If you’re one that struggles to work vegetables into your diet (isn’t that pretty much all of us?) you’re going to love this Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry. It’s full of vegetables and absolutely addictive. And the best part? It uses vegetables that are super inexpensive so you can know that you’re doing your body and your wallet good. Winning!
Can I Substitute the Beef?
Yes, you can definitely make this cabbage stir fry recipe with other types of ground meat! I think pork or even ground turkey would work just as well or better, and will most likely be less expensive than beef. You can use a whole pound of meat if you like extra protein, but I found that the half-pound I had provided me with just the right ratio of meat to cabbage.
What Other Vegetables Can I Add?
In addition to the cabbage, I also added some shredded carrots and sliced green onion to this beef stir fry for color. There are so many other fun things you can put in your beef and cabbage stir fry. Try adding some of these vegetables:
- sliced mushrooms
- thinly sliced red bell pepper
- water chestnuts
- snow peas
- broccoli
- baby corn
Make it even FASTER!
You can totally take a shortcut here and buy a bag of pre-shredded coleslaw mix to replace the 1/2 head of green cabbage and carrots listed below. Sometimes that’s a more economical purchase and saves you from having a half head of left over cabbage. :)
What to Serve with Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry
This Ground Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry goes great with Easy Egg Drop Soup, Thai Cucumber Salad, Savory Coconut Rice, Pork Gyoza. Although most of the time I just eat it as is! You can also serve it over a bed of rice to bulk up the servings.
Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry
Servings 4 (1.5 cups each)Ingredients
STIR FRY SAUCE
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce ($0.18)
- 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil ($0.33)
- 1 Tbsp sriracha* ( $0.05)
- 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar ( $0.02)
STIR FRY
- 1/2 head green cabbage ($1.78)
- 2 carrots ($0.22)
- 3 green onions ($0.17)
- 1/2 Tbsp neutral cooking oil ($0.02)
- 1/2 lb. lean ground beef ($3.90)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.16)
- 1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger ( $0.13)
- Pinch of salt and pepper ($0.05)
GARNISHES (optional)
- 1 Tbsp sesame seeds ($0.08)
- 1 Tbsp sriracha ($0.05)
Instructions
- Prepare the stir fry sauce first. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sriracha, and brown sugar. Set the sauce aside.
- Shred the vegetables so they are ready to go when you need them. Cut one small cabbage in half, remove the core, and then finely shred the leaves of one half the cabbage (4-6 cups once shredded, save the other half for another recipe). Peel two carrots, then use a cheese grater to shred them (1 cup shredded). Slice three green onions. Mince two cloves of garlic. Peel a knob of ginger using either a vegetable peeler or by scraping with the side of a spoon, then grate it using a small-holed cheese grater.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot add the cooking oil, ground beef, garlic, ginger, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook the beef until browned (about five minutes).
- Add the cabbage and carrots to the skillet and continue to stir and cook until the cabbage is slightly wilted (or fully wilted, if you prefer). Stir in the prepared sauce and the green onions. Top with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a drizzle of sriracha, then serve.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Video
P.S. If you love cabbage as much as I do, check out our Cabbage Soup Recipe!
How to Make Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry – Step by Step Photos
Prepare the easy stir fry sauce first, so it’s ready to go when you need it. In a small bowl stir together 2 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil (it has a dark amber color and VERY nutty flavor, not always labeled as “toasted”), 1 Tbsp sriracha, and 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar. This makes a medium-spicy stir fry, so if you’re sensitive to heat, start with 1 tsp sriracha.
Next, shred the vegetables. Cut one small cabbage in half, remove the core, then slice half of it into fine shreds (save the other half of the cabbage for another recipe). You’ll need about 4-6 cups of shredded cabbage. Peel and shred two carrots (about one cup). I used a large-holed cheese grater to shred the carrots. Slice three green onions. You’ll also want to mince two cloves of garlic and grate about 1 Tbsp of fresh ginger (I use a small-holed cheese grater for this). More info on working with ginger can be found here.
Heat a LARGE skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add 1/2 Tbsp neutral cooking oil (something like canola, corn, vegetable, safflower, peanut, etc.), 1/2 lb. ground beef, the minced garlic, grated ginger, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook the beef until fully browned.
