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Do you love the taste of classic cabbage rolls (oh, yes, me! me! me!), but don’t have time to roll them one by one, by one? This lazy cabbage rolls recipe gives you the same great flavors of stuffed cabbage with very little effort.
These are so so juicy and comforting. Did I mention my kids liked them? Actually, they loved them – it was a very enthusiastic “this is delicious!” from 7-year-old and my toddler quickly cleaned her plate. This recipe was shared with us by my Mom-in-law and it was an instant hit.
These come together in no time and completely satisfy the stuffed cabbage craving. It’s also a really great way to use up leftover rice and cabbage. It’s brilliant!
Ingredients for Lazy Cabbage Rolls:
4 cups cooked white rice (from 1 1/2 cups uncooked rice), cooled to room temp*
1/2 medium cabbage, sliced into 1/4″ wide strips (7 cups sliced)
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground turkey
1 large onion, divided (1/2 grated and 1/2 finely diced)
2 large eggs
Original Mrs. Dash, or any salt-free all-purpose seasoning
Salt and black pepper
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley or dill
For the Sauce:
1 Tbsp Olive oil
3 Tbsp butter
1 large carrot, julienned or grated
2 cups store-bought marinara or homemade Marinara Sauce
3 cups hot water
*We used Jasmine rice
How To Make Lazy Cabbage Rolls:
Prep: Oil a 9×13 casserole dish, preheat oven to 425˚F.
1. Slice cabbage into 1/4″ thin slices. Place in a heat proof bowl or pot, cover with boiling water and let sit 10 minutes to soften. Drain and squeeze out excess water with your hands.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 lb ground turkey, 1 lb ground pork, drained cabbage and 4 cups cooked rice. Grate 1/2 large onion into meat mixture. Add 2 eggs, 1 tsp Mrs Dash, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp salt, and 2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley. Mix well. Form into potato-shaped patties with your hands, each with about 1/2 cup of the meat mixture. Arrange in prepared casserole.
P.s. my larger casserole dish was a smaller 9×12 so they didn’t all fit in 1 pan. This is why I baked it in 2 separate dishes. If you use a 9×13, they should all fit :).
3. For the sauce, finely dice remaining 1/2 large onion. Heat a large pot over medium/high heat and add 1 Tbsp oil and 3 Tbsp butter. Add diced onion and sauté 5 minutes, stirring occassionally or until softened. Add julienned carrot and cook another 3 minutes or until softened. Add 2 cups marinara and 3 cups hot water and bring to a boil. Add 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp Mrs Dash, or season to taste.
4. Pour sauce over patties until they are nearly covered. Cover with foil and bake on medium rack at 425˚F for 40 min.
To serve, plate the lazy stuffed cabbage and spoon the extra juice over the top. Serve with sour cream (my favorite) or plain Greek yogurt.
Lazy Cabbage Rolls
Ingredients
For the Lazy Cabbage Rolls:
- 4 cups cooked white rice, from 1 1/2 cups uncooked rice, cooled to room temp
- 1/2 medium cabbage, sliced into 1/4" wide strips (7 cups sliced)
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 1 large onion, divided (1/2 grated and 1/2 finely diced)
- 2 large eggs
- Original Mrs. Dash, or any salt-free all-purpose seasoning
- Salt and black pepper
- 2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley or dill
For the Sauce:
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 large carrot, julienned or grated
- 2 cups store-bought marinara or homemade
- 3 cups hot water
Instructions
Prep:
- Oil a 9x13 casserole dish, preheat oven to 425˚F.
How To Make Lazy Cabbage Rolls:
- Slice cabbage into 1/4" thin slices. Place in a heat proof bowl, cover with boiling water and let sit 10 min to soften. Drain and squeeze out excess water with your hands.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine ground turkey, ground pork, drained cabbage and 4 cups cooked rice. Grate 1/2 large onion into meat mixture. Add 2 eggs, 1 tsp Mrs Dash, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp salt, and 2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley. Mix well. Form into potato-shaped patties with your hands (each should be about 1/2 cup of the meat mixture). Arrange in oiled casserole.
- For the sauce, finely dice remaining 1/2 large onion. Heat a large pot over medium/high heat and add 1 Tbsp oil and 3 Tbsp butter. Add diced onion and sauté 5 minutes, stirring occassionally or until softened. Add julienned carrot and cook another 3 minutes or until softened. Add 2 cups marinara and 3 cups hot water and bring to a boil. Add 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp Mrs Dash, or season to taste.
