Cabbage Soup

8 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes

Cabbage Soup is the perfect savory vegetable soup made with cabbage, tomato, carrots, celery, and spices, ready in under 45 minutes!

When the weather gets cold in the winter, heat things up with a warm and cozy Soup! If you like Ground Beef Cabbage Soup, but want something meat-free, you need to try this veggie version!

Sabrina’s Cabbage Soup Recipe

Cabbage Soup is a savory vegetable soup made with carrots, celery, onions, cabbage, diced tomato and spices. I’ve been making this recipe for years because it’s the perfect thing to make when it’s cold outside, plus you can do it in the slow cooker on days when you’re busy.

A lot of people make this soup for weight loss because it’s low calorie, but I also love it because it’s totally inexpensive and super easy to make. Serve it with freshly made bread or Dinner Rolls. You can even cut up leftover Homemade Rotisserie Chicken and throw that in there, too.

Recipe Card

Cabbage Soup

Cabbage Soup is the perfect savory vegetable soup made with cabbage, tomato, carrots, celery, and spices, ready in under 45 minutes!
Yield 8 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Course Dinner
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 yellow onion , chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic , minced
  • 8 cups low sodium chicken broth , (vegetable broth is fine too)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper , or to taste
  • 1/2 head cabbage , chopped in 1 ½ inch chunks
  • 4 large carrots , peeled and chopped
  • 2 ribs celery , sliced thinly
  • 14.5 ounces stewed tomatoes , (just under two cups fresh cut tomatoes)

Instructions

  • In a large pot add the olive oil over medium heat then add in the onions and garlic, onion and cook until the onions are see through, about 3-5 minutes.
  • Add in the broth, salt, pepper, thyme, cabbage, carrots, celery, and tomatoes and stir to combine. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Notes

  • Change Serving Size: Click on the yield amount to slide and change the number of servings and the recipe will automatically update! 
  • Conversion: To convert measurements to grams, click on the Metric option next to Ingredients in the recipe card.      
  • Kitchen Timer: Click on times in the instructions to start a kitchen timer while cooking.  

Nutrition

Calories: 132kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Sodium: 519mg | Potassium: 562mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 6206IU | Vitamin C: 28mg | Calcium: 70mg | Iron: 2mg

Key Ingredients

  • Cabbage: This recipe is calling for a half-head of green cabbage. You can use the preshredded stuff too.
  • Oil: Extra virgin olive oil is great for this. You can also use avocado oil or even coconut oil if you prefer. 
  • Seasoning: I use simple thyme in this recipe. But you can use Italian blend or Herbes de Provence (an incredible french blend of dried herbs). 
  • Broth: Look for the low sodium chicken broth. Vegetable broth works especially if you want to make a vegan soup.
  • Carrots: Carrots add an earthy depth and natural sweetness to the soup.
  • Celery: Just a couple of stalks will do. You can also add the leaves with the cabbage for a bit more fresh flavor.
  • Tomatoes: I used canned stewed tomatoes not only because it’s easy but they are slightly sweeter and often stewed with basil so you get more Italian flavor.

How to Make

Time needed: 40 minutes.

  1. Fry vegetables

    Fry the fragrant vegetables (garlic and onion) in some oil until translucent.

  2. Simmer soup ingredients

    Add the rest of the ingredients into the pot and simmer for about a half hour.

Can this be made ahead?

Yes! Pro-tip: Make a double batch so you can freeze half of it for a quick dinner another night! For easy prep, you could also cut up all of the vegetables used for one pot of this soup, wrap in a sealable bag and freeze. Then you just need to pull the bag out of the freezer and cook (or slow cook) with broth and spices! For even easier prep, use pre-shredded cabbage and precut frozen vegetables.

Vegetable soup in a ladle

How to Store

  • Store: Cabbage Soup will last for 4-5 days in the refrigerator, when sealed tightly. You can have this for dinner, then pack a few lunches with it, then freeze whatever is leftover for another day.
  • Freeze: Let it cool completely before putting it into an airtight container and freezing. This will keep for about 2-3 months in the freezer. 

Ideas To Serve

  • Low Carb: Make a healthy dinner Classic Wedge Salad which is like a regular salad, except the head of lettuce is cut into wedges for a fancy presentation.
  • Bread: Some freshly baked Buttermilk Biscuits or a loaf of garlic bread from the grocery store are perfect for soaking up the broth.
  • Lunch Combo: This light soup goes great with your favorite sandwiches as a filling lunch duo without adding a bunch of extra calories.

Alternative Cooking Techniques

Slow Cooker

Add all of the ingredients to the slow cooker and stir together. Set the cooker on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 hours. The soup is done when the vegetables are soft and your kitchen smells amazing. Pro tip: use a crock pot liner for virtually no clean up!

Instant Pot

Use the sauté function for the oil with onion, garlic, and spices for a few minutes before adding the other ingredients. Once it’s done sautéing, add everything to the instant pot and stir. Lock the lid and set pressure on high for a total time of 10 minutes, then let the pot naturally release, about another 15 minutes.

Frequent Questions

How can I make the soup a little thicker? 

