How to cook red cabbage quickly and easily

Red cabbage is a cabbage from the cabbage family, broccoli or cauliflower, but with the peculiarity that its leaves are flat and purple. It tastes milder than cabbage, but very close. It doesn’t form as many volatile sulfur compounds when boiled (the kind that give cabbages and cauliflower a bad smell), and raw it’s softer and chewier than plain cabbage. That’s why knowing how to cook red cabbage is very interesting.

Do you have the recipe for how to make powdered red cabbage to season your dishes?

in the next video.

The color of the red cabbage will depend on where it has been cultivated: in acidic soils it is more pink, and in alkaline soils, more bluish. It happens because its pigments, anthocyanins, are sensitive to pH, which is why it is usually recommended to add a little lemon or vinegar when cooking it, to preserve or enhance its color.

Tips for cooking red cabbage

We can find red cabbage in markets, flea markets, greengrocers and supermarkets throughout the winter. You can choose small or large pieces, depending on what you are going to consume (and the space you have in the fridge). The important thing is that they look tight and firm, without spots or holes, and that they feel heavy for their size.

How to keep it. Once at home, do not wash it until you are going to use it. Store it in the fridge in a perforated bag so it breathes and doesn’t go bad quickly. It will last you up to a week perfectly, even if you are taking leaves or cutting it to use it.How to enhance your color. The color of the red cabbage will depend on where it has been cultivated: in acidic soils it is more pink, and in alkaline soils, more bluish. It happens because its pigments, anthocyanins, are sensitive to pH, which is why it is usually recommended to add a little lemon or vinegar when cooking it, to preserve or enhance its color.

6 ways to cook red cabbage

Red cabbage is widely used in Eastern European cuisine, where it is used raw, in salads like coleslaw, pickled (like sauerkraut or sauerkraut), cooked as a side dish (Rotkohl), roasted, sautéed, braised, etc.

In Spain there are some typical dishes with it, many of them for the Christmas season, such as Madrid-style red cabbage or red cabbage cream. The truth is that it is a very versatile vegetable that we can use it in many ways. Here we propose 6 different ways to prepare it.

1. Raw red cabbage salad

Red cabbage is very rich in vitamin C, and since this vitamin is degraded by cooking (not all of it, but part of it), if we want to make the most of it It is better to eat the red cabbage raw.

For this it is best finely chop it and add it to salads and fresh dishes. You can take the red cabbage as it is and cut it into thin strips, it is not necessary to undo it or take only the leaves. Wash it well, drain it and dry it with a clean cloth and you have it ready to use.It goes great with all kinds of ingredients. and acidic dressings also enhance its bright red color. You can also combine it with fruits such as apples and tangerines, and with other raw winter vegetables such as celery, red chard, fresh peas, fennel, escarole, etc.

2. Sautéed red cabbage

If you don’t want it raw or overcooked, you just have to skip it.

Put it with the rest of the vegetables that you are going to sauté, better cut into thin strips. It will work for you for any quick dish, Chinese or Japanese noodle dishes, etc.

3. Pickled red cabbage (how to blanch it)

If we need the cabbage to be softer than crunchy, but to keep its shape, we can blanch it. Blanched chopped red cabbage has a wonderful texture for vegetable and legume dishes. It is also good to blanch the red cabbage if we want to pickle it just like gherkins or carrots.

You just have to put plenty of water to boil (better with a few drops of lemon or vinegar) and submerge the leaves that we are going to use or the chopped cabbage. If it is chopped it will need 2 minutes, and the whole leaves 3-4 minutes, depending on how thick they are.They are quickly removed from the water and they are transferred to a bowl with cold water to stop the cooking. With the blanched leaves we can make rolls, filling them with whatever we want, just as we do with the grape leaves or cabbage leaves.

4. Boiled red cabbage

To make it very tender, we can boil it.

His thing is to boil it separately with a little lemon or vinegar, because it will dye all the water.To color a plate. if what we want is to color a plate, like a risotto for example, we will put the chopped red cabbage from the beginning and thus it will release color throughout the cooking.Red cabbage pate. the red cabbage boiled it is very soft and comes to undo. The good thing is that in this way we can incorporate it into pates and creams to give a touch of color, or to purées and sauces.

5. Roasted red cabbage

The roasted red cabbage is very good.

You have to put it on a tray oven cut in half or quarters, with a pinch of oil and salt. You can also add a little lemon, but it will inevitably be darker because cooking is different in the oven, it will not be submerged in water but exposed to dry heat. It will take about 40 minutes (it depends on the size of the pieces). and it will be great to eat it as it is, as a first course.

6. Sautéed red cabbage

The red cabbage made this way is not only tender, it also develops many more flavors and adds juiciness (and color) to the dish.

A good way to eat red cabbage is to fry or confit it. For example toAdding red cabbage in strips or in pieces to a ratatouille.