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. :)
home run! super easy, very flavorful. Once you make it, your excited to add ingredients but make recipe as is. Super simple, love it!!
I love this. I’ve made it twice now, first time as written, second time using a pre-chopped Asian salad mix. It has cabbage, carrots, kale, and broccoli. Makes an easy dish even easier!
My husband and I love this stir fry!! It’s delicious and has just the right amount of spiciness. I’ve made it twice so far and I can tell it will be one of our go-to dinner recipes.
Delicious! Loved the heat in this dish. A favorite budget-friendly go-to meal. Thanks for sharing!
Neither I nor my boyfriend are big fans of cabbage, and we both eschew coleslaw. I was looking for recipes for winter vegetables, and came across this recipe. It looked good, cabbage is cheap and we had some ground beef to use up, so we decided to try it. We had already decided that we would order pizza if this recipe was a flop, so we went into it not expecting to like it. Imagine our surprise when we both loved it! We ate 2 bowls each and are looking forward to finding out how it tastes for lunch the next day. Will definitely be making this again!
And it’s SO healthy! I just can’t get enough of this recipe. :)
I feel kinda foolish for asking but did you drain the ground beef? I’ve read the recipe and watched the video but I just can’t tell. I can’t wait to try this out on my boyfriend!
You actually only need to drain it if you’re using a higher fat content beef. I find that if I’m using 90% or higher lean ground beef, I generally don’t need to drain it (there isn’t anything to drain off). If you’re using something like 80/20 or 85/15, you’ll want to drain it first. :)
Perfect way to use up my cabbage! This is on this week’s dinner menu, for sure. Also, thank you for not having a hundred photos to scroll through before you get to the actual recipe! Love your recipes. 😊
This recipe is really good and tasty but there is something very hot sauce init.
Been meaning to make this since you posted it, but the stars had not aligned. I did not have fresh ginger and we are spicy wimps so I just added another tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce and some powdered ginger to the sauce. Will be making this again, either with rice or steal another poster’s idea of using plain ramen noodles. But either way, we will make this again. If anything to continue to prove to my husband that cabbage prepared correctly tastes good!
What if you don’t have toasted sesame oil…can you use cold pressed?
Cold pressed doesn’t have nearly as strong of a nutty flavor as the toasted variety. This is actually really good even without it, so you can either use the cold pressed and have it be just not as nutty, or leave it out and I think you’ll still enjoy it. The nutty just makes it extra special. :)
Honestly, I never leave comments. Most recipes aren’t worth my returning to the page from which it came. BUT this was holy wow goodness!!! I followed the recipe, but doubled it for my large family *Quadrupled the sauce amount (because we are sauce lovers). Perfect! Making it for a fourth time tonight (which brought me back to this page)! Great for lunch the next day, too. It has become a highly requested dish in our house!
So glad everyone loved it so much! I seriously can’t stop making it either. :) But that’s not a bad thing because it’s super healthy and filling. Yay!
I made this tonight and it was really good! Will be making this again and adding more veggies but it was good as is “egg roll in a bowl” the fresh ginger adds so much flavor.thank you for sharing
I made this tonight, and it was super tasty! I omitted the green onions since I’m not a huge fan (and likely won’t eat the rest of the bunch in anything else), but followed the rest of the recipe as described, and it turned out great. I wish I had discovered this recipe last year when I was inundated with many heads of CSA cabbage, since I’m not a huge lover of cabbage and struggled last year to find tasty recipes to get myself to eat it.
Hi! I just sent a comment and accidentally hit “post comment” before I selected all 5 stars. This is definitely a 5-star recipe! Please revise to show 5 stars.
This is a very tasty dish! I improvised a little because I didn’t have all the mentioned ingredients on hand. I used frozen peas and carrots since I had no fresh carrots. Instead of green onions, I used thinly sliced yellow onion (about 1/2 onion) and added it to the pan the same time as the cabbage. Also, I substituted hot sauce for the Sriracha. My hubby and 11-year old loved it and so did I!