Suggestions for recipes for vegetarian cabbage rolls.

[japple]

I'm trying to use much less meat this year and would love to have a good recipe for vegetarian cabbage rolls. I googled but didn't get many recipes that sounded very good.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. Could you use finely chopped mushrooms in place of the meat?

I vaguely remember seeing someone doing that in a stuffing on tv a couple weeks back.

[japple]

2. That sounds good. Thanks. I'll look for a recipe.

n/t

[Retrograde]

4. That's what I do

I stuff mine with a mixture of cooked rice, minced cooked mushrooms, onions, and a little tomato sauce, wrap them (Savoy cabbage is easiest to work with, I think, and has a nice flavor), cover with a tomato sauce, and bake. They're vegan, now that I think about it.

[The empressof all]

3. Are you open to using TVP?

The Textured Veg Protein is actually quite tasty in dishes like stuffed cabbage or peppers. Soak the TVP in a flavorful broth or even Beef stock if you aren't 100 % vegetarian. I agree the chopped mushrooms and sauteed onions as well as a flavorful rice would be a nice filling

Another option is to use lentils mixed with a bit of bread crumbs, egg (or substitute), onion, celery, mushrooms and garlic.

I like a more condensed filling in my cabbage rolls so I would add a binder like egg to the filling..

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I hadn't thought about lentils, but they would compliment the taste

of the cabbage and add protein, to boot.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Bulgur or brown rice are better than white rice (more flavor)

and ramp up the seasonings --I use a lot of minced fresh parsley but dried parsley would help too as would other herbs like dried basil, tarragon,thyme. A little soy sauce is also a great flavor enhancer -- a teaspoon or so would do it. If you have the budget for them, rehydrated, minced porcini mushrooms are really good too in small quantities.

I also recommend using savoy cabbage if you can find it --much easier to work with and the texture is better for cabbage rolls.

[laundry_queen]

7. Pretty much all our cabbage rolls are vegetarian

Traditional Ukrainian cabbage rolls have very little to no meat at all, especially for the Christmas feast we must have vegetarian ones. We do have some with meat for flavoring for non-Christmas times (usually tiny bits of bacon) but a lot of times we use just rice. What my Baba does is fry the rice in butter (or bacon fat for the non-vegetarian type) with onions and garlic. Sometimes she uses sour cabbage instead of fresh cabbage, which gives it a nice tang. I don't have a personal recipe (I used to just wing it, but now there's a local place that makes them perfectly so I never make them anymore) but I found a recipe in a cookbook (Ukrainian/Russian dishes) and it's basically the same: cook rice, sauté onion, add rice to onion, add salt and pepper, sauté for a bit, then let cool. boil cabbage in water (w/1 tbsp. vinegar, you won't need to boil if you buy a head of sour cabbage in a package) until leaves become limp. Then remove leaves, add rice, roll up. I always place my rolls in a casserole dish lined with onions and topped with onions and butter. very simple flavorings but it ends up being really tasty. Bake for 1.5-2 hours.

Sometimes we top it with a sweet dill cream sauce (basic white sauce with dill) but that's not necessary with the sour cabbage.

Another important thing: We made the cabbage rolls really small. My other grandmother, who was German, made these huge rolls stuffed with tons of meat and rice, but Ukrainian rolls are tiny...about an inch in diameter. More cabbage flavor, especially with the sour stuff.

Anyway, I know plain rice cabbage rolls aren't for everyone, but I thought I'd post this anyway