So my mom recently celebrated her birthday and a few days prior I came up with a few menu options for her birthday dinner one of them being braised cabbage with bacon. As soon as she heard bacon she was on board. My mother loves and is borderline obsessed with bacon which I can’t blame her for because bacon is truly awesome. Now how did this concoction - braised cabbage with bacon come about? Simple, a while back I attempted to make a shrimp egg roll with cabbage and it didn't turn out great which is why I said attempted, but from that disaster came this beautiful recipe. The egg roll was honestly awful - I used the wrong type of egg roll wrapper, my fault - but the filling was perfection so that’s what we’ll focus on.
To braise something is to “fry (food) lightly and then stew it slowly in a closed container” and that’s kinda sorta what we’ll be doing minus the stewing and the closed container part. After cooking the bacon, the cabbage is lightly fried in the same pan for a few minutes until lightly browned then chopped garlic, thyme, red pepper flakes (optional), salt, and pepper are added to give the cabbage extra flavor. The crispy bacon is added back in at the end and as with almost any recipe, you can make modifications like using shrimp or chorizo instead of bacon.
Another great thing is that this is all done in one pan with very little prep which means you can get to eating this delicious dish a lot faster. So with that said I hope you have fun and enjoy!
Servings: about 4 cups or 950ml
Ingredients
½ head Cabbage
3 cloves Garlic
2 stalks Thyme
3 slices Bacon
1tsp Salt
1tsp Pepper
1tsp Red Pepper Flakes (Optional)
Steps
1. Thinly slice cabbage and remove the core. Wash cabbage under cold water, and pat dry to remove any excess water. Finely chop garlic and thyme leaves.
2. Heat pan over high heat. Add bacon and cook to your desired preference.
3. Transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to cool and once cool separate into bite-sized pieces using clean hands or kitchen shears. Set aside till Step 6.
4. Add cabbage to the same pan used to cook the bacon. Cook for 5 minutes or until the cabbage begins to wilt and is lightly browned. Once browned and slightly wilted reduce heat from high to medium.
5. Add garlic, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper to the cabbage. Stir to combine and continue cooking for another 5-10 minutes stirring as needed.
6. After 10 minutes add the bacon from Step 3 and stir again to evenly combine.
Serve warm. Enjoy.
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