Best Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Recipe 

A portion of perfect food in the cold period of the year but especially for the winter holidays can only be the best Hungarian stuffed cabbage rolls recipe. Made with some smoked pork ribs and served with sour cream on top, few people resist the temptation to devour this dish.

In the traditional cuisine of Transylvania, the woman who knows how to make cabbage rolls means that she has become a perfect housewife who cooks very well. That’s because the recipe is a little more complex than most others and requires little skill, but the result can lift you to glory.

How Many Types of Cabbage Rolls Recipes are There?

Depending on the type of cabbage used, there are stuffed cabbage made from fresh cabbage or from sauerkraut or pickled cabbage. Stuffed cabbage made with fresh cabbage is a summer recipe, which is made with tomatoes or tomatoes broth and the perfect recipe would be the best stuffed cabbage recipe.

Also, instead of cabbage, other leaves can be filled with the same filling as grape leaves or collard greens like in best stuffed collard greens recipe.

The filling of these recipes is usually made from minced meat and rice, but it can also be made with mushrooms and rice, obtaining a vegetarian version.

Today we will make the version with sauerkraut stuffed with minced pork and rice but with smoked pork next to it in the pot. But let’s see the ingredients!

Ingredients

We need two heads of sauerkraut that you can find in stores with Eastern European products or you can find sauerkraut leaves, those are good too.

We also usually use sliced sauerkraut, of which I will use about 400 g, but I will also put the small leaves that will remain after I open the cabbage heads and which I will slice.

For the filling we need first of all minced meat, I will put 1 kg pork mince with at least 15% fat, but it is also possible with a mixture of pork and beef.

Also for the filling, I will use two medium-sized yellow onions and about 400 g of rice. I found rice from Romania especially for stuffed cabbage but you can use any kind of round grain rice.

And let’s not forget to put something smoked in the pot, I found smoked pork ribs from which I will use 350 g. But you can put smoked pork sausages or even pork hock, the condition is to be smoked naturally.

Preparing the Ingredients

Because we do not have many ingredients, their preparation does not require much time. We will start with the cabbage heads that we have to open the leaves. If we have to remove the core of the fresh cabbage first, for the sauerkraut it is already cut.

We unfold the leaves one by one and put them on top of each other until we reach the small leaves that cannot be filled and which we slice thinly. A little clarification, I usually taste the sauerkraut and if it is too sour or too salty, I put it a little in cold water and rinse it well before filling it.

Peel the onions and finely chop them and put the rice in a strainer and rinse it in cold water and let it drain.

I cut the smoked pork ribs into pieces so we could easily put them in the pot. If you use pork sausages, also cut them into pieces, but not very small.

How to Make the Best Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Recipe?

I will show you how to make stuffed cabbage by going through three stages: we will make the filling first, then we will fill the cabbage leaves and at the end, we will place them in the pot and we will put the pot to boil. But let’s take them one at a time!

How to Make the Filling From Cabbage Rolls?

Because the recipe for the filling I use contains three basic ingredients, minced meat, rice and fried onions, that’s why we start frying onions first. To do this, heat 100 ml of sunflower oil in a saucepan and fry the chopped onion.

Season with a half teaspoon of sea salt and fry the onion until it softens and becomes glassy, it doesn’t have to change its colour after which I add a tablespoon and a half of Hungarian sweet paprika powder.

Stir, leave for another half a minute and ready, turn off the heat.

In a bowl in which we will make the filling, we first put the minced meat over which we pour the rinsed and drained rice.

Add the sauteed onion and season with a teaspoon of freshly ground pepper, a teaspoon of sea salt and a teaspoon of a vegetable mix for soups.

Mix all the ingredients well with a wooden spoon or even by hand until you get a homogeneous paste.

How to Filling the Cabbage Leaves?

This is the part that everyone is afraid of, but believe me, it is not very complicated, you just need a little skill.

Take a cabbage leaf in your palm and using a small knife, cut a thin sliver off the thickest central vein of each leaf.

Holding the cabbage leaf in the palm, we put a spoonful of filling on the leaf, with which we will fill it.

Fold the edges of the leaf over the filling and then roll the cabbage to the end of the leaf.

We insert the ends of the roll inside with our finger and ready, we finished the first roll of stuffed cabbage.

We continue like this until we finish filling all the cabbage leaves and we put them all on a plate one on top of the other.

How to Arrange the Cabbage Rolls in the Pot

This technique of arranging the rolls depends on their number and size as well as the size of the pot in which we will cook them. Due to the fact that this recipe is made over low heat and for a long time, from the best Hungarian stuffed cabbage rolls recipe, it is recommended to cook it in a cast-iron pot or clay pot, so it will turn out incredibly tasty.

Because I don’t currently have a clay pot for this recipe, I’ll make it in a five-litter cast iron pot in which I will place a little sliced cabbage and a few pieces of smoked ribs on its bottom.

Now place the cabbage rolls one by one, starting from the edge of the pot inwards, leaving the middle of the pot for the ribs.

We continue the arrangement until we finish all the rolls on the plate, putting sliced cabbage and pork ribs between them, and at the end, we cover with sliced cabbage.

How to Cook the Best Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Recipe?

Pour cold water into the pot to cover the rolls, place the lid on and put the pot to boil, first over medium heat until the water starts to boil, then over low heat for about two hours.

If the pot is too big for the amount of stuffed cabbage, I usually put a smaller lid or a plate turned over the cabbage to stay as fixed as possible, not to spread during cooking.

You can put the pot in the oven, also at a low temperature of 140-150 degrees, it will be just as delicious. If you notice that too much liquid has evaporated, you can top it up with a little warm water.

This is the best Hungarian stuffed cabbage rolls recipe ready to serve because in the whole house you can smell this recipe aroma, and the family is very hungry.

Serving

This wonderful dish is served hot, with a little sour cream on top and necessarily with fresh bread. In some families, it is served with polenta and even pickled hot peppers.

If you have decided to cook the best Hungarian stuffed cabbage rolls recipe, and you are passionate about cabbage recipes, I recommend the following recipes from our blog:

• Delicious Cabbage Casserole Recipe
• Vegan Cabbage and Pasta Recipe
• Beef and Cabbage Stew Recipe
• Best Cabbage Soup Recipe
• Sauerkraut Sausage Soup Recipe
• Cabbage Soup With Pork Meat
• Frankfurter Soup With Savoy Cabbage

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