Instant Pot Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls is a deconstructed version of the classic cabbage rolls my mom made. They are inexpensive to make, and you can feed the family a nutritious, tasty meal for very little. This pressure cooker unstuffed cabbage rolls recipe is like a stew, and is very good.
Instant Pot Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls
Cabbage rolls are a comfort food in many cultures, mine included. Recreating a comfort food from my childhood brings me back to our tiny little kitchen (I called it our 1-butt kitchen, lol!).
This recipe is rather old fashioned. Nothing fancy, except for maybe the balsamic vinegar! I was going to make this into more of a soup (and you can), but I really wanted the thickness of a casserole, and for it to be more like when you mash up a cabbage roll.
If you decide you want to make Instant Pot Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls into a soup, just increase the broth, and adjust the seasonings a little, to your liking. Easy!
Two questions I get asked about this recipe are:
1) Is the rice cooked or uncooked when I put it in? It is uncooked. Rinse it well before adding it to get some of the starch off.
2) Will I get the dreaded “BURN” error from this being thick? You shouldn’t. As long as you pay attention to the amounts of the ingredients, and don’t stir in the tomatoes before pressure cooking, it should come to pressure with no burn issues.
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Instant Pot Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls is a hearty, thick stew with the same ingredients as a cabbage roll - unstuffed! This pressure cooker unstuffed cabbage rolls recipe is delicious, and a little old fashioned comfort food.
- 1 lb Ground Beef or Ground Turkey (93% lean), or use sausage or half sausage for added flavor.
- 1 large Yellow Onion, chopped
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 4 large cloves Garlic, pressed or minced
- 2 tsp Paprika
- 1 1/2 tsp Coarse Salt (or 1 tsp table salt) more to taste
- 1 tsp Pepper
- 1/4 tsp Oregano
- 1 small-med Head of Green Cabbage, chopped in 2" pieces
- 3 1/2 cups Beef Broth,* low sodium (or chicken, if using gr. turkey)
- 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 cup Long Grain White Rice, rinsed, uncooked
- 1 (14 oz) can Diced Tomatoes, with juice
- 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
- 2 tsp Sugar
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Get all of your veggies chopped, and all other ingredients ready to go. Then turn on the pressure cooker's Sauté setting.
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If using ground beef, add it to the pot and start browning it. Then add the onions.
If using ground turkey, add some olive oil to the pot and add the onions first. Then add the ground turkey when the onions just start to turn translucent. -
Add the bay leaves and garlic. Sauté, stirring frequently, for a minute.
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Add the paprika, salt, pepper, oregano, cabbage, broth*, balsamic vinegar, and Worcestershire. Stir well and let heat up for a few minutes.
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Add the rice and stir well.
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Pour the can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and sugar over the cabbage mixture, but don't stir.
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Put the lid on the pot and lock in place.
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Set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.
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Cancel the Sauté function and then press the Pressure Cook/Manual button or dial. Use the + or - button or dial to choose 4 minutes.
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When the cooking cycle is finished, let the pot sit undisturbed for 8 minutes (8 minute natural release). Then do a controlled Quick Release to manually release the remaining pressure. This will take a few minutes as the pot is full.
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To do a controlled Quick Release, use a spoon handle to gently push the steam release knob towards the Venting position, but don't turn the knob fully over. The reason is that with a full pot there is a risk of sauce spewing out of the knob with the steam. It make a huge mess, and could burn you. So just feather it and when you feel sure that only steam is coming out, turn it fully to Venting. If sauce starts to come out, just turn it back and feather it some more.
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When the pin in the lid drops down, open the lid carefully and give the contents a stir.
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Taste and adjust salt, if desired.
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Serve with some soft dinner rolls.
*If you want this to be more of a soup, add 1 more cup of broth. If you have the 8 qt size pot or larger, you can add 2 extra cups of broth. You may want to increase the pepper and paprika.
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Made these tonight and they were FANTASTIC!! thank you so much!
That’s awesome, Tracy! Thank you for letting me know!
5 stars! This was fantastic! Thank you so much!
This is the first meal I cooked in my new Instant Pot! I had a 28oz can of diced tomatoes and could only use 2 cups of vegetable broth on hand. The extra tomatoes totally compensated for the broth… it came out AMAZING! The rice was beautifully cooked! I used turkey for this recipe to lighten it up for my lunch this week! YUM
Hi Amber, what a great workaround! I’m so happy that this recipe worked out well for you! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review and let me know!
