I was so very much craving a nice homemade comfort food meal, but we’ve been in a terrible heatwave and just the thought of cooking a big meal was not appealing. Not gonna happen.
So, again, I called on my new best friend, Ms. Crock Pot! She has so far been a darn good friend and hasn’t let me down yet!
Not that I’m completely new to crock pots. I used to use them a lot back when I had my catering business. But mostly, I just used them to “hold foods” and transport them to locations to keep food warm.
So with this heat, I’ve decided to try actually cooking in them! This large oval one is my favorite. It’s just an el cheapo from Walmart that was maybe 20 bucks, has 2 settings, Low and High, and works perfectly!
I have several other ones, but they seem to always look too small to cook main dishes or casserole type foods in. This one holds about anything!
So if you’re looking to buy one, I’d highly suggest just getting a large one as I never seem to ever use my smaller round ones. Just a suggestion for you! 😀
So anyways, enough about crock pots! 😉 I’m hungry! So let’s get to the good stuff!
I decided to try my hand at slow cooking cabbage rolls and they turned out absolutely wonderful! I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t get done, or burn on the bottom, or take 2 days to fully cook through! But actually, they didn’t even take as long as I thought they would!
The only thing to “cook” were the cabbage leaves! I boiled 3-4 at a time, but I’m betting I could’ve just put most, if not all into the pot, then covered it with a lid, turned off the heat, and just let them sit in there until tender.
But, I really wanted to make sure they were extra pretty and didn’t want to risk it. So you can do this any way you feel comfortable doing! 😀
Just remember one trick. After cooking, always cut out the very end thick part of the stem making a v-cut so that they roll easier. 😉 I just snip it right out with kitchen scissors and that works really well.
I didn’t get a very good shot, so I hope you can see in the photo above ok!
Looking pretty good, aren’t they? 😀 Each leaf is, of course, a different size, so only use as much meat filling as needed per leaf so that you can fully close it around the filling.
Place some of the sauce on the bottom and stack away! I got two beautiful layers with half of the sauce in the middle, plus two extra ones on top! 😀
Lastly, before cooking, top with all of the rest of the sauce! Turn the crock pot on High, put the lid on and go relax! 😉 Let Ms. Crock Pot do the rest. 😉
Once the rolls were done, I topped them with half of the mozzarella cheese, a little parmesan, a nice sprinkling of garlic salt and some parsley. Then it was just 15-20 minutes to the table after the yummy cheeses had melted!
Since it’s just the two of us, I waited until the first layer had been devoured before melting the rest of the cheeses over the bottom layer. This worked really well!
So, I do hope you enjoy these soon! A great way to have a nice comfort meal without heating up the house too much! The only little bit of heat is doing the leaves, but it really isn’t bad at all! 😀 They only take 4-5 minutes and do as many as you can at once and you’re done in NO time! 😉
With this awful heat and humidity, we just had a simple Caprese Salad on the side and that went perfectly! Cool, simple, creamy and delicious! 😀 But corn on the cob and mashed potatoes (on a cool, fall day!) would also be ideal with this. So I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful week! 😀
Tip to separating leaves: Slice off core, not cutting too much in that it ruins the good leaves after removing the outer 2-3 yucky ones. See which leaf is top and first to remove, slice through that leaf at stem and gently pry open a bit. Wherever there is resistance, run under hot water to soften and leaves will fall and pull away easily. Take your time doing this with each leaf and they'll all be picture-perfect and not tear. Doesn't take long, either.
Italian-Style Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Smothered in Homemade Spaghetti Sauce & Mozzarella (Crock Pot)
Ingredients
For Sauce:
Rest of Ingredients:
Instructions
Notes