Unstuffed Cabbage And Sausage Skillet Recipe

Stuffed cabbage is a dish of many different names: In Poland, it may go by gołąbki, in Ukraine it's known as holubtsi, while Turkish stuffed cabbage is called lahana sarma. One thing that most of these dishes have in common, however, is that they can be time-consuming to make, since you have to stuff each cabbage leaf individually with a mixture of ground meat and grain. This easy skillet recipe, however, is something that developer Deniz Vergara describes as "a twist on stuffed cabbage but without all the fuss."

What makes this dish so fuss-free is the fact that it starts with chopped cabbage. The budget-friendly vegetable is then simmered with sausage chunks in a mild, flavorful tomato sauce that's seasoned with onion, garlic, and paprika. This hearty, one-pot meal would be great with a side of steamed rice or buttered noodles, but it might be even tastier paired with our easy, cheesy garlic bread.

For this skillet, you'll need sausage and cabbage, of course. You'll also need olive oil for cooking, canned diced tomatoes, onion, and garlic for the sauce. For seasoning, look for oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt for. You'll garnish the dish with parsley for a final touch.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add in the sausage and saute for 1–2 minutes on each side

Push the sausage to the outside, add in the onions and minced garlic, and stir for 1 minute, until the onions begin to get translucent.

Add the oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and sea salt, and stir to combine.

Add the cabbage and diced tomatoes, stir, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the sausage is fully cooked. If the mixture is too dry, add ¼ cup water to the tomato can, swirl it around, and add it to the skillet.

Remove from the heat and garnish with the parsley.

Serve, with crusty bread, if desired.

One way that you can tweak this recipe is by replacing the meat. Instead of Italian sausage, try using another type, such as kielbasa or bratwurst. Chicken, turkey, or plant-based sausage would also work, as would ground meat or loose (casing-free) sausage, such as Mexican-style chorizo. If you opt for this type of meat instead of link sausage, brown it before adding the garlic and onions to the pan.

The diced tomatoes, too, can be swapped out for crushed tomatoes or even marinara, although if either of these substitutions makes the sauce too thick, you may need to stir in a small amount of water. If you're looking to spice up the skillet, Ro-tel diced tomatoes with chiles would work, while you could also sprinkle in a teaspoon of chile powder or pinch of cayenne as the sauce is simmering. If you have a jalapeño pepper in the produce bin, you could dice it and toss it into the pan to saute along with the onions.

This sausage skillet will make for great leftovers, as it may taste even better after the flavors have had a chance to meld. If you want to change things up a bit the second time around, though, Vergara likes to make the leftovers into a sausage sub by stuffing the cabbage and meat into a bread roll and then melting some cheese on top.

Another way to repurpose the sausage and cabbage is to turn it into an Italian-ish casserole by stirring it into some cooked pasta and topping it with mozzarella and Parmesan. For a Southwestern-style casserole, use rice and black beans in place of the pasta and go with cheddar or pepper Jack and a sprinkling of cilantro as toppings. You could even take this unstuffed cabbage dish and use it as a stuffing — not for cabbage rolls, but for cored, seeded bell peppers. Again, top these with your cheese of choice, then bake them until the peppers are soft and the filling is hot all the way through.