My Mama's Cabbage Rolls Veganized!

One of my families’ favourite things to eat growing up was my mom’s cabbage rolls. On our birthdays we would get to pick what meal we would like her to make and I always picked cabbage rolls. I would even get upset if there weren’t any at Christmas or Easter, that’s how good they are. My mother learned from my amazing Grandma Violet (she is Swedish) who is also a great cook, so no wonder they tasted great. I find that your grandparents/parents heritage determined what type of cabbage rolls you grew up with, ours were covered in tomato juice and had a hamburger and rice filling. When I would try other families cabbage rolls often they would taste weird and sometimes even gross. It was hard to measure up to my moms!!

So with the holiday coming up and with a lot of traveling ahead of us I started to think about what my sisters and I were going to eat. We come from a family of farmers so we were certain that the food was not going to be vegan friendly. But no problem there because we are used to taking our own food to parties anyways! I had already decided to take my Quinoa stuffing but I didn’t think that it would be enough because we are really big eaters. That’s when cabbage rolls popped into my head. I haven’t had them in over a year and I really missed them. I wasn’t going to ask my mom to make them, so I ventured into the long process myself hoping and praying that they tasted at least half as good as my moms.

I had bumped into my friend Karen at the grocery store the day I was picking up my groceries and she told me that Whitney from Grounded Nutrition had an amazing vegan recipe and I should look it up. I knew my sister had been talking with her this past year so I asked her if she had the recipe and luckily she did!

I had already formed a plan of attack in my head and when I looked at Whitney’s recipe it was similar to what I was going to do except for one big difference. She layered sweet potatoes in hers! WOW that was a game changer! I was really excited to add those to my recipe because I knew that they would really add some great flavour to the mix!

I couldn’t wait for my sisters and mom to try them, I was really hoping they enjoyed them as much as I did (I got to try them the day before and nearly ate the entire roaster!) Good thing I didn’t because they were all really impressed with my efforts, and they even said that they tasted like my moms! WOO HOO!



Photography by Ashley Clark

After we got home from Christmas all I could think about was how delicious they were so…… I made 3 more batches! I went to Superstore on Boxing Day and got a whole bunch of groceries and 3 tin foil disposable pans and got to work!

The good thing about making 3 batches all at once is that there is only one mess and it doesn’t take that much time (probably 2 hours of work, but I took my time) The weird thing is I forgot at least one ingredient per batch! The first one, had no parsley or oregano, the second one had no parsley, and the third had no garlic. So they are all going to taste slightly different but I am not worried about it!

Vegan Cabbage Rolls – 1 Large Roaster Full

1 large head of cabbage

1.36 liter can of tomato juice,

1 cup of quinoa, uncooked

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 cups of mushrooms, diced finely

2 cups of celery, diced finely

4 green onions, diced finely

3 carrots, diced finely

2 large sweet potatoes, sliced thin

1 clove of garlic, minced

½ cup of fresh parsley, chopped up finely

4 sprigs of fresh oregano, de-stemmed chopped up finely

Cook your quinoa in 2 cups of water in a medium sauce pan for 20 minutes, and chop up your veggies, garlic and herbs. For the cabbage, remove as much of the stem as possible so you are able to peel the leaves off easily. Place cabbage in large sauce pan and fill it half with water, and set to boil. Check the pot every 5-7 min, removing any leaves that are soft and that peel away from the head easily. BUT BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THEY ARE HOT!  I dunk the hot hot leaves in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process because I don’t want them to get too soft and mushy. While you are waiting for all of the leaves to fall off I throw the cooked ones in a strainer to drain the excess water. And I then cook the veggies, garlic and herbs and oil in large frying pan until the veggies are almost fully cooked. Stir in quinoa and set aside.

Once all the leaves are cooked, cut off the hard stem at the bottom in the shape of a V. Next take the sliced sweet potatoes and cover the bottom of the roaster, then fill each leaf with a spoonful of filling and roll like a burrito. Place the cabbage rolls on top of the sweet potatoes until the roaster is full. Layer another layer of sweet potatoes and if you have any cabbage left layer that on the very top. Pour the entire can of tomato juice into the roaster and you are done! Cook at 350 degrees for 2.5 hours and serve!



Photograpghy by Ashley Clark

Thanks for reading!

xoxo - N