Vegan Cabbage Stew with Bulgur and Navy Beans

March 12, 2024

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This vegan cabbage stew with bulgur and navy beans is hearty, healthful, and comforting. It has a brothy tomato base and plenty of texture from chopped cabbage, white beans, and cracked bulgur wheat. This can be a nice soup to make forward—it turns into much more flavorful after a pair days!

We sprang ahead into springtime this week.

No sooner had we set the clocks an hour earlier (or woken up questioning why it appeared so late), than the climate obtained very chilly for a day.

And now, instantly, it’s heat once more.

Such are the unpredictable ups and downs of spring!

In any case, there’s nonetheless a chill within the air, and for so long as that continues to be true, it’ll be soup season for me.

And isn’t it practically all the time soup season? It needs to be blazing sizzling exterior for me to show down a comfortable, nutritious bowl, heat bowl of vegan soup.

This explicit soup is filling and stuffed with texture, which is how I like my soups to be. It additionally options certainly one of my favourite—and, I believe barely underrated—greens: cabbage.

Cabbage soups for the soul

There are such a lot of ways in which I wish to get pleasure from cabbage: in cabbage pasta, slaw, vegan colcannon, as roasted cabbage steak wedges, and within the type of a great, old style pot of braised pink cabbage.

A wedge of spice-roasted cabbage steak is resting on a small, round plate, drizzled with some white creamy sauce.

Two plates of a vegan cabbage and onion rigatoni dish are resting on a white surface. The pasta is garnished with flecks of green parsley.

However for all of those wonderful makes use of for this nutritious vegetable, there’s actually nothing like cabbage in soup.

I first fell in love with cabbage soup after I was writing my cookbook Energy Plates.

There are two soups in there that embody cabbage: the recipe for ribollita and the recipe for spicy cabbage chickpea soup.

A bowl of spicy cabbage chickpea soup rests on a folded, gray linen napkin.

The latter soup has grow to be such a fan favourite that I truly selected to share it on this weblog, too.

What I discovered in creating these recipes is that cabbage is a good veggie for soups: agency sufficient to not crumble, but additionally tender sufficient to be pleasing.

Cooking cabbage for an extended time frame, which is typical for soups, helps to carry out its softness and pure sweetness.

Cabbage additionally has substance. I really like folding leafy greens into soups, however chopped or sliced cabbage is undeniably heartier—and each bit as health-giving.

A small head of green cabbage is being cut on a white cutting board.

Cabbage vitamin

I may go on and on concerning the many nutrient properties of a humble head of cabbage. However listed below are some highlights for you:

Vitamin C
Vitamin K1
Phytosterols (plant compounds which will play a job in serving to to cut back levels of cholesterol)
Glucosinolates (these are sulfur-containing plant compounds that is likely to be particularly helpful for coronary heart well being)
Dietary fiber

I give somewhat extra element about how splendidly nutrient-dense cabbage is in this submit.

One fast phrase about these glucosinolates talked about above: they grow to be biologically lively when cabbage is crushed, chopped, or chewed.

That’s a part of why it’s a great factor that the cabbage on this cabbage stew recipe is chopped up earlier than it’s added to your pot.

What sort of cabbage is finest on this cabbage stew recipe?

I like to recommend utilizing inexperienced, savoy, or napa cabbage for the soup.

Purple cabbage will work from a style perspective, however the combination of its purple coloration and the redness of tomatoes would possibly result in a muddy-looking soup!

A grain, a inexperienced, and a bean

Certainly one of my favourite methods to consider meal planning is to mix a grain, and inexperienced, and a bean inside any plate or bowl.

Whether or not I’ve meal prepped extensively and have numerous vegan fundamentals in my fridge, or I’m winging it for the week, I’m certain to have a can of beans or a block of tofu, some kind of contemporary or frozen inexperienced vegetable, and quite a lot of grains at dwelling.

Typically making a meal is so simple as grouping these parts collectively right into a bowl and including an excellent sauce or dressing.

Typically it takes the type of a easy grain skillet or pasta dish.

And there are various cases by which grains, inexperienced greens, and beans could be became a soup.

With inexperienced cabbage because the vegetable, navy, nice northern, or cannellini beans (mainly, your white bean of selection) because the plant protein, and bulgur because the grain, this brothy cabbage stew could be a meal unto itself.