- Pour sauce over patties until they are nearly covered. Cover with foil and bake on medium rack at 425˚F for 40 min. To serve, plate the lazy stuffed cabbage and spoon the extra juice over the top. Serve with sour cream (my favorite) or plain Greek yogurt.
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Check out our original Cabbage Rolls Video Recipe here if you roll old school and really want to impress your peeps :).
Need more leftover cabbage ideas? Check out all of our cabbage recipes here.
I don’t ever have Mrs. Dash on hand, so I just left it out, thinking the salt would be enough seasoning. But, no! Rolls were bland ….and as that’s the only thing I left out, I now assume there was a reason for it. The cabbage needs to be short strips too, otherwise it hangs out of the roll on all sides.
Hi Glenna, yes, we have always made it with Mrs Dash, it makes the flavor amazing here.
An old dog can learn new tricks! I’m a senior, my son is a good cook and always trying new things and shared this recipe with me—awesome! I make them frequently now. Cabbage rolls are so much work, and much as they’re a favourite, I only made them at Christmas. That brings me to my question… I’m looking at hosting a family get-together this Christmas and would really like to make these, but would have to be ahead of time, so freezer friendly. The oven will be unavailable. Could these be warmed in the microwave without compromising texture and flavor? In a 9×13 dish, how long, how high, what power level? I also have a large slow cooker. Could that work? If so, on low or high and for how long? I would love to introduce my extended family to this wonderful Recipe!
Hi, I haven’t tried microwaving an entire casserole so I can’t give you exact timings, but it should be ok to warm it in the microwave after it is baked. I would thaw in the refrigerator overnight so the rolls don’t dry out in the microwave with lengthy microwaving.
Hi Natasha
Today I made your Lazy Cabbage Rolls. They were great! I did have to cook them longer than 45 min and added a 1/2 can of tomato paste because my sauce was thin. Excellent!
I’m glad you liked it, Marianne. Thanks for your good comments and feedback!
Hi Natasha,
I made the Lazy Cabbage Rolls and had to add bread crumps to keep the mixture together. It still turned up very tasty and juicy. I will make it again with less cabbage.
Thanks for a great recipe
You’re welcome! Thank you so much for sharing that with us!
Natasha this was delicious ! As are all your other recipes I’ve made . The family loved it and wanted to let you know . Can’t wait to try your other cabbage recipes. Yes , I do love cabbage. Keep the recipes coming & I’ll keep making them . Your #1 fan in Kansas.
So glad to hear that you enjoyed this recipe, Greg. Thank you for your good feedback and suggestion, I appreciate it!
I am from Australia and the only marinara I know is a seafood combination which I don’t think you mean
Hi Gillian, we have it linked in the recipe we use this homemade marinara here. I hope that helps.
In Aust also, Gillian. I assume marinara is what we’d call nap sauce.
But what on earth is Mrs Dash??!!
🙂
Love the recipe and the way you present this dish! Much easier than regular cabbage rolls but still very delicious! Made it with round brown rice and ground beef/turkey. Came out really great and super tasty. Thank you for your recipes, especially of Ukrainian origin! It’s such a pleasure to follow ideas of an amazing Ukrainian hostess (gospodynia)!
Thank you for that wonderful compliment! I’m so glad you’re enjoying our recipes Oleksandra!
I don’t typically review recipes as I print them out and then rarely get back to the original site, but I intentionally came on tonight to leave this review. These were AMAZING! I made them as directed, except used brown rice. Only my husband likes cabbage so I wasn’t expecting much, but the whole family devoured these and my kids are totally vegetable averse! Next time I will chop the cabbage smaller so they don’t notice the pieces as much, but they sprinkled parmesan on top and ate everything anyway. I’m definitely making this recipe again and again. Thank you!
What an amazing feedback, thank you so much for sharing this with us!
Even lazier cabbage rolls — one can use a bag of already shredded store-bought coleslaw, which was microwaved to soften.
Because I’m a cabbage fan, I then chopped about 1/2 of the cabbage & onion in my Ninja blender and added to the meat mixture.
Rather than letting the other 1/2 of the cabbage spoil in my refrigerator, it was cut into ribbons and put above and below the meat rolls.
A brilliant idea to preheat the sauce to speed up cooking. The reason for the water in the marinara, is that the rolls absorb most of the sauce during cooking.
Absolutely delicious even with beef and turkey and other substitutions of items on hand.
Thank you — you have a wonderful website and recipes (healthy, fast, easy), especially now (during pandemic)
That’s a nice idea, thank you for sharing that with us and I’m glad that worked well!
