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.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
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. :)
also super tasty if you add broccoli slaw mix to the pool :)
Thanks for this recipe. It was so good that I had it for breakfast the next day. I made it exactly like the recipe says, except for the onion since my husband isn’t a fan (I did add onion powder though) and decided to top it off with cashews. So delicious!
I’m not a huge fan of cabbage but make corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day every year for nostalgia’s sake. Since I only used half the head of cabbage for the corned beef this year, I turned to Budget Bytes to figure out what to do with the rest, having seen your recent cabbage kick, Beth. I’ve got to say, this was delicious. Thank you so much! I made it with a full pound of ground turkey and added a small onion and a red bell pepper, but otherwise kept everything the same. This was so good and extremely filling! According to my calculations using myfitnesspal, it was also all under 500 calories!
I’m going to make this this week. I have a half a cabbage left over and I was looking for something new to do. Thanks for the idea!
New fam favorite right here! This dish is awesome. I added in some celery & mushrooms.
Try it even if you don’t have all the ingredients! I didn’t have any onions, siracha, seseame oil or seeds. I subbed dry ginger and dry garlic for fresh. I subbed evoo for seseame. So essentially I had pork, cabbage, carrots, topped with light soy sauce and extra virgin olive oil and it was still amazing!! Even my daughter who won’t eat cabbage with tomato loved it! Ate it three meals in a row!
I used ground turkey, added mushrooms & been pepper and used a half a smidge of ginger essential oil.
OMG AMAZING!!!
thank you :)
I’m sure this has been mentioned in the comments below but you could probably save more by just buying a bag of cole slaw as well as have all the veggies cut up :)
Just made this. Delicious.
What an awesome dish. Thanks for sharing.
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This was amazing! I love how versatile this is! I cleaned out my produce drawer and added celery, mushrooms, snow peas, red bell pepper, threw in some water chestnuts and I also had some leftover spaghetti I tossed in, as well. I made another half recipe of the sauce, since I added the noodles, and it was a perfect ratio! We upped the sriracha, since we like it spicy, and were pleased with the outcome. Yum! Thanks for this easy, yet authentic tasting recipe!
Best homemade stir fry I’ve every had. I have to make a larger batch because my family loves it! Thank you so much for the work that you do. Your recipes give me the confidence I need to get in the kitchen. God Bless!
My family loved this! I added snow peas, pre- shredded cabbage and pre grated carrots to speed it up. I served it over jasmine rice. It was a great weeknight meal. Will definitely make this again.
So quick, easy and addicting! I loved it! This will definitely be a go to meal for nights I want to make something pretty quick. Also, does anyone know by chance, how many calories per serving?
I’ve made this 3 times already!