Store your cabbage in the refrigerator loosely wrapped in a plastic bag. If you don’t need to use the whole head at one time, just trim off the portion you need and put the remainder back in the refrigerator. If your cabbage starts to get soft or a little dehydrated, don’t throw it out! It’s still good and is perfectly usable for making soup or any other dish where you’ll be cooking the cabbage.
Green Savoy Cabbage: While many growers choose to grow “kraut cabbage” which is the standard smooth, green cabbage, we choose to grow savoy cabbage. The term savoy refers to the ruffled leaves which we think are beautiful! We also like this type of cabbage because it has more texture when eaten raw or cooked. Cabbage has long been known as a staple vegetable necessary for surviving a long winter in cold climates. It stores well and has a wide variety of uses.
Red Cabbage: We call it red cabbage, but others may refer to it as purple cabbage. This vegetable belongs to the Brassica family, along with broccoli and cauliflower. Red cabbage heads are more dense and the leaves are thicker in comparison to the other cabbage varieties we grow, like green savoy cabbage or the sweetheart salad cabbages.
Sweetheart Cabbage: You can recognize sweetheart cabbage by its pointy head with tightly wrapped leaves. We plant most of our cabbage for harvest in the fall as cabbage thrives and tastes better when it is grown in more cool temperatures. However, one of the unique attributes of sweetheart cabbage is that it does fare well as an early-season cabbage, which is exactly the reason why we’ve selected it for this early summer slot. It is known as a “salad cabbage” because the leaves are tender enough to be eaten raw in salads and the flavor is mild and well-balanced. Another reason we grow this variety for summer harvest is that it gives us another option for a “salad green” during the part of the season when salad mix and other more delicate salad greens are more challenging to grow.
Green savoy cabbage may be eaten raw or cooked. In the raw form, use this cabbage to make a traditional creamy coleslaw along with carrots and/or other root vegetables such as celeriac. You can also use this cabbage to create some main dish salads. You can also use this cabbage to make a quick pickled salad or shred it, salt it and turn it into a simple slaw to eat with tacos. Green savoy cabbage may also be cooked. You can add it to soup, or use it to make Beet Borscht. I also like to use this cabbage in stir-fries over the winter. Combine it with beauty heart radishes, thinly sliced turnips, carrots and onions to make a delicious winter vegetable stir-fry served with rice.
Red cabbage may be eaten both raw and cooked. One of the simplest ways to use it is to just slice it very thinly and mix it in with salad greens or other vegetables when making vegetable salads or slaws. It can also stand alone to make beautiful and tasty slaws and salads which may be served either cold or warm. Red cabbage is also often used to make braised red cabbage, a more common part of German and northern European cuisine. Recipes for braised red cabbage will often include apples, juniper berries, caraway seeds and either red wine or red wine vinegar. This is a good place to talk about how to retain that bright purple color when cooking red cabbage. When you cook red cabbage, you can retain the bright purple color by adding an acidic ingredient such as vinegar or lemon juice. If you don’t add acid and cook it for any period of time with the lid on the pan, the cabbage will turn to more of a blue-green-gray color. Some other foods that are complementary and are often used with red cabbage include the following: apples, oranges, lemons, currants, onions, shallots, caraway, juniper, clove, star anise, red wine, vinegar, carrots, beets, blue cheese and goat cheese.
Sweetheart cabbage may be eaten raw or lightly cooked. Lightly rinse the outer leaves before using. If you don’t use the entire cabbage for one preparation, wrap the remaining portion of cabbage and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it. One cabbage typically yields 7-10 cups of shredded cabbage. You’ll be surprised by how much cabbage is packed into these dense little heads! If you’re using it for vegetable slaws or raw salads, slice it very thinly or shred it. If you choose to cook it, I’d recommend a quick cooking method such as stir-frying or grilling and be careful not to overcook it!
Health & Nutrition: Cabbage is packed with nutrients including vitamins C and K, fiber B6 as well as antioxidants.
Additional Health & Nutrition: Purple and red pigments in vegetables indicate the presence of chemical plant compounds called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins have many health benefits including being antioxidants that combat free radical damage in our bodies. Thus, they play a role in cancer prevention as well as enhance cardiac health and boost our immunity, amongst a long list of other benefits. In addition to the benefits from anthocyanins, red cabbage also offers all the similar benefits of other vegetables in the Brassica family including phytonutrients called glucosinolates and sulfuraphane. These two nutrients are important for reducing the potential for carcinogens to damage our tissues while also assisting the liver with detoxifying the body.
