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!
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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.
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Notes
Nutrition
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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. :)
Great to see this recipe written up and shared. I lived on meals like this throughout my 20s as I learned to cook a wider range of foods! I remember starting out using sliced steak and then realising I could use ground beef instead…. my wallet approved!! $$$
Absolutely delicious and easy to make. I doubled the recipe, chopped the cabbage as finely as I could without obsessing over it, threw baby carrots in a mini food processor and pulsed them for a bit to break them up. I loved it and my hubby loved it. I will definitely make this again.
any one know how much fiber is in this? I need saw the calorie, fat, carb protein brak down but I need fiber as well.
Spent about an hour making this, tasted like boiled cabbage. Ended up ordering in pizza instead.
0/10
You must have done something wrong somewhere along. Mine was delicious.
Absolutely delicious! This has become a weekly meal in our house!
What are the nutrient contents? How many carbs, fiber…..etc?
This was a five star from my family of four!!! Next time I’ll have to double it so there Are seconds!!! Thanks for sharing😋
This has become a favorite and is on my dinner rotation. I almost always have the ingredients on hand and when I don’t know what to make, there’s a good chance that this will be dinner. I make a slightly different sauce.
Extremely tasty!!! Simple and easy but packed with flavor. Thank you!
One of my favorite recipes of all time. For myself and my teen boys, I quadruple the recipe and serve it with brown rice.
Yummy and full of flavour! Not gonna lie, with the amount of chopped cabbage and carrots I had I thought I was cooking to feed a small family of 4, but everything wilted down nicely in the pan.
I used gochujang instead of sriracha and doubled the sauce to boost the flavour. Will make again!
There are 270 calories per serving although I added 1/2 Lb of ground pork with the hamburger. 9.1 g of fat, 12.4 carbs and 34.3g of protein.
Simple, delicious and packed full of veggies, what more could you ask for! I added a half bag of kale slaw on top of the bag of coleslaw just because I had to use it up and it was excellent.
Delicious. DH would prefer some carbs alongside, though. I was thinking of soaking some medium wide rice noodles and stir frying them in at the end. I had some beef stir fry strips in the freezer and half a head of cabbage in the crisper. A bit of prep in the afternoon, and dinner was so easy. We like our cabbage quite soft so I had to add a bit more oil to extend the cooking time. We have re-named it “Inside-Out Egg Roll dish” because the flavors remind us of of a really good egg roll, only with a fresher flavor.
This is such a simple & delicious recipe! Thank you for sharing! I made it exactly as described with the bag of coleslaw mix shortcut. I then immediately ate two big servings! Will definitely make again.