

By no means glamourous, unrolled cabbage casserole may take a long time to get “dressed” but it makes up for what it lacks in beauty with its taste. Clean up boils down to one pot of water and a saute pan. Plus, you’ll eat off this for days on end.

Ingredients

1 small head green cabbage

salt

For the Meat

3/4 lb ground beef

3/4 lb ground pork

1 teaspoon dried onion flakes

1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic

1 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

salt & pepper

For the Sauce

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

2 tablespoons coconut or table sugar

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

Method

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a simmer. Core and cut the cabbage into very thin slices. Toss the cabbage into the water and let cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Strain the water from the cabbage and toss lightly with a bit of salt.

Meanwhile, brown the beef and pork and add in the spices. Once the meat is done, remove from the heat and set aside.

For the sauce, open the tomatoes and mix the sugar and spices directly into the jar/bottle/can. No need to dirty up a bowl.

For the assembly, get out a high-sided casserole dish.

Place a layer of cooked cabbage on the bottom, then add a layer of meat, then a layer of tomato sauce. Continue layering until everything is used up.

Depending on how deep your casserole dish is, you’ll bake for about 1 to 1½ hours…until the cabbage is completely cooked through, the sides are a bit bubbly and the top tomato layers has turned a tad crusty (in a good way!).

This dish needs to rest for about 30 minutes before digging in, as the liquid that was expelled will reabsorb while resting.