I had the most beautiful small Savoy cabbage in my veg box this week and I was inspired by a delicious photo on Instagram to make some cabbage rolls because Savoy cabbage, with their lacy leaves, make particularly pretty ones. I haven’t made cabbage rolls before, so a warning to the novice cabbage roll makers, it turns out even a small cabbage will make a lot of cabbage rolls. I ran out of little oven dishes for one, so I took some advice from a friend and made deconstructed cabbage rolls or what I call “cabbage roll lasagna” that I can just pop in the microwave (although it would likely be nicer in the oven if I had more oven containers). I based my recipe on this one which I think would be fantastic if you want a traditional cabbage roll with beef, pork, and eggs, since the spices and everything worked out well for this vegan one and the instructions are very clear. Here is the link to the fabulous recipe by The Lemon Apron:

Cabbage Rolls, Like Mama Used to Make

I used a vegan mince/ground protein that was new to me and was one of those really mushy ones, so I had to fry it up before adding it to the rice. I also minced some veg box carrots, garlic, and red pepper with my onions and fried all that up. I added some caraway seeds to the smoked paprika as well. I didn’t find I needed anything to bind my filling because my veg and vegan mince was wet enough and I used short grain rice. I followed the original recipe for how to manage the cabbage and roll the rolls.

When I made cabbage lasagna, I did a layer tomato sauce, cabbage leaves, rice mix, dairy/non dairy yogurt, cabbage leaves, a bit more sauce. You can repeat this depending on the depth of your dish. it was as nice as my friend said. Looks like I have lots of cabbage creations for the freezer. Done and done.