I have been craving a good, hearty, cheesy, pasta dish but didn't feel like doing spaghetti or baked macs. Clearly the best way to satiate this was to make lasagna. However, my husband and I have been doing so well with cutting down on our processed carbs so I had to find a way to tweak things. Enter the cabbage lasagna. Whether you're a cabbage fan or not, this is a dish that will please you and may have you coming back for seconds (or thirds, if you're like me). Off tangent--my just-turned-9-year old son goes, "Yay you're making lasagna! I may finally figure out why Garfield is so obsessed with it." Haha. Kids.
PS I took this opportunity to 'beef' up this recipe with tons of veggies--great way to have kiddos get their veg in. I made two kinds of lasagna the day I made this--cabbage for the adults, and regular noodles for the kiddos. Same meat and veggie filling though.
INGREDIENTS:
1lb ground beef (or your preferred protein; I used Wagyu)
16 oz. cottage cheese (full fat is best, but fat free will still work)
1 medium head of cabbage
1 small onion (your choice between red or white; I used white)
1/3 c bell peppers, chopped (these babies have more vitamin C than an orange!)
1 carrot, diced
half head of broccoli crowns, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can or jar of 24-oz. marinara sauce or spaghetti sauce of choice
1/2 tsp black pepper
12-15 large basil leaves, julienned (thinly-sliced)
18 oz shredded mozzarella
10 oz shredded cheddar cheese (this is optional, but I wanted my lasagna extra cheesy)
1/2 c parmesan cheese
DIRECTIONS:
You may want to do the first few steps simultaneously (it helps me cut down on kitchen time), but if you're not quite confident in being a maestro in your kitchen orchestra just yet and have two or three burners going at the same time, feel free to do each one step by step.
The cabbage
Get a large pot of boiling water up to a boil. Make sure to salt it well because this helps draw out the liquid in the cabbage--which is what we want. This helps ensure we don't end up with a soupy lasagna (I learned this the hard way because I had just a touch more liquid left in the cabbage leaves than I would have preferred). While waiting for the water to boil, core out your cabbage. You can choose to cut the head in half and then core out the middle rib, or cut the core out by slicing a square around the core and then pulling it out. Either way, you don't want the thick, bitter core. After about 5-6 minutes in the boiling water, the cabbage leaves should start softly pulling away from the head. At this point, it'll be good to take a pair of silicone tongs (so you don't rip the leaves or tear them) and help the process along by peeling the leaves apart one by one. You want to make sure all the leaves are boiled to a soft texture.
When they are done cooking, gently rinse the leaves and set them on a tea towel to dry.
The meat filling
In a medium sauce pan, cook your ground beef until it's completely done and no pink is left. Drain out the excess fat and set it aside. You may use the same pan (that's what I do) and take advantage of whatever fat is left on it by cooking your onion, red pepper, carrots, and broccoli until they're cooked through (or until onion is translucent). If you want to skip the veggies and just do onions and red pepper, that's fine too. I promise it won't ruin the recipe.
Add in the garlic, black pepper, the marinara (or pasta sauce), and the cooked beef. Mix together and then add in the cottage cheese and bring the whole thing to a low simmer. When you reach that point, turn the heat down and simmer it longer until the sauce is reduced. I'll be honest--it may take between an hour or two. But hey, anyone attempting lasagna knows (or should know) that it's a labor-intensive, time-consuming endeavour.
Stir the sauce as you reduce it. You want it to be very thick so it holds its shape when you serve the lasagna.
The assembly
Heat your oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl, combine all your cheeses (mozzy, cheddar, parmesan) and basil leaves with the meat sauce and spread 1/3 of the sauce evenly at the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish. After the sauce, sprinkle the cheese mixture evenly, and then layer about 4 or 5 cabbage leaves over the cheese. (If you cut the core well and took out the thick ribs of the leaves, this is the point you'll appreciate that you went and did that--it helps lay the leaves flat).
Sprinkle more cheese over the cabbage and spread out half of the remaining meat sauce evenly over it. Again, sprinkle more cheese over that and assemble another layer of about 4 cabbage leaves. Cover this cabbage layer with more cheese, and use up all the remaining meat sauce evenly over the whole dish. Add the rest of your cabbage leaves over the sauce, then use all the remaining cheese mixture over it.
Cover the baking dish with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. After that, remove the tin foil and switch oven function to 'broil' and broil the lasagna until the cheese is nice and bubbly. Garnish with more fresh basil.
This dish yields 12 servings. Unless you're me and each person gets the equivalent of 2 servings per plate. ;) I plated myself a serving without waiting for it to cool a little bit, so the sauce was all melty and gooey (and honestly that's how I like it, but my husband loves cold lasagna!) instead of a more solid, intact structure.
Enjoy it hot!
Thanks for stopping by The Tiny Kitchen! <3
-H