Instant Pot Cabbage Recipes
We love Instant Pot cabbage recipes! If you love dishes like buttered cabbage and obsessed with your high pressure cooker or Ninja Foodi, we have a week worth of easy good side dishes here! Try our most popular Instant Pot fried cabbage and move on to others, let us know which is your favorite.
Looking for a few Instant Pot cabbage recipes? It's one of our favorite vegetables now, and so versatile! Find more recipes ideas on our Instant Pot recipes post and let us know which one is your fave.
Serve it for dinner or a side dish, hearty with sausage or vegetarian without meat. Any way you serve it it's so good. You can make all of these as easy Ninja Foodi recipes as well. Both brands work the same.
Let's start with info. on how to cut a cabbagethen you can choose which recipe you want to make and go from there. Keep in mind that it cooks fast to soften and will shrink quite a bit. We wouldn't recommend anything much smaller than 2×2″ squares or they will get too mushy.
Recipes with Cabbage in Instant Pot
Let's start with an original of ours. We call it Instant Pot Mountain Dew stew and it's always a hit. That one uses sliced kielbasa sausage. If you'd rather use ground beef and/or chicken, try our old fashioned cabbage soup here.
Rather have it cold as a side dish? Make dinner in your IP and serve it with red cabbage cole slaw. PLUS we will share how to make Instant Pot buttered cabbage below. You will be amazed how creative you can get with this (sort of) neglected vegetable.
One of our favorite chopped cabbage dinners is our pressure cooker stuffed cabbage soup We also have one that is a bit thicker and heartier. You can make vegetarian or we love to use half a lb. of spicy sausage and half ground beef too.
Cabbage Casserole Recipes
Usually 5 minutes is it! We call this one above our Instant Pot stuffed cabbage casserole! It's super easy with a quick cooking time. Everyone including our youngest daughter loved this recipe. You can make unstuffed cabbage casserole in the oven too. You will need:
Of course you can add heat to any of these dishes with dry Sriracha or red pepper flakes too. Go light at first, taste and if you think it's not enough you can add a bit more next time.
Ninja Foodi Cabbage Recipes
You can use any brand you have. We do have a few Ninja Foodi cabbage recipes specifically too though. Typically you will use the lid that is not attached to steam with high pressure to make tender quickly. If you like the edges crisp you would switch to the lid that is attached!
Cabbage and Sausage
Try our Instant Pot sausage and cabbage recipe! This one is a pretty hearty meal using ready made kielbasa or links of your choice. Sliced into bite size pieces it's an easy one pot meal you can throw in all together. You will need:
How Long to Pressure Cook Cabbage
That depends on what other ingredients you have in the pot. If it is diced pieces you wouldn't want much longer than 2 minutes or so to wilt and soften. In a soup or casserole though you may have to increase to 3 or 4.
If you want a vegetarian version try our pressure cooker cabbage and noodles recipe and omit the bacon. A bit lazy? This is how to cook a whole cabbage in less than 10 minutes, slice and drizzle with butter for a killer side.
How to Cook Instant Pot Cabbage with Bacon
Then we'll move on to a classic dish. The best fried cabbage you'll ever make. YES, this simple cabbage recipe base is from our grandma and we adjusted it to make it in our “quick pot”. We have made this what we call stewed cabbage in a dutch oven on the stovetop too which takes longer but is as killer. One is more buttered where this one has light olive oil with seasonings.
It is so good we have even transitioned into our other favorite pot, with fried cabbage in air fryer.
Healthy Recipes
Now if you want to make Instant Pot cabbage with simple seasonings we have a recipe for that too! Sometimes you don't want to go through the mess of making Instant Pot stuffed cabbage and want a simple side dish.
With a quick release it's a perfectly easy recipe that's super healthy. You can make Ninja Foodi cabbage all in one (pressure cook to soften + crisp in the same pot) if you have one of these machines
Cabbage Wedges
NOW we're going to share how to make a batch of our good Instant Pot buttered cabbage! The full printable recipe is below but we like to explain how to make recipes in a pressure cooker step by step in case you're new to this.
