Simmer Cabbage With This Canned Soup For 10x The Flavor And Way Less Effort

There are all kinds of ways to cook cabbage to various forms of perfection. Simply roasting enhances its natural sugars to crisp, caramelized effect. Melting cabbage is the fast track to the tenderness that the technique's name implies. Meanwhile, simmering cabbage creates a similarly silken finish while also letting you imbue the leafy greens with all manner of flavors. Canned French onion soup, for example, concentrates the onions into a near-sweet liquid form that's an excellent match for what can sometimes be a bitter botanical.

This ingredient pairing is somewhat like the decadent, cheese-cloaked French onion cabbage steaks that sometimes circulate social media, but it's much simpler and more flexible. You can create it with little more than a dense head of the veg and a can of the often beef stock-based broth, plus a couple upgrades here and there as you might wish.

Prep and chop a cabbage into bite-sized bits, break out a big saute pan, heat it with oil over medium, and toss your veggies in to get well on your way to this satisfying side. Then, let the cabbage collect just a touch of color for a few minutes before tipping in about 1 cup of canned French onion soup. Said soup should be plenty salty, but you may want to add a few turns of black pepper, garlic, or your preferred herbs to taste. Finally, bring it all to a boil before reducing to a simmer, covering, and stirring occasionally. You never want the cabbage too soft, so start checking for your desired texture after about 10 minutes, allowing for a few more minutes as needed. 

You should have a rich, comforting dish that still retains the essence of its original freshness near the end of that 10-minute test mark, but you can also make it a little more luxe. To approximate the lush, carb- and dairy-laden French onion soup folks are familiar with, sprinkle a handful of shredded Gruyère, or a novel French onion soup Comté swap, across the top and cover it once more. It should melt marvelously in the time it all would have taken to finish anyway. A crown of garlic breadcrumbs after plating further ties it all together with near-zero extra effort. Serve warm in either case.