Cabbage Casserole Recipe Oven or Slow Cooker
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This slow cooker cabbage casserole is one of the easiest recipes you could ever make. Four or five ingredients, and you can leave one or two of them out if you want. Totally up to you.
Todays recipe can be made in the Crock Pot as shown or in the oven. By using spaghetti sauce in place of tomatoes and tomato sauce, you save a little money and also cut out the need for additional seasonings, but you can add those in as well if you like.
This recipe is versatile and dependable and you can easily make it in the oven as well.
Ingredients To Cabbage Casserole For Crockpot or Oven You’ll Need:
- Cooked Ground Beef*
- Onion
- Cabbage (well it is Cabbage casserole after all) 🙂
- Spaghetti Sauce
- Water or Beef Broth
Use whatever spaghetti sauce you grab first.
Should I Use Fresh or Dehydrated Ground Beef?
You can use fresh ground beef that you’ve cooked or even dehydrated ground beef if you have that (here is my video on how to do it). If you use fresh, cook it first. If you use freeze dried, just add some water to it and let it sit for 3-5 minutes before using. If you are using dehydrated, cover it with hot water and let it sit for ten minutes (or so).
Taste Testing Your Casserole’s Sauce Is Always a Good Thing
How well seasoned your casserole is going to be depends on how well seasoned your sauce is. Once it is done cooking you can have a taste and then add more herbs or spices if you like. Or add them at the start if you prefer.
How To Make Cabbage Casserole
Mama called while I was doing this and said “Now if your chopping onions, make them real small, not like you normally do…”
I like big slices of onion in my dishes because I like onion, so I slice mine big. Mama likes the taste of onion but not the experience of biting into a whole hunk of it, so she chops hers really tiny. Mama, I tried. This is as small as I can get and I made it that small just because of you.
I had initially pictured large slices but at __ years of age, I still mind my Mama.
Chop up cabbage
Making in Oven?
Now right here you can saute the onions in a tablespoon of butter and boil the cabbage til its tender if you like or you can just add the beef broth or water to the pan. If you add the liquid later it just takes a little more time to cook to get the cabbage tender, that’s all. Then layer in as described below. See the recipe card below for Oven temperature and time.
But in the Crockpot…
Put a layer of chopped cabbage and chopped onion in the bottom of your slow cooker.
Top with ground beef.
Add 1/2 of the spaghetti sauce.
Repeat that with one more layer.
Gently pour 1 cup water around the edges. You could also add beef broth here if you like.
Cover.
In Slow Cooker Cook on low, 7-8 hours or high 3-4.
In Oven:
if you boiled the cabbage ahead of time you can cook at 350 for 30 mins. But if you like the extra flavor like I do then I add the beef broth in right before cooking. Which means I cook it for about 1 hour, stirring halfway through. Some times I add rice in there too. That adds another can of beef broth (14 oz) and taste about a half hour longer to get the rice fluffy. But you can also cook the rice separate and serve the casserole on top of the rice. You do you!
Stir well before serving.
Now you can eat this on it’s own or serve it over rice or while riding a donkey backwards and playing a banjo. Totally up to you.
Ingredients
- 1/2 head cabbage chopped
- 1 lb ground beef cooked and drained
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 jar spaghetti sauce of your choice
- 1 cup water or 1 can of beef broth
- Additional seasonings: salt pepper, herbs, garlic powder, etc to taste (I didn't add any additional)
Instructions
- In 4-6 quart slow cooker, place 1/2 of cabbage. Top with 1/2 of onions, 1/2 of beef, and 1/2 of spaghetti sauce. Repeat once more. Pour water around the sides into the slow cooker (To keep from disturbing the spaghetti sauce)
- Cover and place on low 7-8 hours or high, 3-4 hours.
- Serve on it's own or over rice.
NOTE: How well seasoned your casserole is going to be depends on how well seasoned your sauce is. Once it is done cooking you can have a taste and then add more herbs or spices if you like. Or add them at the start if you prefer.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
You may also enjoy these casserole recipes:
Green Bean Casserole Rich, Creamy With The Perfect Crunch
Cornbread Casserole Recipe Simple and Savory
Ham Egg and Cheese Casserole (Insta Pot or Oven!)
Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole Cheesy Copycat
“Keep your face always toward sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”
~Walt Whitman
Submitted by Valerie Manuel. Click here to submit your own.
I had 1/2 of a head of cabbage in my refrigerator and didn’t want to make slaw again. I went straight to your blog, typed in cabbage and this is the first recipe that came up. I wasn’t sure about the unusual ingredients but I completely trusted you. Absolutely delicious. You saved me once again. Thank you, Christy!
🙂 I am so glad you tried it!!! And thrilled that you liked it!!!
To get the consistency that is shown in the picture ~ what size jar of spaghetti sauce?
Could you somehow cook the rice with the rest of the ingredients in the crock pot? What would you recommend? Thanks very much!
You could but you risk having dry patches unless you are there to stir it. What you would need to do is stir your rice up with the amount of water needed for the rice and then pour it in the slow cooker and stir it a time or two during the cooking process. I often do things like this when I’m making such recipes for us but I just don’t offer the recipe up that way because someone is just going to pour dry rice in there, not stir it, and then get upset with me that it didn’t turn out perfectly ;). You know how the internet is!
Thank you for your quick reply! I’m trying this tomorrow!
I make a casserole just like this only add rice and saurkruat, but never have I done it in a crockpot. I will now, we call it deconstructed cabbage rolls. I can now make this when its hot. No more in the oven.
I hope you enjoy it Judy!!!
Looks like Barbie is on the zip line scoping out the room looking for Trent…Did she find him?
This story about Trent made me laugh out loud. So, so funny! I have half a head of cabbage in the fridge right now so will be making this soon.
🙂 I hope you enjoy it!!
I was given ur site address by a friend that said I could find the southern pulled pork recipe I have been searching for, for a long time. Everyone in pa uses a tomato base bq. 20 some yrs ago my husband took me on one of his trucking trips to north Carolina. I had a pulled pork there, that I have never found again. So I copied ur recipe and will be trying later this week. While on ur blog I found this wonderful crock pot recipe for the cabbage casserole. I have many in my family and a crock pot just isn’t big enough to feed us all unless I get out the big electric roaster and for something like this its too big. Any hoo I thought I’d try this in large roaster pan in the oven. I started with the cabbage then cooked ground beef and onions but then I sprinkled a little instant rice, just lightly on the layer of beef then I put a large can of sauerkraut and a can of stewed tomatoes cut small and last but not least a jar of spaghetti sauce. I was able to do another full layer of all and then added water around the edge as you said and baked for 2 hours at 325. We had to go away those 2 hours, so when we got home it was cooked perfectly. I whipped up some mashed potatoes and served the cabbage casserole on top of the mashed potatoes. I have to say it was AWESOME!!! The kids and hubby loved and I myself ate too much. I added the sauerkraut because my mom always did when making stuffed cabbage or pigs in the blanket as some call it. This was so easy and so little work, unlike making cabbage rolls. I hope you get the chance to try this version. You have some wonderful recipes and I love the commentary that goes with them. This was a total hit and will be making again in the future because it was so good and so little work. I will be back getting more of your great recipes and can’t wait to see how the pulled pork turns out. My Friend said it’s fantastic.
Hi Diane, welcome to Southern Plate!!! I am so glad you came by and tell your friend I said thank you for sending you my way. Thank you for sharing your tips with us, I know someone else if going to find them really helpful as well!! Can’t wait to hear what you think of the pulled pork.