Tags
cabbage, hoisin, nutritarian, plant-strong, robin robertson, seitan, vegan on the cheap, wei-chuan
If you are looking for a delicious plant-strong dish full of flavor, this should be your next dinner. You may or may not like cabbage, but truth be told, that really doesn’t matter with this recipe. It’s so amazing that non-cabbage lovers will surely enjoy it. My whole family loved it, asked for seconds…and THIRDS. I wouldn’t call us the biggest cabbage fans, but once you find the right recipe, you’ll be keeping it on your food shopping list. (Lucky for us, cabbage has just started arriving in our CSA box and is usually plentiful throughout the season.)
Full of cancer-fighting properties, cabbage is a member of the cruciferous family of vegetables. It’s full of vitamin K and vitamin C – and so many more nutrients, plus it naturally keeps things moving in the right direction (you know what I’m talking about). And, since we follow a nutritarian style of eating (we eat foods with a high micronutrient value), cabbage is high on my list to keep in the rotation.
This particular recipe is called Mu Shu Burritos (here is the link to the recipe, but it originally appeared in Robin Robertson’s Vegan on the Cheap cookbook).
It made a lot, so the first time I served it as burritos with a whole grain flax and oats tortilla from Trader Joe’s.
But the next day I served it over brown rice (see picture above). While both times it was great, we all preferred it over rice since it was easier to manage.
I used a beautiful red cabbage, as you can see, and the wheat protein, seitan, as the recipe called for. The seitan incorporated well into the cabbage dish and was barely noticeable, but it did give it some extra substance. If you don’t prefer seitan, use your protein of choice.
I also made a peanut-hoisin sauce that is out of this world to drizzle on the cabbage. It’s simple: just combine one part peanut butter with one part hoisin sauce, then add water to thin as desired. Just a word of caution on the hoisin sauce. Many brands contain artificial colors. I use the wei-chuan brand, which has no artificial colors. While Whole Foods sells it, you can find it at your local Asian grocer for much less. If you would rather make your own hoisin sauce (which I may do next time so I can control the ingredients), here is a recipe that looks pretty straightforward.
Another delicious way to use cabbage is to make “cabbage chips”. I wrote about those here.
I have juiced cabbage and used it in my smoothies, but my tummy prefers it cooked.
What is your favorite way to prepare cabbage?