Add the shredded cabbage and carrots to the skillet and continue to cook and stir until the cabbage has wilted slightly. I like my cabbage to still have a little crunch, so I only cooked it until it was partially wilted. If you like the cabbage fully cooked and soft, just cook it a bit longer.
Pour on the prepared stir fry sauce…
… and toss in the sliced green onions. Stir until everything is evenly combined.
Garnish the Beef and Cabbage stir fry with a little drizzle of sriracha and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. I particularly liked the sesame seeds for the texture they added to the dish!
And that’s it! This Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry is probably one of the easiest dishes I’ve ever made. :)
What a great recipe – so full of nutrients and easy to make! I really enjoyed making and serving this to my family. The only thing I did not do was shred the carrots; I sliced them instead. I also covered the pan after adding in the cabbage to help it wilt faster.
This was so good! Thank you!
Really easy and tasty. The kids love it too. It was also great for the adults to add more Sriracha as a garnish to add more heat. This would also be great with finely chopped nuts.
I ended up using too much meat and not enough cabbage I think. This was an easy, quick recipe that was decently tasty. I just thought it was missing something. I added a tad bit of rice wine vinegar and that brought it up to 5 stars.
A fav! Have used ground beef, chicken and turkey. All worked. I cheat and use a bag of coleslaw. I then add a couple of shredded carrots and frozen peas or edamame. I also triple the sauce! I serve with rice or rice noodles or udon noodles. I sprinkle chopped peanuts on top. This freezes really well with and without the rice. Great for meal prep! Thank you!!!
Made some minor adjustments when I made it (purple cabbage and served on rice) but this turned out AWESOME!! My partner, who usually doesn’t like beef or cooked carrots, said it tastes great and even ate the leftovers :D. Will definitely make again
also added onion :D
I’ve been using your recipes for about 10 years now and this is probably the all-time winner! I make this at least once a month and the only change is I omit sriracha since I have little kids who are wimpy about spice. I serve this over ramen noodles and add plenty of hot sauce to mine. delightful
Just made this and honestly wish I made a double batch! It’s delicious!! I used bagged broccoli slaw to save time. *chefs kiss*
Delicious and easy, yet I was missing ginger, sriracha and sesame seeds. I substituted ground ginger for the fresh, and sweet chili sauce & some Cholula (similar to Tabasco) for the sriracha. I doubled the recipe and used approx. 6 cups of bagged coleslaw mix (which included carrots & red cabbage), and very few green onions. I added a small can of chopped water chestnuts and some bean sprouts with the coleslaw. It was beautifully crunchy! This is a keeper! Next time I’ll try to have all of the right ingredients, thank you for sharing the recipe with us!
So so so good. Cooked 1 lb of beef. Doubled the other ingredients. Instead of cabbage I used 2 bags of Broccoli, coleslaw and 1/2 bag of shredded carrots. Used onion powder instead of green onions. I will make this again
This recipe is a keeper! I had to do things in a different order because I had sautéed Cabbage, onion and garlic the night before to use up a cabbage that I had made coleslaw from. So I googled asian cabbage and beef recipe and this recipe came up with the most reviews/stars. I also used cubed, seasoned, slow cooked London broil instead of ground beef. This was better than any take-out I’ve ever gotten and the stir-fry sauce will be my go-to recipe for all stir-fries. Thank you for sharing this delicious recipe!
I’ve made this many times and love it! I would like to try it as a cold salad dish. Do you think it would work to cook the ground meat as directed, but add sauce and vegetables without cooking?
We haven’t tried it but I don’t see why you couldn’t! As long as you know that you’d enjoy eating raw cabbage.
This is now a go to weeknight recipe for our family. We add a lot of veggies, double it and eat leftovers during the week.
This was a big hit in our house. I took a shortcut by using a pre-grated cabbage/carrot blend like the kind sold to make slaw. I thought the amount of sauce was rather small, but it coated everything with great flavor and we didn’t need anything extra. I wanted to use up some other veggies in the fridge before a vacation so threw some baby spinach and chopped yellow bell pepper I had in there too. We will be making this again for sure!