If cabbage leaves have turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use them with confidence and how to choose them, cook them, store them, what to substitute, and 25 recipes to try them in.

What are cabbage leaves?

Cabbage leaves means the whole, intact outer leaves peeled off a head, used as a wrapper rather than shredded. They are the edible package around stuffed cabbage rolls.

A good wrapping leaf is large, pliable, and free of cracks. Most recipes call for green cabbage, though savoy's softer, crinkled leaves roll even more easily.

Softening the Leaves for Rolling

A raw cabbage leaf is stiff and snaps when you bend it. The whole job here is making it flexible enough to fold around a filling without tearing.

There are two reliable ways. The first is to blanch: core the head, lower it into boiling water, and peel off leaves with tongs as they soften, about two minutes each. The leaves go limp and translucent at the edges when ready.

The second skips the boiling. Freeze the whole cored head solid and thaw it, and the leaves come off soft and floppy on their own. It takes planning but saves you a steaming kitchen and a pot of hot water.

Either way, shave down the thick central rib with a knife so the leaf lies flat and rolls tight.

How They Are Used

Stuffed cabbage rolls are the headline. A softened leaf wraps around a filling of meat and rice, then the rolls braise in a tomato or sweet-sour sauce until tender. German Cabbage Rolls and Crockpot Cabbage Rolls follow this pattern, slow-cooked until the cabbage is meltingly soft.

The filling and sauce shift by region. Cabbage Rolls with Sour Cream Sauce leans Eastern European, while Mihshi Malfuf Bi Zayt (Meatless Cabbage Rolls) goes Middle Eastern with a lemony, oil-based filling.

Beyond rolls, whole leaves line terrines and steamer baskets, or wrap fish and other fillings for a gentle steam.

Tips and Pitfalls

Use the large outer leaves for wrapping and save the small, tight inner ones for slaw or soup. They are too cupped to roll well.

The usual failure is a leaf that splits as you roll it. That almost always means it was not softened enough, so give it another minute of blanching or trim the rib down further.

Roll snugly but not so tight that the filling bursts the seam. Tuck the sides in like a burrito and set each roll seam-side down so it holds together while it cooks.

Buying and Storage

You do not buy cabbage leaves on their own. Buy a firm, heavy head of green or savoy cabbage and peel your own, picking the biggest unblemished outer leaves.

A whole head keeps for weeks in the crisper, so there is no rush. Once you have peeled and blanched leaves, use them the same day. Cooked, finished rolls keep three to four days in the fridge and freeze well for a couple of months.

Quick facts

In Chinese

白菜叶

British (UK) term

Cabbage leaves

en français

feuilles de chou

en español

hojas de col

Recipes using cabbage leaves

There are 25 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 25 recipes