If cabbage doesn’t float your boat, it might be because you haven’t yet tried it slowly caramelized in butter? Let’s change that.
This recipe was born from an evening when I had a cabbage to use up, and my enthusiasm was low. I discovered this Caramelized Cabbage Butter Pasta recipe and it soon became one of my go-to meals when I needed something with few ingredients and little headspace.
Although that recipe is delightful as it is, over time I started to adapt it and make some additions. So here we are with my 2.0 version that adds white beans and a crispy cheese topping for protein and texture, taking it from a simple pasta to a more varied meal with minimal extra work.
Ingredients: What is important & what you can swap
- I am using a medium savoy cabbage for this, which weighed 800g (a little under 2lbs) whole. I’ve tested the recipe with slightly bigger and slightly smaller cabbages and it always works out just fine. If you have a significantly larger cabbage, you may not want to use all of it – you can set some aside for another recipe. If you have a significantly smaller cabbage, consider adding more shallots to bulk it up and/or scale the recipe down as a whole.
- If you want to use red cabbage, feel free to give it a try – it will be a slightly different flavor but I can’t see why it wouldn’t turn out well. I do also have a red cabbage pasta recipe if you want something that was specifically tested with red cabbage.
- My secret weapon here is smoked mozzarella / scamorza BUT normal mozzarella will work. Or even a bag of grated cheese blend would be fine, you just want something that crisps up nicely to give you the texture contrast. If you want to seek out smoked mozzarella, you can find it in larger Tesco and Waitrose stores (UK) or Trader Joes (US) or a specialist cheese or Italian retailer.
- The white wine adds a lovely flavor to this dish, but you could squeeze in the juice of a lemon if you prefer.
- Pecorino is my cheese of choice here, but any hard Italian parmesan style cheese will work.
- I use cannellini beans but I think butter beans would be a great swap.
More Veggie Packed Baked Pasta Recipes
If pasta bakes are a family favorite in your home, these recipes are worth a look! Each packs in lots of veggies while being comforting, cheesy and super tasty.
Caramelized Cabbage & White Bean Pasta Bake
This easy cabbage pasta recipe uses simple budget friendly ingredients to create a hearty dinner packed with flavor. I used savoy cabbage, but any green cabbage that you need to use up will be great here.
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp (80 g) salted butter
- 1 small – medium head green cabbage, sliced into long thin strands
- 2 shallots, thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- ¼ cup (60 ml) white wine, or 1 lemon
- 8 oz (225 g) dried rigatoni pasta, another short pasta such as penne will work too
- 14 oz (400 g) canned white beans, drained
- ¾ cup (75 g) pecorino cheese, or any Italian hard cheese
- 5 oz (150 g) ball of mozzarella or scamorza cheese, sliced – you can also use pre-grated mozzarella if you need to
- chopped fresh chives or parsley, optional – for garnish
Instructions
- Melt half of the butter over low heat in a large saute pan or deep frying pan. Add the cabbage, shallots and garlic and stir through, then add the remaining butter and let it melt as you continue to saute the cabbage.6 tbsp salted butter, 1 small – medium head green cabbage, 2 shallots, 4 cloves garlic
- For the next 25 minutes, saute the cabbage over a low-medium heat, stirring regularly, until it has significantly reduced down and is browning around the edges. If it sticks to the bottom at any point during this process, deglaze with a little splash of the white wine and lower the heat.
- Halfway through the cabbage's saute time, get some water boiling for the pasta and boil according to package instructions. Before draining, reserve a cup full of the pasta cooking water.8 oz dried rigatoni pasta
- Once the cabbage is done, pour in the white wine. Let it bubble and loosen any sticky bits from the pan. Once the harshness of the alcohol smell has died down, remove the pan from the heat.1/4 cup white wine
- Add the drained white beans, cooked pasta and pecorino cheese to the pan. Add a few splashes of the pasta cooking water and mix through, repeating until you have a silky coating around all of the pasta.14 oz canned white beans, 3/4 cup pecorino cheese
- If you're using an oven safe pan, you can proceed to the next step using the same pan. If your pan is not oven safe, you'll now need to transfer the contents into one that is.
- Arrange the sliced mozzarella or scamorza over the top, with a little more pecorino around the slices if you like, then place the pan under the grill / broiler just until the cheese has browned and crisped up. This is pictured with scamorza, which is a low moisture smoked mozzarella. It will look a little different if you use a high moisture mozzarella, but it should all be good!5 oz ball of mozzarella or scamorza cheese
- Serve with red pepper flakes and chives or parsley if you're using them.chopped fresh chives or parsley
Calories: 735kcal, Carbohydrates: 81g, Protein: 32g, Fat: 31g, Saturated Fat: 19g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 8g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 93mg, Sodium: 634mg, Potassium: 1075mg, Fiber: 13g, Sugar: 11g, Vitamin A: 1065IU, Vitamin C: 85mg, Calcium: 570mg, Iron: 5mg