If you want the broth to be a little bit thicker, add 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste and stir well.

Is Cabbage Soup dairy free and gluten free? 

This recipe is naturally dairy-free and gluten free (with gluten free broth)!

What’s the difference between Cabbage Soup and Weight Loss Cabbage Soup? 

Good question! There are a lot of similarities between the two. The differences are in that the ingredients used are in different measurements. Plus, there’s a different blend of spices. But the biggest difference is that Weight Loss Cabbage Soup is not made with oil, so there’s less calories.

Should I use purple or green cabbage? 

While this recipe here is utilizing green cabbage, you can use purple (red) cabbage, or even a blended mix of both! 

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Variations

  • Vegetable Additions: You can add more veggies, like green beans, bell peppers, corn, broccoli, kale, spinach, or or cauliflower. If you add leafy greens, add them at the end just a few minutes before you serve, otherwise they’ll get mushy.
  • Bulk it Up: Add chicken or beef if you want more protein, and rice or potatoes for more carbs. For a vegetarian protein option, use white beans or extra firm tofu cut into cubes.
  • Beef: If you’re making beef cabbage soup, use ¼ cup of red wine to deglaze the onions and simmer until reduced by half. Then follow the recipe as normal. I like to use ground beef, which is a lot like deconstructed cabbage rolls!
  • Italian: Add Italian seasoning blend or use herbs like dried oregano, basil, parsley, marjoram and rosemary to give this an Italian flavor.
  • Spicy: Use a spoonful of hot sauce or a dash of cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes to add some heat.

More Vegetable Soup Options

soup in ladle and soup in pot with recipe name across center.

Photos used in a previous version of this post:

Collage of cooked soup in pot and in ladle.
Cooked soup in a green Dutch oven on linen cloth.
Cooked cabbage soup in a large pot
Soup in pot with recipe name across center.

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. The best cabbage soup for healthy eating. I added a can of cooked cannellini beans at the end. You could also add 1/2 cup of brown rice. Really an excellent, simple and tasty recipe.

  2. Tried your recipe and just added green peppers and potatoes and the rest was by
    Your recipe and it was super delicious just cooked it an hour but 5 stars all the way

  3. I am planning on making cabbage soup…I just have 1 question….It says 1/2 head of cabbage how many lb cabbage do you normally use?

  4. I absolutely love this recipe. It has become a weekly staple for me. I added shredded chicken breasts and like the other post lots more veggies. I even added zucchini and squash. Fantastic!!

    1. I looked at the recipe I changed it to my taste I used a tin of tomatoes a fresh chilli Italian seasoning ,a sweet potatoe , tomato purée, salt and pepper , garlic and ginger paste , it was to die for

  5. Just love love this cabbage soup!! It is absolutely delicious! Just made some for my daughter and made my own too!!! I add lots of extra carrots and celery and use already prepared coleslaw mix that has red cabbage ,green cabbage and carrots from Whole Foods and NOT CHICKEN vegetarian bullion cubes,out of this world!!! Thanks for the BEST CABBAGE SOUP EVER!! ?????????

  6. This cabbage soup was fabulous, the only complaint I felt is 1.) it doesn’t make enough so double it and 2), I felt it needed another can of tomatoes. But it was so yummy we turner around and made a huge double + pot ( we did have soup coming out of our ears) but I loved it
    Thank you for a simple flavorful recipe

  7. Delicious! I will definitely be making this again! It was better than other cabbage recipes I have tried. Thanks for sharing it!

  8. Only thing I did was double the recipe. Absolutely delicious. Even had the cabbage haters eating this one.

  9. Very delicious! Easy to make, taste great and freezes well. I love spicy so I added a few jalapeños to kick up a notch!!

  10. My first time having cabbage soup. I have made this recipe three times so far and I can’t thank you enough for the best soup ever. My whole family loves it.
    (We have added croutons, or rice and I hope to add mini meatballs sometime soon.)

  11. This recipe is seriously my favorite cabbage soup, recipe. A friend of mine made this for her and her family and sent some home with us after a night of 4 point pitch and I will honestly say……BEST soup!! Five stars all day long!!

  12. Fantastic soup! My husband just had heart surgery and this soup is good for him, and he loves it. Has requested it twice in the past 2 weeks. After adding the final ingredients, I use my instant pot under pressure for 10 minutes. Leave pressure out slowly to prevent “spitting”. The flavor is through and through. Yum!

  13. Recipe looks delicious and definitely gonna make a pot. Quick question, just wanted to ask about using a low sodium beef broth in place of chicken or veggie broth. Could just be a taste preference. Just curious. Thanks in advance!

  14. This is really tasty! After simmering 30 minutes, the veggies were cooked but still had a little crunch to them, just the way I like it! Thanks!

