As the snow started dumping down on us yesterday morning, I scanned the kitchen for ingredients, knowing I wanted to finally settle in and cook something from the just-released Not Your Mother's Casseroles, written by my friend and colleague Faith Durand. By way of some miracle, I had the goods for several recipes (no need for crazy ingredients — or condensed soup! — to cook out of this volume) so I chose a spicy, Asian-influenced stuffed cabbage concoction.
It was the perfect antidote to a wet and sloppy snow day. I got to use my casserole dish to make something warm and comforting, without having to feel like a character out of Mad Men.
Just about every recipe in this book is highly adaptable depending on what you have in your kitchen. I adapted a few bits for the Asian Cabbage Rolls, but nothing serious. I made half the recipe with ground turkey and the other half with pork. Both were great, so I would suggest using whatever ground meat you happen to have, if this is a snow-day project for you, too.
I also wrapped some of the rolls with radicchio; since the purple leaves are more round than napa cabbage, they are generally easier to wrap and they also maintain a prettier color than the rather expired hue of cooked green cabbage. The trade-off is radicchio leaves are more of a pain to separate from each other.
These cabbage rolls take more than a cue from the spicy gingered pork inside Chinese dumplings. They’re stuffed with the fresh flavors of cilantro, soy sauce, sesame, and scallion.

Adapted from Not Your Mother's Casseroles
serves 4
CASSEROLE DISH: 9 × 13-inch baking dish
BAKE TIME: 35 minutes
1 large head napa cabbage
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound ground pork or turkey
1/2 cup cooked white rice
1/4 pound shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, grated or 2 teaspoons garlic paste
Freshly ground black pepper
3 scallions, chopped
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
FOR THE SAUCE:
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon sriracha or other hot chili sauce, to taste (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Remove 12 large outer leaves from the heads of cabbage. Roll each leaf with a rolling pin gently to flatten and smooth it. Core the remaining cabbage and chop it very fine. Sprinkle it with the salt and set aside in a colander.
In a large bowl, mix the pork, rice, mushrooms, beaten eggs, sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a generous amount of black pepper. Stir in the scallions
and cilantro. Press and drain any remaining water off the salted cabbage and stir the cabbage in as well.
Lay a prepared cabbage leaf down with the stem end facing you. Place about 2⁄3 cup meat mixture into the stem end of the cabbage leaf. Fold in the sides and roll up the leaf, then place the bundle, seam side down, in one of the baking dishes. Re- peat with the rest of the cabbage leaves and meat mixture, placing 2 rows of 6 rolls in each dish. (If you have any leftover mixture it can be rolled into meatballs and tucked between the cabbage rolls to bake with them.)
To make the sauce, whisk together all the ingredients in a small bowl and pour it over the cabbage rolls, dividing it between the 2 baking dishes. (At this point the rolls can be covered and refrigerated for up to 24 hours. You can also freeze one dish for later use. Before adding the sauce, place the dish in the freezer and let the rolls freeze completely, then remove from the dish and stack in a freezer bag or con- tainer. To bake, thaw the rolls in the refrigerator overnight, place in a baking dish, pour the sauce over them, and bake as directed below.)
Bake for 35 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into a roll at the center of a dish registers 160° F. Serve drizzled with the pan juices.
psssst! We're giving away copies of Not Your Mother's Casseroles. Enter today through February 3rd. Here's all the giveaway info.
• At Amazon: Not Your Mother's Casseroles by Faith Durand
(Images: Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
Peeler by Normann C...

Comments (20)
Love the recipe and can't wait to try it!
Hope your weather improves soon...:)
Sounds delicious...this is my second attempt to post comment...seems to be having a problem....
This sounds great! Do you have a suggestion for an egg substitute for those of us who can't eat them?
Thanks!
@gf_in_bk I added the egg here to help the meat mixture clump together better. It's not necessary; most Asian dumpling filling recipes that I've used at other times don't call for it. So you can leave it out; the filling will be a bit drier, and it will fall apart into smaller bits as you cut open each roll.
