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. :)
This looks so good, but i don’t have any sriracha sauce and i dont want to buy a bottlenfir one recipe. Any ideas for a substitution?
The sriracha provides heat, salt, garlic, acid, and a little sugar, so you could probably do a mixture of red pepper flakes, a little more soy, garlic, some rice vinegar, and some sugar, but I would need to do a lot of experimenting to find out what the proper ratios would be to mimic the sriracha.
So good and quick to make. Don’t expect leftovers with this dish! Thank you so much for sharing, definitely a family favourite,
Pretty delicious. Made a vegetarian version with scrambled eggs.
So incredibly good. My husband says this is a once a week recipe. Must admit I used turkey sausage but with that exception I followed recipe. Thank you for sharing!
I have never left a comment, but just had to. This was amazing. I mean, this tastes as good as it looks (even better). The only change I made was doubled the sauce, but didn’t change one ingredient. I mean, my 11 year old absolutely loved this too. Thank you for sharing this recipe. We are going low carb and looking for ideas!
Absolutely amazing! I kind of messed up initially and started cooking 1 pound of ground beef so I added a red pepper and a little more cabbage and then I had to add more of the sauce but it still turned out great and and I will totally make it again!
This was great, I used Tamari, and maple syrup instead of brown sugar and doubled recipe. Will definitely make again.
Has anyone tried this with sliced beef rather than ground?
I made this recipe tonight using shaved beef! Excellent!!
I made this tonight. Two of us ate the whole thing! Super simple and tasty
My family loves this dinner! I can pick up marked down packages of ground pork for less then $3 a pound, allowing me to double the quantity for roughly the same cost as your single recipe quote. The teen appetites in the house are fully satisfied, yay! If you prep this meal early in the day, it’s so great to come in the door and have dinner in only 15 minutes.
We make something similar using the cole slaw packs you buy in the grocery store, adding garlic, and a few other things.. We call it inside-out cabbage rolls.. Great low carb treat
I made this last night. It was so delicious! The whole family loved it. My two year old ate so much of it. The sauce was so simple to make and really flavorful. There is nothing like a delicious meal that is cheap and easy to make. Thank you.
I came across your blog by accident and I’m so glad I did. I love the step by step recipe is and the gorgeous details. I made this dish last night with brown jasmine rice. Big hit with my family! Thank you. =)
Love this dish, so easy. I use a bag of prepared clowslaw instead of doing all the chopping. Delious! Thanks this is one of my favorites.
Super easy and tasty for the $$ – quite close to mushu pork if made with pork! Pretty decent with ground turkey, too!