lifting hearty tomato-based cabbage soup with chunks of vegetables and meat from a pot.

Tips and Variations

Cut the cabbage to the size of a spoon. There’s no way to gracefully eat soup made with gigantic pieces of cabbage. Be mindful when you’re cutting the cabbage to chop it to roughly the size of a spoon so it’s easy to eat.
Make it creamy. A spoonful of sour cream is a delicious topping for this cabbage roll soup; stirred into the soup, it adds a nice creaminess. Make sure to add it off the heat so it doesn’t curdle.
Cooking time may vary if you swap out the white rice. If you want to use brown rice or another grain like farro, barley, or wheat berries, keep in mind that you may have to cook the soup longer until the grains are tender, so monitor the soup closely as it simmers. Add more broth if necessary.

Serving Suggestions

Refrigerate: Transfer leftover cabbage roll soup to an airtight container and refrigerate it for up to 3 to 4 days.

Freeze: Freeze leftovers in an airtight container or a freezer bag with the excess air pressed out. (I like using freezer bags because I can freeze them flat and stack them, which makes better use of freezer space!) Freeze for up to 3 months and thaw in the refrigerator before reheating.

Reheat: Soups made with rice will thicken during storage, but this one isn’t made with so much rice that it should be a big issue, especially since it’s meant to be a thick soup. If you find the soup thickens more than you’d like, just add a splash more broth when reheating. You can warm up the soup in a pan set over medium heat or in the microwave.

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. When the pot is hot, add the ground beef, onion, salt, and pepper; cook, breaking the beef up into crumbles, until browned and cooked through, 7 to 8 minutes. If desired, drain excess fat.
1 lb. lean ground beef (95/10) or ground turkey, 1 cup diced onion, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, ½ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
Add minced garlic to the pan; cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant.
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
Stir in the cabbage and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it softens slightly.
½ head medium green cabbage, chopped
Pour in the broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. Add Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, paprika, thyme, and oregano. Stir, and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low.
5 cups beef broth, 1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained, 1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce, 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1 bay leaf, 2 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 teaspoon dried oregano
Stir in rice. Cover the pan, and simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, until the rice is cooked and the cabbage is tender. Stir the soup occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
½ cup uncooked long grain white rice
Remove the bay leaf, taste the soup and adjust salt and pepper, if desired. If the soup is too thick, stir in more broth as needed.
Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with fresh parsley.

Broth: If you prefer, you can use 4 cups broth (32 oz. carton) and add 1 cup water instead of using 5 cups of broth. Feel free to add more broth or water to adjust the consistency of the soup to your liking. As written, the soup is quite thick, almost stew-like in consistency.
Salt: We always choose low sodium or no-salt-added broth and canned tomato products (nutrition information reflects that). Since the saltiness depends on the type of broth and tomatoes you use, it’s important to taste the soup before serving it to determine whether it needs more salt or pepper.
Ground meat: I usually use a 95/10 ground beef (ground round or ground sirloin). If you use ground beef that isn’t as lean you may want to drain off the excess grease. I often make this soup with ground turkey instead of beef, and it’s very flavorful, too. You can substitute chicken or turkey broth if you are using ground turkey.
Storage: Refrigerate leftover soup promptly; it will keep for 3 to 4 days. Cabbage roll soup freezes well, too. When reheating, add extra broth or water if soup seems too thick.

Serving: 1.5cups, Calories: 197kcal, Carbohydrates: 25g, Protein: 19g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g, Monounsaturated Fat: 1g, Trans Fat: 0.2g, Cholesterol: 35mg, Sodium: 676mg, Potassium: 1149mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 9g, Vitamin A: 931IU, Vitamin C: 36mg, Calcium: 81mg, Iron: 4mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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