This is my go to recipe for lazy cabbage rolls, and your “kitchen” for many other recipes. Thank you.
That’s so awesome! Thank you for sharing that with me, Irene!
Wanted to make lazy cabbage roll and stumbled across your recipe. Definitely a keeper and I will be making again.
It is so good! You have to try this recipe! I hope you love it, Ann!
Hi Natasha, these look so yummy, we love cabbage rolls, can I use lean Hamburg instead of turkey, not a fan of it? Love your recipes!
Hi Mary, I like the fat content of ground pork but you can replace it with just all ground turkey or substitute with ground chicken or ground beef.
Hi Natasha, I made these rolls last nite, used hamburg and pork, they were delicious, even my picky 5 yr old granddaughter ate it, been using your recipes alot, they are so good, making spatchcock chicken today, Thankyou for all that you do
You’re welcome, Mary! I’m so glad you’re enjoying our recipes.
My daughter and I made the cabbage rolls last night. We used 90% lean ground beef since my husband has a poultry allergy and there was no ground pork to be found at the store. Per another chef’s suggestion, we used the “riced” cauliflower. Very tasty! We will definitely make this again soon.
That’s so awesome Beth! Thank you for that great feedback. I’m so glad to hear that worked out.
this recipe looks delicious. I am Polish and brought up on this food.. I will add sauerkraut to my canned tomatoes for extra flavor. That too was a staple. Love all your recipes. I am a senior and still love to cook. Our daughters introduced me to your recipes. Thank you
I hope you love it with that change! Thank you so much for sharing that with me!
Really good recipe and easy..my favorite thing. I did add some garlic and oregano to the sauce, it gave it a nice little flavor boost. Really good. Thanks!
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Kate!
Delicious! I tweaked recipe a bit! I steamed cabbage (didn’t have to drain and ensured cabbage was tender). Also for sauce I used 3 cups marinara sauce and water from steamed cabbage (it was about 3/4 cup) topped up to 2 cups with chicken stock. I had leftover sauce after filling casserole dish which was delicious on the cooked rolls.
Tried adding pic but can’t
Oh and I used brown rice too
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Rita! I’m so glad you enjoyed that.
Tonya, I’ve made this recipe 4 times, always with great success. I cook the cabbage in advance so I’m thinking you should be fine with sautéed cabbage provided it doesn’t have a lot of oil/butter or conflicting spices.
If you try it I’d be interested to hear the results.
Natasha, do you think sautéed cabbage will work in this recipe? My mom gave me a bunch and I’m thinking to use it up in this recipe.
Hi Tonya, I haven’t tested that but I imagine it may work.
I made this with small changes due to what I had on hand and taste preferences. Made for 2 so pretty much halved everything. I only used 1 lb 85/15 ground turkey, no pork. Finely chopped a really small cabbage, about 1 lb. Boiled it for about 10 minutes to make it nice and soft. I didn’t squeeze it, just drained well. Used spaghetti sauce cuz that’s what I had and added some red pepper flakes, oregano and basil. This made 10 big “meatballs”. Removed the foil after 35 minutes to thicken the sauce a bit. It was WONDERFUL! Thank you for posting…saved this Polish person a LOT of work!
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us, Kay!
Im a busy mom of five and nursing student so Im always on the search from easy quick recipes. When the instant pot came I hesitantly jump on the bandwagon but so great full I did. Once that was discovered I tried to search for those recipes but very few russian recipes are written for the instant pot. With that being said I cautiously worked it out in my head and hoped for the best. The results: AMAZING!!!
Heres what I did:
I kept all the quantities of the food the same.
I used 4 cups of quinoa instead of rice.
I DID NOT soak the cabbage, instead I “kneaded” the cabbage after I shredded it.
I sauteed the carrots/sauce in the instant pot on “saute” then I transferred the sauce into a different bowl for a minute while I layered my cabbage rolls in the pot. Then I poured the sauce over the rolls and added the cup of water over the sauce.
I turned the pressure to HIGH for 5 Minutes, let it naturally depressurize and VOILA, delicious! I came home to a house smelling of good ole russian home-cooking! For the future, I would so love to see more traditional recipes translated for instant pot, but I know that would take a lot of time so maybe I will just use my new found ability to trust myself Thanks for this great recipe, so much better than traditional cabbage rolls!
I’m so happy to hear that, Nicole! Thank you for sharing your great review!
Made these rolls last week and this week.They are so good! They remind me my sweet home, when grandma used to make me cabbage rolls!
Thank you so much!
Awww that’s the best! Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I’m all smiles!