Traditional Sour Cabbage Stew (Vegan)

Cheap, delicious and nutritious, this sour cabbage stew is one of those traditional recipes found in all Eastern European cuisines. It’s absolutely delicious, easy to make, and has very special sweet, sour and salty taste that you won’t find anywhere else.

Growing up in Romania, my mother used to cook this type of cabbage stew all the time during winter. This recipe is called varza calita in the Romanian language and it’s traditionally prepared using meat as one of the main ingredients. Since this is a vegan recipe, we won’t be using any kind of meats but I promise you that our vegan cabbage stew will turn out even better.

I think you guys are going to LOVE this sour cabbage stew. It’s:

Sweet
Salty
Sour
Delicious
Super Healthy
Satisfying
Savory
Vegan
Hearty

Are you ready to cook the best stew ever? Let’s get started!

What is sour cabbage?

The main ingredients that we’ll be using for our sour cabbage stew is … SOUR CABBAGE!

Sour cabbage is a fermented vegetable food preserve popular in Eastern-European cuisine, similar to sauerkraut but with a small difference. As its name says, whole sour cabbage is prepared through the lacto-fermentation of whole heads of cabbage for several weeks.

Sour cabbage is a homemade food preserve, commonly prepared in large barrels filled with whole cabbage heads, water and salt. In contrast, sauerkraut is prepared from separated leaves of cabbage, which gives it a slightly different taste and a totally different texture.

In case you don’t have sour cabbage (or maybe you don’t like it) but still want to make this cabbage stew, don’t worry because you can also use fresh cabbage (aka sweet cabbage) plus a small “hack” to make the stew sour-ish at the time of cooking.

Ingredients List

In a nutshell, these are the ingredients that you’ll be needing for cooking this sour cabbage stew:

• whole sour cabbage (as an alternative use fresh white cabbage)
• shallots
• fennel
• carrots
• celery root
• extra virgin coconut oil
• apple (optional)
• dried thyme (important!)
• dried dill
• basil leaves (optional)
• garlic cloves
• Himalayan salt (or your favorite salt)
• white or black pepper
• sweet paprika or tomato paste
• water

How to cook this delicious sour cabbage stew

The most important part of making sour cabbage stew is to have access to the main ingredient, whole sour cabbage. In case you don’t have sour cabbage, you can simply use fresh cabbage instead. You must know that using fresh cabbage won’t produce the same sour-ish taste of the traditional recipe, simply because fresh cabbage is sweet (not sour).

Rest assured, follow my recipe and your stew will turn our amazing either way. I’ve put together a small “hack” to help you obtain that special sweet and sour taste by using fresh cabbage (… and something extra). More info later on!

Here’s a quick overview of the main steps to follow when cooking this stewed cabbage (as always, find complete instructions in the recipe card!):

1. Start by chopping the cabbage and add it to a cast iron pan (or a big pot) along with the other vegetables. Also add the extra virgin coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil.
2. Cook over medium heat, making sure to add more water if needed. Mix from time to time using a spatula making sure that the cabbage won’t stick to the skillet.
3. Once the cabbage starts to reduce in size and becomes soft, add spices and salt. Now it’s a good time to add either sweet paprika or tomato paste. Incorporate everything slowly using a spatula.
4. Cook for a few more minutes until most of the water has evaporated. Taste it to make sure the cabbage is cooked-soft and that it has enough salt.
5. Ta-Daa! Your cabbage stew is ready now.
   (More detailed instructions are below).

Cooking Tips

Measuring the ingredients. This recipe is so versatile and forgiving that we don’t have to measure everything to the gram. My suggestion is to taste it while it’s cooking and to use your taste buds (and intuition) as a guide to cooking the stew that you want to eat.

How much water to use? There’s no rule when it comes to the quantity of water that you should use. Add as much water as you need in order to cook everything nicely into a stew (depends on the quantity of cabbage and how big your cooking pot is). The water evaporates while cooking so it’s safe to say that you won’t end-up with something like a soup instead of a stew.

Sour of Sweet Cabbage? I case you don’t have access to sour cabbage you can successfully use fresh cabbage instead (also called sweet cabbage).

If you plan on using fresh cabbage there are a few things that you’ll have to adjust for:

• It takes a longer time to prep the cabbage – since fresh cabbage has a firmer texture compared to the soft texture of sour cabbage, it’ll take you a bit longer to chop it (and a bit more skill if I may say so).
• It takes a bit longer to cook it – the cooking time will double due to the same reason above (mainly fresh cabbage having a firmer texture).
• Use more water – since the cooking time will increase, you will definitely have to add more water as it evaporates.

How about the sour taste with fresh cabbage? In case you decide to use fresh cabbage instead of sour cabbage, know that you won’t end-up with that same “traditional” sour taste. Instead, this stew will have a rather sweet-ish taste. In order to obtain something close to the traditional sour taste, add the juice from 1/2 small lemon or from 1 small lime towards the end of the cooking process.

Is thyme important? To tell you the truth, thyme in a crucial condiment of this cabbage stew because it balances perfectly the sour taste of the cabbage.

I don’t want to use coconut oil. We’re using coconut oil as a way to allow the vegetables to cook without sticking but also because we want to add healthy fats to this vegetable-based meal. You can also butter if you like it better, and even extra virgin olive oil works great.

Sweet paprika or Tomato Paste? We use either one to add a pale red color (and a special flavor) to our cabbage stew. It’s ok to skip them both if that’s what you want but know that your stew will end-up with a pale white color (and boring looking :P).

What if I don’t like or don’t have rice? You can obviously serve this meal without rice or you can prepare the rice the way you like it. I only provided the boiled rice as a suggested way of serving this sour cabbage stew (rice instead of bread, for example).

How to serve this sour cabbage stew

• Serve it as I did – with a side of freshly cooked Basmati or Jasmin rice (recipe below).
• Serve it traditionally – with freshly baked bread and raw onion (scallions or slices of classic onion).
• With a slice of your favorite bread – to tell you the truth, any bread works with this stew, sourdough bread, Danish rugbrød and Drench baguette being all excellent choices.
• Include a source of healthy fats – kalamata olives are great, so are walnuts or pecans, and even 1-2 tablespoons of sour cream.
• You can pair this cabbage stew with cheese – both hard and soft cheese are great choices and match perfect with this sour cabbage stew. Soft cheese like brie, munster, or vosges are among my favorites. When it comes to hard cheeses, I prefer emmentaler, gouda, aged cheddar or comté. In Romania, we serve it with the traditional white sheep’s cheese.

What do you think about this sour cabbage stew? Give it a try and let me know if you like it.

Other delicious lunch or dinner recipes

• Skillet with Spinach and Lots of Vegetables
• Easy Spinach Broccoli Skillet
• Delicious Keto Pizza Recipe (Vegetarian)
• 🇮🇹 Frittata Cavolo 🇮🇹
• Broccoli and Guacamole Plateau (Vegan)