Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Known for her substack Letter from Berlin and memoir My Berlin Kitchen, Berlin-based writer and cook Luisa Weiss has a knack for making traditional German dishes feel both exciting and approachable. Her latest cookbook, Classic German Cooking, dives deep into the country’s comfort foods and timeless staples. We love these cabbage rolls wrapped up like edible presents—perfect for earmarking as a cozy dinner on cooler nights.  

Stuffed cabbage will always remind me of the wholesome lunches I was fed at the cafeteria in my public school in Berlin. From stuffed cabbage to Milchreis to chicken fricassee, school lunch was a meal my classmates and I ate with gusto. Freshly prepared by grumpy ladies in white hats, dolloped out onto trays with pudding and fruit, and costing a little less than five Deutschmark per child, it was good, honest food. Sure, the older we got, the more we thought the kebabs down the street were a way better use of our lunch money, and by the time twelfth grade rolled around, eating in the lunchroom with seventh graders was, like, totally out of the question, but while it lasted, I sure loved those lunches.

Even with my rose-colored memory glasses on, though, I can assure you that this recipe will be even better than any cafeteria fare, especially if you use Savoy cabbage, which must be the most beautiful cabbage far and wide.

Despite being blanched and browned and braised here, it manages to retain its structure and some of its color at the end. For Germans, the flavorful sauce is almost as important as the stuffed cabbage itself.  

SERVES 4

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 onions, minced

1 tsp salt, plus more as needed

2 stale white rolls, very thinly sliced, or equivalent amount of stale sandwich bread, cut into ¼-inch/6mm cubes

½ cup (125ml) whole milk

1 head of Savoy or green cabbage

½ lb (250g) ground beef

½ lb (250g) ground pork

1 egg

1 tsp dried marjoram

Freshly ground black pepper

Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, minced

⅓ cup (1.7 oz or 50g) minced Speck or bacon

2 Tbsp tomato paste

½ cup (120ml) red wine

1 cup (250ml) beef broth

1 tsp cornstarch, optional

Preparation

Place 1 Tbsp of oil in a small sauté pan and cook half of the onions with ½ tsp of salt over medium heat until translucent and fragrant, about 8 minutes. Set aside.

Place the bread in a large bowl. Heat the milk and pour over the rolls. Toss well, then set aside while you prepare the cabbage.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Place a large bowl of cold water on your work surface. Carefully loosen about 10 outer leaves from the head of cabbage without tearing them (set torn ones aside to use elsewhere). Cut out the thick rib. Blanch the leaves in the boiling water for 5 minutes, then place them in the bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process. Set them on a kitchen towel and pat dry.

The bread should have completely absorbed all the milk by this point. To the bowl with the bread, add the remaining ½ tsp of salt, the sautéed onion, both meats, the egg, marjoram, pepper to taste, and the parsley. Mix very well until you get a homogenous mixture.

Fill the cabbage leaves: Start by spreading one cabbage leaf out in front of you. You have enough filling to make between 8 and 10 cabbage rolls. Place around 3 oz (½ cup) of filling on the cabbage leaf, centering it. Fold the side edges over the filling, then roll up the cabbage leaf from the bottom. No filling should emerge or be visible. Tie with kitchen twine and set aside. Repeat with the remaining leaves and filling.

Place the remaining 2 Tbsp of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Sear the cabbage rolls until golden brown on both sides, 5 to 8 minutes total. Do this in batches, if necessary. Don’t crowd the rolls. Remove the rolls from the pan and set aside on a plate.

Add the remaining half of the onions to the pan along with the Speck. Cook, stirring, for 5 to 8 minutes, until the fat has started to render and the onion is translucent and fragrant. Add the tomato paste and stir well to loosen and distribute. Continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Pour in the wine and bring to a boil, then pour in the beef broth. As soon as the sauce comes to a boil, carefully place the cabbage rolls into the sauce. Cover, turn down the heat, and simmer for about 45 minutes.

When the cabbage rolls have finished cooking, take them out of the pan and set aside. Snip off the kitchen twine. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning if necessary. If you want a slightly thickened sauce, take 3 Tbsp of sauce out of the pan and whisk with the cornstarch in a small bowl until no lumps remain, then whisk this slurry back into the sauce. Let the sauce simmer, stirring, for another few minutes until it starts to thicken just ever so slightly. Turn off the heat. Place the cabbage rolls back in the sauce and serve.

“Classic German Cooking” Copyright © 2024 by Luisa Weiss. Photographs © 2024 by Elena Heatherwick. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group.