Stuffed cabbage - gołąbki - recipe

we cook cabbage rollls in a convection oven.

Just intersperse the layers of gołąbki with a thin (1/2 cm) layer of sauerkraut and proceed as usual. It gives the gołąbki a touch of added zing. Bottom of pan and top of top layer of gołąbki should be covered with sauerkraut.

That sounds good-we'll have to give it a try next time we make a batch.

You can also stuff them with roadkill. Dead rats have the best flavor, however if the roadkill has been there on the road for a while, runned over at least 10.000.000.000.000 times, it adds that zesty flavor to it.

Krysia, It's got to be a special recipe... Right? I never seen a killed rat on the road even more - ran over multiple times, but I did see lots and lots of raccoons. Do you think I can substitute? It sounds scrumptious. LOL.

Kidding aside, stuffed cabbage done right rocks! It's gotta have mushroom sauce, forget the tomato or even worse - ketchup.

My mom would always make them with tomato sauce and of course delicious then when i had them years later in mushroom sauce, i thought OMFG where have you been all my life!

it's extra good with a bunch of fresh chopped parsley mixed in with your rice and beef.

Many PolAms use minced beef or even suety hamburger in their gołąbki. To the Polish palate, pork or pork & veal are far superior. If you use the so-called meatloaf mixture available in many supermarkets (pork-veal-beef), that can be quite nice too. Whaddya think?

I can handle a bit of bacon but too much pork always lands me a big zit on my right shoulder and often diarrhea so I like to stay away from it. I used to love spare ribs (pork) as a kid but after several years of not eating pork it was not possible to enjoy the flavor anymore and i have no idea why.. but pork, if you don't eat a lot of it, has a horrid taste compared to beef.

hows that for an answer?

the best 'beef' I've had lately is the Buffalo burger they've been selling at our local supermarket, excellent stuff. Probably because it's grazed instead of raised in a stall eating corn.

Weird! Very ... er... specific condition ?!


Both pork and chicken are basically almost tasteless on their own - they need to be prepared with spices/seasonings/sauces etc.

With red meat, you don't need to - unless you really want to.

honestly.. I don't think so since my daughter experiences the same thing and it was we 2 who agreed and said 'NO MORE PORK!!'

just guessing but my guess is that eating pork requires some adjustment and if you eat lots of it, most likely you've adjusted.

Raccoon probably is a suitable replacement. Both raccoons and pigs seek garbage to eat.

back to our meal.. I like the idea of sauerkraut added in too, I will definitely try that. I have a few jars of kraut in the fridge, been fermenting in there since October of 2009 and it still tastes great. amazing stuff, sauerkraut.


My grandfather had a superb polish sausage recipe, mixed pork and beef and all spiced up, it was excellent after being in the smoker for a day. Kielbasa!

we cook them in pressure cooker

I went to a graduation this summer with the original way of making these, and I found it
to be way to loose and dry, maybe he used to much minced hamburger, to tell you the truth
I usually can tell whats in them.. but they just didnt look right, they were ok, but I would
have preferred a more saucy tomato taste vs the minced, I guess I was just used to what
mom made growing up.

This post is Awesome!! My great aunt used to make these when I was little and I couldn't get enough of them. However, no one told me what they were (Golabki!). I am so glad I came upon this!!!

T-h-a-n-k-s!

Quote Polonius3-

yeah I think I am going to try your recipe Vs my moms.. she used the tomato soup, I have
seen various versions of it..

what I would like to know is what is the very first original recipe, without the cans :)

I am sure this took much longer :)

My mom has used that method in the past. It sure makes the cabbage a lot more tender :)

Is it just me or is the best part of this the cabbage that is used to line and cover the cabbage rolls?

We used to eat that but we called it gawumpki (phonetic spelling). Is it the same thing?

Yes, in fact it's very close to the actual pronunciation of the word "gołąbki'.

Sometimes I make it the lazy way and just sautee the boiled cabbage with the ground beef, onions and tomato sauce. I get so frustrated rolling the darn cabbage I need it to look perfect but then I realized it all gets mushed up in the end. lol

Well, before then invented canned tomato sauce, what was used, was it without the tomato sauce or just sourkraut?

Just the juice that gathers in the pan when baking the whole thing. Or you can add some sour cream to it to make sauce. Or mushroom sauce from fresh or dried mushrooms.

Nice. My grandmother used to make them tiny - half the standard size, filled with loose pork + rice + mushrooms + herbs or whatever, and served them with a bit of melted lard with cracklings poured on the top. I hated the boring standard heavy cannonball of beef/pork stuffing with tomato sauce - as they served it in our high school dormitory almost once every two weeks, and everywhere else where I tried since then.

I will be making some in the next week or so here, prob my next weekend off, and I will be
making a double batch one for our family ( cause my oldest brother is a monster when I cook them)
And send some to him, plus one of our friends who just re-modeled my kitchen ( woo hoo)

I think I will make them both ways with a mushroom sauce and then maybe with the tomato juice or my original
way.. I just was curious what was the very first original recipe ( before cans) LOL

I was thinking maybe that they would cook tomatoes down and then bake them on top, but of course spice them
up some, I know when you bake tomatoes the flavor changes ( pretty tasty) Vs putting them in a pot and cooking
them down ( which I have made a homemade spagettie sauce from my garden tomatoes and it was awsome, my daughters
friends asked me what kind of sauce I used from a jar and I said I didnt, they loved it! And it was healthy and I didnt use

harsh chemicals, only a food and ground it into the soil with that dark fine soil and yeah, they were some really good
tomatoes!!

Have never tried this, but I heard a whole head of cabbage can be frozen in the freezer. After thawing it can be used as a gołąbki wrap without the usual scalding in a pot of boiling water. The freezing supposedly softens the cabbage leaves. Anyone ever tried this?

It certainly does soften the leaves but I'm not sure if it doesn't change the taste at the same time. Could be worth a try though.


The introduction of tomatoes to popular cuisine in this part of Europe is a 20th century thing and even before WWII they weren't popular or grown in the villages. Tomato concentrate first appeared in shops in the 60s. Gołąbki are much older so originally the recipes probably used just the baking juice, with or without dried mushrooms.

Patrycja, when your gołąbki go into the oven put two or three dried mushrooms into the pan (prawdziwki are best, aren't they, Boletus?), it adds a lot to the taste.

Yes, Boletus edulis. But avoid B. calopus, B.satanas and other black sheep of the family. :-)

We used to use the same stuffing to fill bell peppers, bake until the peppers are tender, then cover with tomato sauce and bake a bit more. I've never tried the mushroom sauce, but it sounds really good!

For the recipe with sauerkruat. Extra leaves on bottom of pot, pinch of Caraway Seed and Celery Seed.
Layer of one roll with sauerkraut, next layer same, etc, etc. Top layer with sauerkraut. Fill pot to over
the rolls, add some ketsup for coloring, cover and cook for appox 1 hour.
I don't know if your grandmother made a Roux, but I'll tell you how to make one.
After one hour, take butter and flour equally in a heavy skillet and stir constantly until the Roux is a little
bit lighter then a brown, then take juice from the pot and add slowly to the Roux until you have thickened
it. Add this mixture back to the pot and cook for another 30-45 minutes.
My mom came from Poland and this has been in our family for 90 years.
People have always baked theirs, but when they have tasted these they quickly changed their minds.
Enjoy.