A lift from bulgur wheat

I’m a giant fan of including pasta, from orzo to tortellini, to my soups. However typically I overlook how wonderful the various sorts of complete grains could be in a pot of soup.

From quinoa in chili to tomato soup with rice, grains can improve the feel and density of soups and stews so properly. In addition they add vitamin, in fact: a number of fiber, some protein, and extra.

On this explicit cabbage stew, the grain is bulgur wheat.

Bulgur is a type of cracked wheat. Chances are you’ll be most conversant in it from tabbouleh or different Mediterranean and Center Japanese dishes. It has a chewy texture and a small form.

Bulgur can also be very nutritious. It’s obtained a great quantity of plant protein in every serving—about six grams—together with fiber, iron, B-vitamins, and folate.

I’ve used bulgur in lots of sorts of recipes. Bulgur can create some texture and density in vegan meatballs or chili. It makes fantastic grain salads, together with my my candy potato bulgur citrus salad and lemony bulgur chickpea salad.

I particularly get pleasure from utilizing bulgur as a stuffing for greens, comparable to my bulgur-stuffed eggplants with currants and pine nuts.

Bulgur is usually labeled as high quality, coarse, or additional coarse. It might not be labeled in any respect, however often after I discover it at main grocery shops within the US, it has a high quality consistency. I just like the coarse bulgur wheat, too.

Find out how to make cabbage stew with bulgur and navy beans

The cabbage stew is a one-pot recipe, which implies that the steps for making ready it are fairly easy. Right here’s how the method goes.

Step 1: Sauté the greens

You’ll start by sautéing in olive oil the greens that play a starring position within the cabbage stew. onion, celery, and carrots go into the pot first and cook dinner for about 5 minutes.

An overhead image of a silver pot with handles, which is being used to sauté cabbage, celery, and carrots. — Carrots, celery, onion, and cabbage are the foundational veggies on this cabbage stew.

Then, you’ll add your cabbage and cook dinner it for about ten minutes, or till it’s tender and perhaps simply beginning to brown.

Step 2: Add seasonings

The seasonings for this soup are easy. Tomato paste will deepen the soup’s taste and add some umami, whereas two sorts of paprika add sweetness and smokiness, respectively.

Step 3: Simmer

Lastly, you’ll add the remaining components, that are tomatoes, broth, bulgur, and navy beans, carry the combination to a boil, and cut back the warmth to low.

An overhead image of a silver pot, filled with navy beans, cabbage, bulgur wheat, and tomatoes. — Bulgur wheat and navy beans contribute protein, fiber, and plenty of nice texture to this hearty and nutritious stew.

Simmer the soup for twenty-five minutes, or till the bulgur is totally cooked, but retains its chewy texture.

You’ll lastly season the soup to style with somewhat white wine vinegar, in addition to any extra salt or pepper that you just’d like, and serve it.

An overhead image of a silver pot, which is filled with a cabbage, bulgur, and tomato stew. — The completed stew can have a wealthy, tomato-scented broth and plenty of texture.

Variations & additions

There’s already a lot taking place within the cabbage stew, due to its grains and beans and components with a number of substance.

Even so, you would possibly want to make it much more of a “kitchen sink” recipe. I believe that any of the next could be enjoyable additions:

If it’s worthwhile to make some substitutions, this recipe may also accommodate variation. For instance, you may commerce chickpeas for the white beans.

Instead of the bulgur, you may use couscous, one other small pasta form, comparable to pastina, or quinoa. Quinoa would make the cabbage stew gluten-free!

The Vegan Week

Embrace the enjoyment of consuming selfmade meals every single day with the hearty and healthful recipes in The Vegan Week.

Whether or not you will have three, two, and even only one hour of time to spare, The Vegan Week will present you easy methods to batch cook dinner various, colourful, and comforting dishes over the weekend.

Meal prep & storage

Like many sorts of soup or stew, the cabbage stew solely turns into extra flavorful with time. I prefer it finest on the third or fourth day after making ready it.

The soup could be saved in an hermetic container within the fridge for as much as six days, and you’ll freeze it for as much as eight weeks. It’s a superb, one-pot meal in your weekly vegan meal prep routine.

Make it right this moment, or quickly, and luxuriate in rustic, tasty, and nutritious bowls all week lengthy.