Delicious, healthy cabbage rolls. Rice, carrots and onions, with juicy tomato sauce. All together, wrapped up inside gluten free, non-dairy, sweet and savory cabbage leaves.
Looking for a filling main dish for your vegan diners, or a luscious side dish to a meaty or fishy main dish?
There are many of ways to prepare vegan cabbage rolls. This one enables using a food processor.
Procedure – Vegan Cabbage Rolls
Either food process vegetables, or chop them with a knife.
Rice-Vegetable Mixture
Sauté Rice for Stuffing for Vegan Cabbage Rolls
Give a 12-minute fry-saute in oil, onions, carrots, parsley leaves 4 minutes; then add RICE and tomato paste. The rice grains come out not clinging to other grains, and not mushy.
Parboiling and Detaching of Cabbage Leaves from Cabbage Head
Place whole cabbage in pot of boiling water.
Bring to a boil.
Detach leaves, one after the other with thongs.
Transfer detached leaf to a large bowl of cold (or ice cold) water, to prevent leaf from becoming soggy.
Place leaves on paper towels to absorb excess water.
Removal of Bumpy Part of Central Veins
Place a leaf on cutting board or on palm of hand with bumpy side of veins facing upwards.
Cut down the vein, removing the bump. This enables the rolling up of the leaf. Otherwise, the vein is so hard, that the leaf will break.
Filling Cabbage Rolls
Flip leaf over. Cut frilly edges on left and right sides; or, leave them as is.
Place carrot mixture towards bottom. Roll up once.
Fold loose leaf flaps inwards and tuck under first roll-up. Roll up twice more, until there is no more leaf left to roll.
Set aside.
Preparing Vegetable Padding and Sauce in large Pot, in Which to Cook the Rolls
1 option: Fry onion and celery cubes.
Add carrots and any excess juice accumulated from food processing the onions.
Prepare tomato sauce.
Pour tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle celery leaves all over. Cover pot. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer.
For extra soft rice:
- Should you like extra-soft rice texture, then, before stuffing the cabbage, add 1 cup of boiling water to the sautéed rice mixture. Turn off flame and let the mixture sit in the hot pot for 7 minutes.
- Should you want an extra-soft rice texture, then, in addition to removing the bump on the main central vein, go ahead and cut off some of the bottom thick/hard veiny part of the leaves. I’m referring to the bottom edge – cutting off about an inch of the bottom thick edge. This bottom edge adds insulation to the rice. If you choose to leave this waxy veiny part attached to the leaf, then it takes longer to cook the rice and the rice comes out as separate grains and soft but not extra-soft and mushy.
In the recipe below, this waxy edge is left on the leaves, so the rice comes out, as stated, as separate tasty, savory grains.
Equipment
- metal (strong) rounded-edges thongs
- 2 large bowls
- large pot
- cutting board (wooden or other – not glass or slippery)
- cutting knife
- paper towels
- ice – if possible
Burner – large Heat – high
Each large leaf rolls up 4 times and the medium one rolls up 3 to 4 times.
Cabbage Rolling Demonstration for rice Stuffed Cabbage rolls :
1st Roll-Up
- Place rice on cutting board with bumpy-veiny side facing down.
- Place thumbs beneath cabbage-edge and fingers behind the rice-bunch.
- Your thumbs push up the leaf edge in a rolling and overlapping movement over the rice. See the 2 images on the right below.
- Tuck the cabbage beneath the rice.
- Now, on either side of the leaf there is a hanging loose fold of cabbage with no rice inside. These flaps need to be folded inwards with fingers and placed beneath the 1st roll.
- So, hold the the 1st roll-up of with rice in place with your dominant hand, while your other hand folds the loose flappy, wavy leaf edge (that has no rice) underneath that side of the roll.
- Now, change hands and do the same with the other loose flap. See image below.
- Throughout the entire rolling process, your thumbs are supporting the roll from behind.
2nd Roll-Up
- At this point, still holding the flaps down and beneath the 1st roll-up,
- roll the leaf up a 2nd time, tucking the flaps well inside. Now, the rice will not escape from the sides before/while cooking.
