Irish Buttered Cabbage

Irish Buttered Cabbage - this simple but delicious side dish of cooked cabbage with butter and black pepper is the perfect recipe for a variety of main dishes.

Buttered cabbage is pure comfort food for me when it comes to a recipes, it's a dish my mum would make often as basic vegetable side dish all kinds of main dishes she would make, usually accompanied with some perfect mashed potatoes too.

For her recipe however she would use lots of butter which is not exactly Slimming friendly, so instead I cook in stock for flavour and add a smaller amount of butter at the end. It works perfectly as you still get all that delicious taste of buttered seasoned cabbage.

Different types of cabbage

There are quite a few varieties of cabbage available, more or less choice depending on where in the world you live.

Typically the most readily available are:

• White cabbage
• Green Cabbage
• Red Cabbage
• Savoy

then there are other varieties that may not be so readily available like

• Napa Cabbage - great for kimchi
• Bok Choy
• Tuscan Cabbage
• January King
• Pointed Cabbage

and then other leafy vegetables like:

• Kale
• Collard Greens
• Mustard Greens

Best Cabbage for Buttered Cabbage

For my recipe I use just a basic green cabbage the same as what my mum would use. You can use savoy if you prefer, but it's not available here all year round and I prefer to just use the regular green cabbage anyway.

Best Stock for Cooking

For this recipe chicken or vegetable stock works best. I buy what is called fat free broths that come in cartons, if I don't have my own homemade stock on hand. It just tastes so much more fresh than using cubes.

You can use stocks cubes if thats all you have (I know if the UK the carton broths are not as readily available). However, not all stock cubes are equal, so you need to look on the packaging to see the liquid to stock cube ratio to ensure you use the correct amount. Some stock cubes will make less than 200ml others will make almost 400ml, so it can really affect the taste of the dish if you get it wrong.

How to slice cabbage

The easiest method I use for prepping cabbage, is to slice the cabbage into 4 (quarters), then I use my santoku knife to remove the core and then just roughly slice with my knife into the size I wanted.

You can cook cabbage by just breaking off each individual leaf also, this is how my mum would cook it in a big huge pot and then she would roughly break it up with a potato masher once cooked, when she added the butter. But I personally prefer to chop prior to cooking.

Do I have to use the butter?

Well it wouldn't really be buttered cabbage without the butter a 2 tablespoons when this serves 8 isn't a huge amount of calories per serving.

However you will get flavour from the stock the cabbage is cooked in, so if you really can't bear to use those extra calories then by all means skip it, just remember that for best results, the butter is definitely worth it.

Recipes to Serve with Cabbage

Cabbage goes well with many main courses, but my favourites are things like stews and casseroles. Here are a few of my favourites

• Slow Cooker Guinness Brisket
• Chicken and Baked Bean Casserole
• Creamy Pork Casserole
• Tuscan Beef Casserole (Stove Top or Instant Pot)
• Beef and Vegetable Casserole (Oven, Slow Cooker, Instant Pot)
• Braised Beef
• Irish Beef Stew
• Beef and Sweet Potato Stew

and of course no buttered cabbage is. complete with out some Mashed Potato or Sweet Potato Mash

or if you would like more recipe ideas - head on over to the FULL RECIPE INDEX where you will find over 900 delicious recipes and can search by ingredients, course, diet and more.

All with estimated calories and Slimming Eats and Weight Watchers Smart Points values.

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Recipe Card

Yield: SERVES 8

Irish Buttered Cabbage

Print

Irish Buttered Cabbage - this simple but delicious side dish of cooked cabbage with butter and black pepper is the perfect recipe for a variety of main dishes.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 head of green cabbage
• 1 litre (4.25 cups) of chicken or vegetable stock
• pinch of sea salt
• 2 tablespoons of salted butter
• salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Remove any outer brown leaves of the cabbage and discard.
2. Cut cabbage into 4 (quarters), remove thick stem part and then roughly chopped with a sharp knife.
3. Add to a sieve in batches and rinse with cold water.
4. Add the stock to a large saucepan and place in the cabbage, ensuring it is submerged (don't worry if some pieces are just above the stock).
5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat cover and simmer for approx 15-20 minutes, cabbage should be nice and tender.
6. Drain, add the cabbage back to the pan and place on a low heat just to cook off any excess liquid.
7. Add in the butter and toss so it's all melted and coats the cabbage.
8. Then season with salt and black pepper to your taste, I like to add quite a lot of black pepper, but everyones taste is different.

Notes

Please see below for full nutritional info and additional details about recipe:

• Calories - scroll down to nutritional info box
• WW Points and other Slimming or Weight Loss programs -   due to plans regularly changing and updating, we recommend calculating with the official tools you get as a member to those plans to ensure accuracy of values. 

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Nutrition Information

Yield

8

Serving Size

1 SERVING
Amount Per Serving Calories 87Total Fat 4gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 2gCholesterol 18mgSodium 216mgCarbohydrates 9gFiber 3gSugar 5gProtein 5g

Nutritional information, values, points etc are an estimate and is to be used for informational purposes only. Ingredients can vary greatly from brand to brand and therefore it would be impossible to give accurate information. It is always advised that you calculate by the ingredients you use.

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