I used Turkey and I doubled the recipe in my 8Qt Duo. We love it and I’m glad I made enough to freeze and take to my sister.
That’s nice, Brenda. I often cook with ground turkey and love it! I’m glad you liked it! Thank you for leaving a review!
Thank you for the recipe Sandy. This just finished making in my IP, and it taste delicious.
Like the other lady, I used a 28oz can of tomatoes, because that’s all I had on hand, and
I cut the broth down to two cups. I also used riced cauliflower instead of the rice because
I had to use my cauliflower before it went bad. I also added in some red pepper flakes for a kick.
That sounds so good, Donna! I’m glad you enjoyed this unstuffed cabbage rolls recipe! Thank you for your review!
The whole family enjoyed this tonight in the UK – I used a mix of ground beef and pork, thanks for a super easy and tasty recipe 🙂
That’s great, Angie! Thank you for your review!
Great recipe! As a retired Paremedic the ol station cook comes out from time to time. I stayed pretty much on the recommendation, however, I used 1/2 beef 1/2 pork sausage and added adobo and Goya SOFRITO in the meat. Nothing but praise!!!! Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Mike! I know we always thank military, police (I’m a cop’s daughter), and firefighters, but I want to thank you for your service, too. My gosh, being a paramedic must be so intense! Okay, back to the food. I love your tip of adding sausage! I’m really glad you liked this recipe. Thanks for your review!
Hi there, made this yesterday. It is delicious. Thank you for posting
Hi Carly, I’m so glad you liked it. Thank you for your review!
My husband and I were craving something like this but I wasn’t expecting my kids to like it as much as they did! Definitely a keeper! Followed the directions exactly and it was hearty and delicious. Thank you for the detailed recipe for us instant pot newbies!!
Hi Amy, yay! I always cheer when the kids like a dish with lots of veggies in it! I’m so happy that you all enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for your review!
This recipe is in my regular rotation, I love it. I do cut the cabbage into larger pieces however because I found the 2 inch pieces turned to mush.
Good to know. I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for your review.
Does this freeze well?
I’ve never froze this recipe. I would just try it in serving sized containers and see how you like it.
Yes it does! We live on a boat and I make this ahead of time regularly for crossings.
Yes it does, we put in serving size containers & bring out as needed
I doubled it and will be putting some leftovers in the freezer for lunches. Even the little ones liked this!
I’m so happy to know that the littles liked this, too! That’s always a win in my book! Thank you for your review!
I made this tonight using ground pork, stewed tomatoes and chicken broth. I omitted the Worcestershire sauce, just because I didn’t have it on hand, and used brown rice. It was delicious and the timing was perfect according to your recipe. Next time I think I will add more tomatoes for my own taste, but the recipe is great and, best of all, easily adapted. Thank you for sharing!
Dayna that sounds absolutely wonderful! Thank you for sharing your version of this recipe!
I am newish to my Instant pot and am always confused when doubling a recipe. I can see doubling the tomatoes but what about the broth? My recipes come out with too much liquid.
I would double everything and cut back a little on the broth, maybe by 1 cup or 1 1/2 cups.
Just made this for dinner tonight and it was amazing!! My husband and my 2 younger boys gave it a “9” Lol I did make slight modifications: added an extra can of diced tomatoes and an 8oz can of tomato sauce. Definitely making this again!!!!
Hi Angela! I’m so happy that your family liked this recipe! Thank you so much for your review!
I’m going to try to trim this down to fit in a 3 qt Instant Pot this week. Any suggestions for amounts are welcome. Thanks for the recipe.
You can cut the recipe in half and that should work in your 3 qt.
I halved everything except the can of tomatoes and made it in the 3qt Instant Pot. It was fantastic. I served it with a little shredded cheddar and hot sauce. It was amazing. Thank you so much for the recipe.
Awesome! Thank you, Paula!
We love this thanks for the great recipe!
Awesome, Tim! Thank you!
Any adjustments needed for brown rice?
Hi Sarah, yes, brown rice takes much longer to cook than white rice, and a different water to rice ratio. The other issue is that your cabbage may get overly mushy. That may not be a bad thing, but if it were me, I would cook the rice on the stove and add it at the end. If you are trying to keep this a one-pot meal, increase the liquid, depending on the type of brown rice you are using, and increase the cook time to about 20 minutes.
