Golabki are cabbage leaves stuffed with ground beef and rice, then simmered in tomato soup. This works great in the oven or a slow cooker. Serve them with the pan juices and a drizzle of sour cream, or mix the pan juices with sour cream and ladle it over the cabbage rolls. They're also good with mashed potatoes and a cucumber and sour cream salad. They freeze well too — either before or after cooking.
Ingredients
- head cabbage, cored: 1 piece
- butter: 2 Tbsp
- onion: 1 piece (chopped)
- ground beef: 1 pound
- ground pork: 0.5 pound
- ½ cups cooked rice: 1 piece
- garlic: 1 tsp (finely chopped)
- salt, plus more: 1 tsp (to taste)
- ground black pepper, plus more: 0.25 tsp (to taste)
- condensed tomato soup: 3 cans (10.5 ounce cans)
- tomato juice: 2 cans (12 fluid ounce cans, to taste)
- ketchup: 0.5 cup
Metric Conversion
Stages of cooking
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Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place cabbage head into the pot, cover, and cook until leaves are softened enough to remove from the head, about 3 minutes. Remove cabbage from the pot and let sit until leaves are cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes.
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Remove 18 whole leaves from the cabbage head, cutting out any thick tough center ribs. Set whole leaves aside. Chop the remaining cabbage and spread it in the bottom of a casserole dish.
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Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool, about 5 minutes.
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Combine beef, pork, cooked rice, garlic, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add onion and mix until well combined.
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
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Place about 1/2 cup beef mixture onto a cabbage leaf. Roll the leaf around beef mixture, tucking in the sides to create an envelope around the meat. Repeat to make remaining cabbage rolls. Place cabbage rolls in a layer over chopped cabbage in the casserole dish. Season with salt and pepper.
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Whisk condensed soup, tomato juice, and ketchup together in a bowl; pour over cabbage rolls and cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil.
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Bake in the preheated oven until cabbage is tender and meat is cooked through, about 1 hour. Uncover for the last 20 to 30 minutes of cooking. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
