Any seafood dish goes well with this sauce. great for shrimp po’ boys. Serve on a toasted hoagie bread with fried shrimp, lettuce, and tomato.
| Prep Time: | 45 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
Ingredients
- 1 head cabbage, cored
- water to cover
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
- 1 ½ pounds ground pork
- 1 ½ cups cooked white rice
- 2 large eggs, slightly beaten
- ¼ cup finely chopped onion
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- 2 ⅔ tablespoons white sugar
Instructions
- Place cabbage in a stockpot; pour over enough water to cover. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn cabbage every 2 to 3 minutes; transfer any leaves that separate from cabbage into a strainer to drain and cool. Continue to boil until all the leaves have cooked, about 15 minutes. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of cabbage cooking water. Cut out the tough, thick center ribs of any large cabbage leaves with a sharp knife.
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- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Mix ground beef, ground pork, cooked rice, eggs, onion, fresh parsley, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a large bowl until combined. Lay 1 cabbage leaf on a flat surface; place 1 heaping tablespoon of filling at the base of a cabbage leaf. Overlap with the bottom of the leaf; fold in side edges and roll up.
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- Repeat with remaining large cabbage leaves and filling.
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- Cut any leftover cabbage leaves into pieces and place in the bottom of a roasting pan. Layer stuffed cabbage rolls on top.
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- Combine tomato sauce, reserved cabbage water, white vinegar, and white sugar in a bowl; pour mixture over cabbage rolls. Cover roasting pan with aluminum foil.
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- Bake in the preheated oven until filling is cooked through and sauce has thickened, about 2 1/2 hours. Baste stuffed cabbage rolls every hour.
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- I use Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice, which is done in 90 seconds in the microwave, to cut down on prep time. Leftovers freeze well — if you have any!
- To make the 1 1/2 cups cooked rice needed in this recipe; Bring 1/2 cup long grain white rice and 3/4 cup water to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until rice is tender and liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes. Or make a larger batch and use leftovers for fried rice or rice pudding.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 468 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 22 g |
| Cholesterol | 137 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 28 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 715 mg |
| Sugars | 11 g |
| Fat | 30 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Hanging growing up eating polish and Czech and Hungarian food, halupki I love cabbage dishes. Due to terminal I learned how to make a few dishes and THIS is amazing. Generally as a result my hands don’t function well so I didn’t roll them…..I layer it like I would lasagne. Simplifies the process. If there are leftovers I take the halupki I made cabbage soup.
Filling sounds very similar to cabbage rolls Grandpa use to make. He was from the Ukraine. He cooked his on top of the stove though covered with broth And he served them with a white onion sauce and sour cream.
I have found that I get the most flavor out of these when I make them in the crock pot. Either way, the are just scrumptious!
I grew up with a version of this and still make it on occasion. I’ve never known the correct spelling or origin either. We make it with uncooked rice, ground up potatoes and onions and use sauerkraut between the layers and on top, and almost fill the pot with the sauerkraut juice and water and bake it for at least 4 hours. I like potato pancakes with applesauce with it. I have had this version and like it as well, but love our version.
Jillian: Can’t thank you enough for the delicious recipe. I have been buying my Halupki at the local European Market but now I can make them myself. Not quite as good as my Grandmother’s but she cooked on a coal fired stove and had fresh meat from the livestock as well as tomatoes and herbs from the garden. Oh those good old days.
Made these for my husband after making American Stuffed cabbage and he said these tasted just like his Moms/Grandma’s. I’m making again for him to take home to serve his Mom! Thank you! 🙂
Very easy to make! I did have a lot of meat mix left so I made a meatloaf. I’m not sure if I measured wrong or what but any recipe that gets me two dinners out of it is ok in my book.
delicious but i put a bag of sauerkraut over top before baking unrinsed
I use riced cauliflower instead of white rice, less time to cook and more flavor
This is the best! We’ve tried several different recipes, this one is the winner. Everyone loved them and the (red gravy), the sauce is great on mashed potatoes.
My wife of 10 years was raised on Polish foods and for quite some time, had a hard time finding an authentic Halupki recipe. Have made this a couple dozen times since discovering it and she absolutely loves it. Only do a couple minor modifications I’ve found enhance the recipe over time: I use fresh minced garlic rather than garlic powder, and I use 8oz of Campbells tomato soup (uncooked, out of the can) and 24oz tomato sauce. These both add a little more flavor and texture, and make a little extra sauce for the mashed potatoes that pair perfectly with this recipe.
I have made several recipes for cabbage rolls trying to mimic my great grandmother’s recipe, and I keep coming back to this one because it is the closest and best. A couple of very minor changes I make are to grate a half an onion right into the meat mixture. I also use fresh pressed garlic, cayenne pepper and some nutmeg which I mix into the beaten eggs before combining it all. Otherwise I make this exactly as written. My family also enjoyed them with mashed potatoes and we will again tonight!
love love these…thanks for your great recipe. used a large grated carrot, a grated zucchini and fresh garlic. basmati rice was all I had and it worked well. made 18 rolls with 1 head of cabbage and 1 lb ea lean ground beef and pork. Froze some but they won’t last long!
Followed the recipe exactly…though i did forget to line the baking dish with cabbage lol…thanx beer!! Luckily it didnt matter i just used the extra leaves to cover the top of the rolls instead. Still turned out stupendous. I’ll definitely be making this again. Actually i had leftover meat mixture and sauce, so i went and bought another small cabbage and the remainders cooking right now lol. Great recipe Grandma!!
I took the advice of Emmlee..we put the rolls on a bed of imported kraut and I also ground Pork shoulder and seasoned it.. It was yummy
Delicious – love putting cut-up cabbage in the bottom of the pan as it uses all the cabbage and is a wonderful way to eat cabbage.
It is delicious. Used brown rice instead.
This was my first time making cabbage rolls and they turned out great! My husband ate 8 of them! I did make some adjustments to use ingredients I already had on hand and will probably do the same next time. I used white wine vinegar, 2lb. ground beef and 1lb. ground italian sausage, and I used brown sugar instead of white. I also added 2-15oz cans of diced tomatoes to the sauce and seasoned with salt and pepper after it was done cooking. One thing I would change next time is the cook time. I have a convection oven so I reduced the temperature to 325, but 2.5 hours was still a bit too long. Next time I’ll check them at 2 and 2.25 hours. Thanks for sharing your family recipe!
I love this! My grandma always made it, but I never had the recipe. I added 1thing to make it more like hers. She always added Sauerkraut on top before the tomatoes sauce. I did omit the vinegar with this addition. Super delicious! Just like grandma’s!
Wonderful, the whipped potatoes made a perfect meal.
I have this recipe bookmarked and it’s the only one I use anymore! This is by far the closest thing to the ones my great grandmother use to make and my whole family loves them so much I have to double the recipe every time I make it. I am very much a cook to taste home chef and there has never been a recipe I haven’t “improved” to my own taste except this one. It is authentic and perfect just the way it is. We serve them over mashed potatoes and they are the best. I have never tried to freeze them before cooking them and wonder if anyone has and if so, how long to bake them from frozen if you don’t precooked them. Thank you for sharing this recipe. Even my grandmother approves and she always loved her mother’s cabbage rolls the best. (My Nona didn’t write down her recipes and until now no one could duplicate it. Not even my grandmother)