Spiced Red Cabbage

Spiced red cabbage is a colourful side dish served on festive menus all over Ireland. It's a combination of shredded red cabbage, chopped onion, apples and warm spices.

It's cooked low and slow in the oven to allow the warming spices to infuse the cabbage. Sweetened with apples and brown sugar, red wine vinegar and melted butter form the cooking liquid for this Irish cabbage dish.

Table of Contents

Sweet, Spicy and Savory Side Dish

This creates a sweet, spicy and sticky sauce to take cabbage to the next level of deliciousness.

This side dish is the perfect accompaniment to any festive main course, including turkey, ham or pork dishes.

And best of all, any leftovers are scrumptious too. They can be served cold, tossed in a little olive oil - just perfect with cold cuts of meat, on a salad or served with cheese or pâté.

My favorite is to add a dollop of spiced red cabbage on the side with bangers and mash. The flavor and texture combination is spot on in my book.

Braised Cabbage - A Festive Side in Ireland

The great thing about spiced red cabbage is that it can be made in advance. In fact the flavors only improve with time.

You can make spiced red cabbage up to two days in advance. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

It can be reheated gently in a crock pot or in a low heat oven. Easy, peasy cooking for any festive get together.

Cabbage is a favorite ingredient in Irish cooking. We've cooked green cabbage Irish style in the past, plus we've also sautéed cabbage in a skillet.

But today's recipe is a festive favorite - braised red cabbage that's cooked with spices in the oven.

So let's get to it, and cook up some Irish style red cabbage.

Ingredients for Braised Red Cabbage

Here's what you'll need to make the festive Irish side dish. You'll find exact quantities in the printable recipe at the end of the page.

• red cabbage
• red onion (peeled, cored and finely chopped)
• Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
• garlic (finely minced)
• light brown sugar
• ground nutmeg
• cinnamon
• ground cloves
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• red wine vinegar
• butter

Here's how you assemble these ingredients for this delicious side dish..

Cooking Directions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Faherenheit.

This cabbage casserole is cooked low and slow for an extended period of time to allow all the flavors develop.

Prepare the red cabbage and vegetables

Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage and discard.

Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the hard inner stalk.

Cut the quarters of cabbage into slices to create thin shreds of cabbage.

Layer the ingredients in a greased casserole dish

Grease a large 13 x 9-inch casserole dish with butter.

Add a layer of shredded cabbage to the bottom (use half the cabbage).

Top with half of the chopped onions and apples.

Mix the spices, salt and pepper together.

Sprinkle half on top of the layers of fruit and vegetables in the casserole.

Sprinkle half the minced garlic on this layer and half of the brown sugar.

Repeat the layering with the remaining cabbage, onion, apples, garlic, brown sugar, and spices.

Pour the red wine vinegar over the cabbage casserole and dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Low and slow cooking

Cover with a tight lid or foil. Cook very slowly in the oven for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Stir once or twice during the cooking.

Never rush the cooking of this cabbage dish - low heat is key to success.

Remove from the oven and transfer to a warmed serving dish. Cool slightly before serving.

Recipe Card for Irish Style Spiced Red Cabbage

Here's a short video celebrating spiced cabbage...

Here's the printable recipe card for your kitchen files. You can toggle between US and Metric equivalents for the ingredient quantities.

Plus you can choose to print this recipe card with or without images.

I hope you enjoy this festive Irish side dish.

Happy holiday cooking!