How long do you brown the turkey? Until there is no pink? Thank you!
Yes, just until mostly done. The pressure cooking will finish cooking it.
Thanks so much! My family loved it, I have had requests for more batches ?
Great! Thank you for letting me know!
It was snowing a little bit here in TN today….a perfect day for soup! I made your recipe without ever having tried cabbage rolls. I wasn’t sure how it would taste. My husband and son kept commenting, “Smells delicious!” as it was cooking. My daughter was adamant that she wouldn’t eat it, but she couldn’t help herself once it was finished. All of us enjoyed it. I’m taking leftovers tomorrow for lunch. Thanks for the comfort food!
That’s great! I love when the kids eat a healthier meal and actually like it! Thank you for your review!
I love cabbage rolls but let’s face it -I’m never going to have the time to make them the traditional way. Seeking a “deconstructed” Instant Pot version I looked at many recipes but this seemed closest to my mom’s recipe. Made it tonight and it is FANTASTIC! Just like momma made with less than 1/3 the effort. Thank you!
I have this all prepped and ready to go for supper, would you modify anything if using basmati rice? its all I have on hand.
Maybe take 1 minute off the cook time.
I used basmati rice and used 4 cups low sodium vegetable cocktail (juice) with 3 tsp beef better than bouillon. I cooked for the 5 minutes because i’d rather mushy rice than undercooked cabbage and it was DELICIOUS!!! The rice was quite cooked but not mush and seriously this is SO good!! I cannot wait to make this for my polish mother in law, I think shes going to be stunned!! Thank you Sandy!
I’m so glad it was such a success for you, Nat! I hope your mother-in-law likes it! Never hurts to impress the MIL! 😉
I made stuffed cabbage in my ip last night. For this recipe I used cooked rice. I have a lot of the meat , rice, & cabbage mixture left over to make this unstuffed cabbage recipe – already mixed together. Should I make any adjustments to the recipe when using the cooked rice?
Stir in the cooked rice after pressure cooking, or reduce time to 3 minutes. That’s my best guess as I haven’t made it that way!
Are you supposed to drain the grease from the meat because it doesn’t say in the recipe?
Only if you have a lot. That’s why I say to use lean ground beef.
Ok – thanks! I’ll teduce the cooking time, then!
This looks like a really good recipe and it also teaches me a lot about how to manage the Instant Pot. I subscribed. Thanks.
Made this a few days ago and I can’t wait for lunch every day for the leftovers! I omitted the meat and rice, but added peppers and a little half & half. So good!!!
I am new to the IP and normally make my unstuffed cabbage rolls in my crockpot with tomato sauce rather than broth. Do you think I can use my recipe in the IP or does it require the broth since it isn’t as thick as the sauce? Thanks!
You will need the thin liquid to bring the pot to pressure, which is why I use the broth.
If I’m omitting the meat and adding sauerkraut how much broth would I use?
Hmmm, that’s a big change. I would keep the liquid the same and see how you like it. The rice needs that liquid to cook properly.
Loved this recipe so thank you. I would like to try it with 1 extra cup of rice. How much extra liquid would I need to add? Thanks in advance
I would add 1 1/4 cups more liquid.
Just made this and it is terrific, and much easier than rolling up and stuffing cabbage leaves. It makes a lot of food. I filled up all 5 of my fairly large pyrex food storage containers and had enough left in the pot for today’s lunch. (I’d give it 5 stars, but clicking on the stars doesn’t seem to work in my browser).
Hi Thomas, I’m happy to see your review. Thank you! Looks like the stars did show up. I get a lot of comments that say they didn’t when they did. I don’t know why that happens. I am happy that you liked this recipe!
Delicious, wife had seconds.
Used Hot ground pork. Substituted 14 oz. tomatoes for 2 cups broth. Shut off Saute after cooking meat and onions. Combined many ingredients in a bowl as it takes too long to measure and add each while meat is still cooking.
Hard to read recipe when ads are causing the screen to scroll up and down. Even got popup to win a prize and couldn’t back out of site without shutting down.
Hi Harry, Darn, I switched ad companies to minimize that sort of thing. If I can find which ad that was I can have them remove it. Thank you for letting me know!