  15. I’ve made this several times, making slight changes according to what I have on hand each time. It’s never disappointed and is always super flavorful and satisfying!! I took some to a friend who’s home with Covid and who hasn’t really had much of an appetite. She just texted me saying it’s the best vegetable soup she’s ever had and asked if I’d share the recipe. Here are the changes I made this time around:
    – added 5 sliced Yukon potatoes
    – added 1/2 to 2/3 cup of corn
    – added handful of spinach (for the cold-fighting natural zinc) when reheating
    – added about an extra half tsp of minced garlic
    – left out the onion and black pepper (I’m allergic to both)
    – used 3 cups beef bone broth and 5 cups chicken bone broth instead of the low sodium chicken broth
    – added about 1 1/2 tbs of organic better than chicken bouillon (to make it more flavorful since the bone broth usually isn’t very seasoned).

  16. I used 2 sm cans diced tomatoes and reduced broth to 6 cups, added herbs de provance for a spice instead of thyme, very good

  17. I love the little added tips, going to use a few. Still wish they were below the recipe not before, but nice to have it all.

    1. Oh, Sabrina…I thought being a professional chef you would realize that SOME of us need a bit more specificity.
      HALF a cabbage? The one I bought 2 months ago weighed 3.5 pounds. The one I bought at Xmas weighed just over 8 pounds. So…how many CUPS of cabbage would you recommend?
      BTW – I ? that your recipe has built-in timers. It’s an AWESOME feature – especially for those of us that get sidetracked/forget to set one.
      Thanks! I REALLY need this soup. It’s MINUS 40°C (& F), plus snow & wind, giving us a “real feel” of -45°C ( -49°F) here in Alberta, Canada ?? Brrr!!!

  18. Soup great just change it a bit i put carne asada sea salt and bay leaf put it in a crock pot for 4 hours omg delish

  19. I’ve made this two days in a row and can’t stop eating it! I had to cook it for another 10-20 minutes to get the right texture but it’s so good! I wasn’t expecting it to be so flavorful!

  20. I love this recipe! I added two cans of cannellini beans, an onion soup pack, and four teaspoons of tomato paste. I let my soup slow cook for four hours in my insta pot and it came out better (this being the second time I made it). This will be my dinner for the next few nights. Add some lemon and red pepper flakes before serving for an extra kick.

  21. Simple and delicious!
    I used a box of beef stock and 48 ounce can of seasoned tomatoes. I used half the amount of cabbage (that is all I had) but as you can see the amount of liquid I used was less. Also I cut back on the salt a touch.
    Was going to add macaroni but it was so thick I decided not to because the stock tasted delicious and I didn’t want to add more liquid.
    Definitely a staple and can see how you could add many different ingredients!

  22. Yummy! I had to make some substitutions- regular instead of low sodium broth, diced tomatoes instead of stewed tomatoes (next time I will use stewed), spanish onion instead of yellow onion, oregnao in place of thyme. It was delicious. Healthy and filling! My only issue was that I had to cook it for a lot longer than recommended, close to 2 hours and the cabbage and carrots still have some bite to them. Next time I’ll cut everything smaller. Thanks for the recipe. Just wondering- is the nutrition info based on one serving size, aka 1/8 of the recipe?

    1. Why did you rate a recipe you haven’t tried yet? It’s hard to trust ratings when people rate a recipe on how good it *looks* …

  23. The only changes I made is I sautéed the veggies first before adding the tomatoes and used a combination of beef and veggie broth. I simmered the soup for roughly 45 minutes but the cabbage was still not very soft and the flavours weren’t blending together. Tomorrow I’m going to add ground beef and rice to the leftovers and I know that will improve the flavour plus everything always seems to taste better the day after it’s made 🙂

  24. Terrible. Had almost no taste. I kept adding things to give it more taste – tomato paste, salt, pepper, soup powder. Nothing really helped. Very disappointing.

    1. I’m very sorry this recipe didn’t work out for you Leslie. Maybe there is another recipe that would work better for you!

    1. It will be a bit bland but there is a salt alternative to season it. The brand Morton has a sodium-free salt substitute.

    1. Hello, if you follow this recipe, you will get 8 servings size. you could always make more or less by hovering over the serving number in the blog.

  25. When I was in my 20’s..,my co-worker who was in her 60’s was telling me about this cabbage soup which I didn’t pay attention. 40 years later I happened to remember the name but don’t know the recipe. Thank you I found you! Hope it turns out great like everyone was telling here. I’m not a good cook just a good eater! ?

  26. I have a child who might be squeamish about the texture but eat it if it was smooth. Can you puree this soup? Would it still taste right?

    1. Yes. I let it cool down and scoop it into the Vitamix blender. Tastes delicious and better absorption of nutrients. Very easy to digest.

  27. Why is it when I add tomatoes to soup my carrots will not cook , after couple hours it’s still a little hard. HELP

    1. Tomatoes are known for delaying the cooking of carrots and also legumes/lentils – something to do with the high acidity. Always make sure these foods are fully cooked and tender before adding tomato.

  28. Made it 20 min ago. Looks very good and taste extremely good. But I added two corn on the cobs sliced into 1″ + two sausages sliced into1/2″…….it is a repeater!

  29. This turned out great! Had to use Clamato Cocktail because local dollar store was out of tomato juice. We live out in the country. The only thing I would do different is cutting the cabbage smaller. I also used ground beef.