3rd and 4th Roll-Up
Give it a 3rd Roll-Up and a 4th (until finished rolling up). See Image Below
Preparation of Pot for rice Stuffed Cabbage rolls – Frying of Vegetables that Go Beneath Cabbage Rolls
- Fry chopped onion, celery stalks, carrot rings and tomato paste in oil.
- Add liquid squeezed out of processed onions. Optional
- Place cabbage rolls side by side and on top of each other.
- Mix tomato paste and hot water in bowl. Pour over cabbage rolls.
- Scatter chopped celery leaves on top.
Cook for 45 to 60 minutes.
This is another one of my favorites, like vegan stuffed red peppers, or mushy rice red lip-stick peppers, and here’s how it’s done.
Jam Packed Vegan Cabbage Rolls
1 pot sweet and savory vegan stuffed cabbage with rice, veggies, and tomato flavor Non-Dairy, Gluten Free. Prepared in part, with food processor.
Ingredients
Rice Filling
- 2 1/2 large onions, food process-grated and drained of liquid (Save liquid in bowl for later. - optional)
- 3 large carrots, food processed / coarsely grated
- 10 tablespoons minced parley leaves (a small amount of thin stems are okay)
- 2 1/2 cups of rice, 1 pound / 460 grams rice total - Persian (preferably), Basmati, Jasmin is less preferable
- 1/2 cup oil (olive with mild aroma/canola...) 5.10 ounces / 145 grams = 5.4 fluid ounces / 160 milliliters
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt - 1/3 ounce / 9 grams
Pot Padding Beneath Cabbage Rolls
- 2 onions, coarsely chopped
- 2 food process-grated carrots
- 1/2 cup oil
Tomato Sauce poured onto Cooking Stuffed Cabbage
- 4 tablespoons tomato paste (I used unsweetened and added 2 tablespoons of date honey
- 3 cups hot water (an approximation)
- 2 teaspoons of kosher salt
Instructions
12 Minute Fry-Sauteeing of Rice Mixture Filling
Fry onions, carrots and parsley in oil 4 minutes.
Add rice and salt, sauté 7 minutes.
Add tomato paste, sauté 3 minutes.
Transfer to large bowl and set aside.
Pot with Vegetable Padding that Goes Beneath the Cooking Stuffed Cabbage
Fry- sauté ingredients in oil for 5 minutes.
Add tomato paste and liquid from squeezed onion to pot. Sauté for another 3 minutes.
Filling of Cabbage Leaves
On clean surface, Place cabbage leaf facing downwards. Slice off a bit of protruding part of vein.
Flip leaf to other side and place rice mixture near vein-edge of leaf.
Gently, roll up the leaf one time with thumbs underneath it, while fingers are holding the rice in place.
Theon top of rice once, so rice is covered, holding it in this position.
Fold sides inwards towards each other, to land right in front/next to the rice roll. Tuck the flaps a bit underneath the roll of rice. Hold in place.
Now, with the pushing upwards of thumbs, roll up twice again (it's bundled-up/sides are tucked in) until it's all rolled up.
Into Pot
Place in pot, adjacent and on top of each other.
Mix tomato paste, water. and salt in bowl. Pour on top of cabbage rolls.
Bring pot to a boil on high flame, cover pot, lower flame and cook for 1 hour.
Check a bit of the rice in one cabbage roll without removing from pot.
Notes
- I always like to break up recipe preparation into 2 days.
- It's best to food process onions and carrots separately.
- You could choose to parboil the ball of cabbage with the harder/less cooked leaves too. This could add on another 25 minutes to the recipe time. It depends on your preference.
- The protruding wax-like parts of the veins are harder to peel. They end up breaking and make it harder to roll up. They reduce from the dish experience, as the diner would have to fight with their teeth and in my opinion, seem less aesthetic.
- For unsweetened tomato paste (to avoid processed sugar), you could add some natural date honey to eliminate the its bitter flavor. Add 1 teaspoon of date honey for every 1 tablespoon of unsweetened tomato paste.
- Parboiling the cabbage - giving it a quick pre-boil to semi-cook it. Cover most of the cabbage in water.
- You can salvage any larger vegetables or herbs that didn't get properly cut in the food processor and add them to the boiling stuffed cabbages.
- tomato paste (I used unsweetened and added 2 tablespoons of date honey/1 1/2 tablespoon bee's honey)
- You can hand-grate instead of food process