Just made this recipe with leftover meatballs from meatball subs. Replaced the tomatoes with all the tomato sauce from the meatballs. Turned out amazing, also tossed in some garlic scapes and carrots. Very very pleased with the result!!
Yum! Sounds awesome! Thank you for your review.
Made this and loved it. Thanks for the recipe!
Mine turned out delicious but a bit too watery for my liking. Will cut back on the broth next time and for now I’m cooking extra rice on the stove to add and soak up some of the unwanted liquid.
Perfect! I’m a Home Health Aide, and I made this for my client today. We both LOVED this dish! I will be making this again!! Thank you! Jesus will be returning soon, btw. It’s time to read our bibles!
I’m so glad, Sherry. Thank you for all that you do to take care of others.
I’m thinking of trying the radical experiment of leaving out the rice and dumping in some cauliflower “rice” at the end. Probably be a bit soupy unless I cut down on the liquid (but don’t want the instant pot to dry out either). If I get up the energy to try this, I’ll let you know how it comes out.
That sounds great! Yes, do cut down on the liquid quite a bit.
I went and did it. Used just two cups of beef broth (no rice) and after everything finished and I released the pressure, I dumped in a half bag of frozen cauliflower rice (about 10 oz) I had left from a previous experiment with cauliflower. I think it came out very nice. Pretty flavorful, and I don’t seem to miss the real rice. Might be better consistency with just 1 cup of broth, but I didn’t want the instant pot to overheat due to too little liquid. Now I’ve got lunch for the rest of the week in containers in the fridge.
That is such a great low carb option! I agree that less broth would keep that “casserole” consistency. Thank you for letting me know!
Thank you for this delicious recipe!! My whole family loved it!! I’m fairly new to using the instapot, and the step by step directions were great! Thanks for all the recommendations! They were greatly appreciated!! Thanks for sharing this!! Yum!!!
This is five star and my future changes will be to add some green peppers and diced carrots. Awesome!
Love this recipe. Made slight modification. Used ground turkey, 1.5 cups of low sodium chicken broth and added cauliflower rice at end instead of rice. For WW followers came to 4 pts/serving.
Thank you.
5 out of 5 stars!
I was so pleasantly surprised at how wonderful this recipe turned out! I followed the recipe exactly, and when it was done in the instant pot, I spread the mixture into a greased 9 x 13 baking dish, topping it with sauerkraut, salt and pepper. I baked it for an additional hour at 350 degrees. So delicious! Thank you, it is definitely a keeper!
Omg this was amazing and so easy to make.
Would liquid and timing adjust if using medium grain rice? Also, if rice us not added, would I still need to use 3 1/2 cups of broth?
I think the rice to water ratio stays the same. If not using rice, I would decrease the liquid by 1 or 1 1/2 cups.
The cabbage cooked into mush. I would cook it for just 2 minutes if I make it again.
I like a soft cabbage, so yes, you will want to cook it less time. Just enough so that the rice is cooked.
This was excellent. We used potatoes instead of rice because 1) my husband loves potatoes and 2) they really needed cooked soon. It tasted wonderful and we absolutely loved it!
What a fabulous idea! Well done!
I made this pretty much exactly as the recipe says, except I never add sugar to savory recipes (I assume this is done because of the tomatoes, but I’ve never understood that). Anyway, it was very good. I will definitely make this again. I might try turkey next time, but the only thing I might change is slightly more spices (except salt) because that’s more to my taste. I also put some hot sauce on top when I ate mine – YUM!!!
OUTSTANDING! Added two hot italian sausage links and one extra can of tomatoes as suggested by others. Hubby and I were amazed! Oddly I cannot rate this recipe but it is a keeper!
I just made this recipe. I did cut back slightly on the salt in the cooking time & after cooking added a bit more balsamic vinegar. Very tasty & easy. I used a 6 qt Instant Pot. All of the ingredients were cooked perfectly. I was a little concerned for the cabbage but it was fine. I did not rinse the rice so the extra starch made a sort of thickened sauce. I will use this recipe again. Thank you!
would i double this for an 8 quart? thanks so much
You don’t have to, but you can if it fits safely.
This is amazing. My partner loves cabbage rolls and while I like them well enough, they never seem worth all the time and effort (and since I’m the one that does the cooking, that’s a key issue for me). This recipe is perfect though! All the great flavors with absolutely none of the hassle. So easy and delicious…definitely getting added to the rotation!