This one is SO easy and only requires 3 main ingredients. We add a bit of garlic salt at the end but seasoning with salt and pepper etc… is up to you. Everyone likes theirs with more of less of this or that so we like it add that at the end. Here are the ingredients you will need:
Buttered Cabbage
Now this is so easy you can prep everything and start your pot in under 5 minutes. If you are used to making pressure cooker cabbage on your stovetop this isn't much different except that you use a lot less liquid which means it comes out with a lot more flavor.
You could even add a few tbsp. of real bacon bits in to the mix when it's being cooked to add salt and BACON flavors!
How to Steam Cabbage in Instant Pot
This will come out similar to boiled cabbage. Pour your broth into the inner pot of your pressure cooker with your stick of butter. Throw your cubed cabbage leaves in on top of that. We like to kinda' separate the leaves a bit when we add them.
- Discarding pieces that are hard, near the end you cut off is a good idea too. They don't have much flavor and aren't our favorite personally. Add bacon bits add those to the top if you want.
- Close your lid and steam valve. Set to high pressure for 4 minutes with a 2 minute natural release. Then do a quick release when done to release rest of pressure.
- For a bit firmer leaves set to 2 minutes initially with a 2 minute natural release
Gently stir once top is off, season to your liking and serve immediately for best results! Add 1/4 tsp garlic salt or more to taste.
If you wanted larger chunks you could cut the hard end off and then quarter your head of cabbage as well. We don't think this turns out quite as well because it won't soak up the butter the way this does cut into smaller pieces.
Do you need to wash cabbage before cooking?
Even though the inside of cabbage is usually clean since the outer leaves protect it. You still may want to clean it with a quick gentle trip under the faucet. To preserve its vitamin C content you should only cut and rinse cabbage right before cooking or eating it, not beforehand.
Generally when we buy it from the produce section of our local grocery store there is a plastic wrapping over it, unlike lettuce. This will keep it a bit cleaner but as with any vegetable it may have a bit of dirt and/or debris on the outside. We like to discard the 2 top leaves covering the outside because those are generally what has the dirt on it.
This is what it looks like when it's done!! Tender leaves that have soaked up all the flavors of the broth and butter below. Taste it first and see if you want to add salt and pepper. A pinch of garlic salt or Old Bay is our favorite but you don't need a lot so use a light hand if you do.
How long do you cook cabbage for? In a pressure cooker, not long. Less than 5 minutes usually does it. As you can see a whole cabbage cut into 4ths only takes 3 minutes to become tender. In the oven is closer to 12 minutes.
What goes well with cabbage?
Honestly you could easily add diced up precooked sausage into this buttered cabbage recipe below and it would add protein and a heartiness to the meal. Obviously Instant Pot corned beef and cabbage for St. Patricks's Day.That cut of meat is full of flavor so you don't even need to add seasonings to it other than the spice packet included in the meat bag. SO good this should be cooked year round, not during the Irish holiday.
We suspect you already have a few favorites, and now you have more since we've shared 8 Instant Pot cabbage recipe here. Slaws and salads are traditionally made with it but you can think outside of the box with it! You can eat it raw or cooked which opens up an array of possibilities.
Basically, if you want to add a bit of crunch to any meal, and have a vegetable included, cabbage is a great choice. It is inexpensive and after a few times serving it to our kids they now love anything we make with it.
How to Make Cabbage Taste Good
Many are amongst our favorite Instant Pot side dishes but here are a few other ideas including a few Crockpot cabbage recipes you can try too. Other ideas you can try with this same veggie would be to make
- Sesame cole slaw
- Stuff cabbage rolls with burrito ingredients instead of using tortillas
- Apple slaw with honey lime dressing
- Pork and cabbage baked together
- Unstuffed cabbage casserole is one we shared above but you could make that on your stovetop too
- Pasta and potatoes with cabbage leaves cubed like we did here.
We encourage you to do the same, you may be surprised if you add some great seasonings your children might aquire a taste for it too.
