Every Christmas my Grandma would make the best cabbage rolls for dinner. They were always a hit and would disappear quickly. Even though I’ve picked up the torch for perogie making, I’ve yet to come up my my very own Cabbage Roll recipe. Perhaps it’s the time and effort it takes to make Cabbage Rolls. I’m more about the simple and easy recipes with ingredients I can pronounce. That being said, this soup is worth every minute it takes to make (which is not much) and is even gluten-free, healthy and filling!

Then again, cabbage rolls do fall follow my philosophy of putting in a bit of time and effort at the beginning to make mass quantities of food so that I have many frozen dinners for another day. There is something very satisfying about being able to pull out a delicious meal out of my freezer when I’m just not in the mood to cook.

Since my husband is not a big cabbage lover, I decided to bring some to my workplace to get some second opinions – it was a HUGE hit. Even better when people found out it was healthy. I had portioned out the soup into Mason jars so people just popped the jar of soup right into the microwave (without the lid on) and ate it from the jar. (how’s that for a easy lunch?)

The flavours were amazing and tasted exactly like the cabbage rolls my grandma used to make when I was a little girl. I enjoyed this soup because it is so similar to my family’s version of cabbage rolls but if you have other special spices or flavours you put in your cabbage rolls, I’m sure you can switch up the recipe to make it your very own.

Cabbage Roll Soup

Ingredients

1 large onion , diced
3 tsp minced garlic
1 lb ground beef , lean
3/4 cup uncooked rice
1/2 head cabbage , chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (28 oz)
6 cups beef broth
1 can V8 juice
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Brown onion, garlic and ground beef in a large pot.
Chop cabbage into bite size pieces, removing core. Stir in cabbage into pot and cook until cabbage is slightly translucent.
Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until rice still has a bit of a bite to it. It will continue cooking once it’s removed from the heat. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

While it’s cooking…