Recipe: Cabbage Un-Roll Casserole :: Easy like a Sunday Morning

May 13, 2012 by Laureen Fox | 9 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day Moms!

Easy Like a Sunday Morning, that’s how the recipes in my “Easy” category will be. Nothing rushed or frantic, nothing with a long list of ingredients. Something that is so easy, you don’t really need a recipe. Something that almost cooks itself or requires no cooking at all.

Classic Cabbage Rolls fit quite nicely into the comfort food category for me but it’s something I never really made all that often because it was kind of finicky and time consuming. Come to think of it, most of what I consider comfort foods take a lot of effort to put together.

Well then, you can probably imagine how pleased I was to find out someone had come up with the idea of side stepping the time consuming part of making Classic Cabbage Rolls. Just chop up all of the ingredients and throw them in a casserole dish to bake while you sit back and browse through your favourite foodie blogs looking for more new takes on comfort foods.

Just like Classic Cabbage Rolls, this casserole is freezer friendly. I often make a double batch, so I can tuck the leftovers away in the freezer for use on those evenings when I don’t feel like cooking.

Recipe: Cabbage Un-Roll Casserole

View Print Friendly Recipe Here

Summary: The taste of Classic Cabbage Rolls with only a fraction of the time and the work.

Gluten Free | Sugar Free | Egg Free | Omnivore

Ingredients

1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 Cup chopped onion
2 carrots (peeled and coarsly chopped)
1 Can tomato sauce (20 ounce)
3 1/2 Cups vegetable or chicken broth
3 1/2 lb chopped cabbage
1 Cup uncooked white rice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/8 tsp basil
1/8 tsp rosemary
1/8 oregano
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper seasoning
2 Tbsp unsweetened plain yogurt or sour cream (optional, omit for Dairy Free)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a large saucepan, brown beef over medium heat until redness is gone. Drain off fat.
In a large mixing bowl combine the onion, carrots, tomato sauce, vegetable broth, cabbage, rice, salt, spices and yogurt or sour cream if using. Add cooked meat and mix all together.
Pour mixture into a 9×13 inch baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and place in large pan to catch any overflow. I have an old beat up cookie sheet that I use for this purpose.
Bake in the preheated oven, covered, for 1 hour. Stir, replace cover and bake for another 30-45 minutes.
When done, the casserole will be piping hot, the cabbage and rice fully cooked.

Quick notes

Make sure you read the label if you are using a commercially prepared broth. I once went to use Campbell’s low sodium Chicken Broth but discovered it has “hydrogenated wheat gluten”.
For the casserole pictured here, I used some leftover cooked brown and wild rice.

Variations

This casserole is very large and takes a long time to bake if you’re using uncooked rice. I have found it is just as good with cooked rice. One cup of uncooked rice should yield almost 3 cups of cooked. You can use leftover rice or cook it up fresh while the beef is browning. Reduce the broth by 1 Cup and use a smaller (14 oz) can of tomato sauce. Reduce cooking time to 1 hour. Stir, replace cover after 30-40 minutes.

Recipe by Laureen.

Preparation time: 20 minute(s)

Cooking time: 1 hour(s) 30 minute(s)

Diet tags: Gluten free

Number of servings (yield): 8

This posting is linked to the following events:

Make Your Own! Mondays hosted by Lea at Nourishing Treasures

Melt In Your Mouth Monday hosted by Jane at Make Ahead Meals For Busy Moms

Tuesday Talent Show hosted by Nikki at chef in training

Fat Tuesday hosted by Jill at Real Food Forager

Traditional Tuesdays hosted by Lea Harris at Nourishing Treasures

Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays hosted by Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free