If you want to substitute something else, then I really like the flax seed substitution. (Although I haven't used it in this particular recipe.) Here are instructions for substituting ground flax seed mixed with water for an egg:
- Egg Substitutes in Baking? Try Flax Seed!
Thanks so much! Can't wait to try this out.
This looks great! Would it be possible to do a veg version with tofu? Any suggestions on making that come out well?
Thank you to Faith for giving us a sneak peek of her recipe.
Hello!
I've been following The Kitchen and AT and Renest for quite a long time. I live in Spain, I am Spanish, so the internet and my little knowledge of English do the magic. We, the readers not in the USA, are never taken into a lot of consideration, and many times any at all. I can understand, quite, when is about objects, big ones, but... for a book? In the contac information form any other way of writing an addres that doen'st macht the american, well... gives error, it doesnt submit. OH, do not worry, darling Martha Stewart does the same thing even for the amail subscription.
It is nice to see your travels to Europe (by the way: when Spain?). Last Xmas I prepared your toffe (butter, sugar, nuts and chocolate, so delliciuos as the cookeys), so.., You see? Your work and your dedication to cooking is part of my life here in Spain. We share the same love for cooking and making things nicer and better. I moved recently, and I have been looking in the AT for ideas for my new home.
May be it would be nice to be able to aply for something like a book. Are we the readers from other countries not taken into account? So, make your site only available for the USA in the internet. Contradiction? Well... Apparently internet is local for many companies in the USA.
Thank you.
Jimena
Looks great; going to try it this weekend for a nice meal when my husband returns from a trip on Monday night. I love that it included information about making it the day ahead and freezing them. Any reason why I shouldn't substitute brown rice for the white?
Kthy,
Brown rice would be lovely.
Jimena,
I believe what you are asking is why you are not eligible to win our giveaways. Tax and sweepstakes laws prevent The Kitchn and all Apartment Therapy sites from offering prizes internationally.
So sorry!
cheers,
Sara Kate
I have a dish prepared and ready to put in the oven tonight. However, I got confused when the recipe started to refer to 2 baking dishes, placing 2 rows of 6 in each dish, etc. Am I overlooking something where is suggested to double the recipe or that this should have been enough for 24 rolls? It only mentions 12 main leaves to wrap. Also, should it be baked uncovered?
made this tonight for dinner and it was amazing!!! as suggested, i used the remainder of the mixture and made meatballs, i served them with the leftover broth and added some rice noodles..my 3 year old loved it!!!
Angiemorgan, I had the same thought. My filling mixture only made enough for 9 rolls (I used a small green cabbage). I was able to fit 2 rows of 4 rolls into a square Pyrex dish, with a couple little meatballs on top.
Nice recipe. It was similar to my gyoza/pot sticker without the dumpling wrapper.
mmm, so yummy. made these last night and i ended up just throwing in all of the pork I had (about 1.25 lbs) and had enough stuffing for 5 extra meatballs that I also cooked. we will be putting in some asian soups this week as well - fantastic!
Made a vegan version of this with lentils instead of the pork (http://batterlicker.com/2011/03/asian-cabbage-rolls-with-spicy-lentils/) - so delicious! Would work well with the lentil/veggie stuffing heated up and served either in raw cabbage or lettuce cups too for an easy lunch-time or too-hot-to-turn-the-oven-on option.
Substitute grated cauliflower for the rice and this is a sweet Paleo recipe.
@Katy did, I made this recipe with ground seitan instead of pork for a veggie meal, and then obviously just substituted the chicken stock for veggie stock. It was great and still maintained a 'meaty' texture.
Very nice. Waiting for new recipes. i am also interested to innovate some new dishes you pay take a look at Pakistani Recipes and comment
Pleasantly surprised at how flavorful this was! I'm always trying to make meals less starchy since I can't seem to live without a side of bread, so like txdave13, I subbed in cauliflower for the rice. Worked well and would definitely make that way again, though I imagine it's better with the rice. I also used a flax "egg" for the real egg. I had no problems with the mix binding together despite these two changes.
I didn't plan to eat it all in one sitting, so I didn't roll all the mix. Instead, I put the leftover into a muffin pan to make mini meatloaves, of a sort. Worked very well and I'd definitely do that again, especially if serving children.