Easy Fast Recipe for Southern Cabbage
Here is your NO MEAT, quick recipe for Southern Cabbage. It has the seasonings flavor of onions and basic spices.
About Recipe for Southern Cabbage
This recipe for Southern cabbage has a lot of flexibility and is easy and quick to make. It can be without meat, as onions and bacon are optional. Vegetable oil can be a substitute if you don’t want to cook fried cabbage in bacon drippings. It has unbelievably good flavors as all the ingredients meld together perfectly.
Recipe for Southern Cabbage – 20 Minutes
Ingredients
- ½ medium cabbage cut in lge. chunks
- ½ medium sweet onion, diced small
- 2 tbsp bacon drippings or vegetable oil
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 1 tsp dark brown sugar
Instructions
- Cutup ½ head of cabbage into large chunks and dice the onion. Heat up the skillet to medium-high and add the bacon drippings (or oil) to the bottom of the skillet.½ medium cabbage, ½ medium sweet onion, diced small, 2 tbsp bacon drippings
- Add the cabbage chunks and diced onions to the heated skillet. and sprinkle the salt, pepper, and sugar evenly across it. Begin to cook and turn the cabbage initially to coat it with the melted drippings/oil and to distribute the spices.½ tsp salt, ½ tsp Ground Black Pepper, 1 tsp dark brown sugar
- Cook for about 5 minutes, turning the cabbage a couple of times. If needed, add 2 tbsp. of water. Turn the heat down to medium and cover the skillet for about 3 minutes.
- Turn heat down to medium-low. Again, if needed, add up to 2 tbsp. of water. Turn the cabbage once . Cover and cook for about 5 more minutes, or until done.

Recipe for Southern Fried Cabbage Onion and Bacon
When you make this fried cabbage with bacon and onions recipe, you’ll be the hit of the home for those that already like cooked cabbage. For those that are just okay about eating cabbage, this is the single recipe that will win them over.




Recipe for Southern Fried Cabbage with Bacon
If you want to have fried cabbage and bacon instead of just bacon drippings, it’s easier if you cut up 3 slices of bacon in pieces and then cook them. That way, you just add the cabbage and spices immediately after that. When I have no bacon drippings, I will typically just cook bacon to solve that problem. It also happens to add in the extra bacon pieces as well, which is an added bonus.
This recipe is listed on our Dinner Ideas for Christmas Eve article, where you’ll also see other traditional and non-traditional fun recipes for main courses, sides, appetizers, salads, and breads.
Fried Cabbage with Onions
This recipe for fried cabbage and onions is fantastic. In the unusual time you don’t have enough or any onions, you can opt for using onion powder. Under normal circumstances, this recipe calls for onions as a minimum and you can even increase the amount of onions added if you want to.
Fried Cabbage No Meat
Of all the recipes for fried cabbage, you can make it without meat, if you choose to. This is actually a fried cabbage recipe with no bacon and doesn’t call for any meat but, it does call for bacon drippings, which you can change that to vegetable oil if you like. When I don’t have bacon grease drippings or bacon, I opt for using peanut oil but you can use any oil of your choosing.
Seasoning for Fried Cabbage
The spices for cooked cabbage are actually very basic and common in every kitchen. This particular cooked cabbage recipe calls for just salt and pepper but it does have a small amount of brown sugar also. Now, if you don’t have brown sugar, you can combine the regular sugar just a minute amount, maybe 1/4 tsp of molasses, as an alternate.
What Goes with Southern Fried Cabbage?
There are a lot of recipes for cabbage that have sausage in them. So, Polish Sausage or Kielbasa could be the preferred main course item that goes real well with cooked cabbage. Another option would be Brats, Little Smokies Stove Top Recipe, or pan fried fish.
Also, here’s a main course recipe you might like perfectly with a side of cabbage: Ham with Scalloped Potatoes Casserole.
Now, if you have Southern Fried Cabbage as a key course, or as part of a vegetable dinner, you could match it with sides like baked beans, loaded baked potatoes, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread muffins. Here’s an easy recipe for white rice, which is another good side dish that goes well with cabbage.
Health Benefits of Cabbage
Cooked cabbage is real good for Vitamin K. And, it’s also known for helping fight the negative effects of radiation therapy. It also helps towards forms of cancer prevention and heart health. All of these health benefits of cabbage are from Medical News Today in their article “The Health Benefits of Cabbage“. The nutritional values are shown in the <Print Recipe> option.
Where is Cabbage From?
Many articles basically say it’s not known exactly because of the many names used for cabbage in other countries. Also, the many types of cabbage further complicates the matter of defining a single source.
One key site tried to portray that it originated in Europe about 2,000-3000 years ago so there’s that. However, I was formerly in the both Korean and Japanese martial arts for 25 years and met many individuals of various Asian cultures, including Chinese. And, I was active in the food industry at the time so, I can attest it did not originate in Europe. Even the cabbage in Europe at that early time was of the”headless” type as was elsewhere.
There is some information regarding the name “Choy” for cabbage, and its histories. You’ve seen”Bok Choy” in the grocery stores, which is also sometimes called “Chinese Cabbage”. The prevailing information indicates about 4,000 B.C. (about 7,000 years ago) in Northern China as the probable source.
We must also be aware the maps of the world were different back then and Korea used to be much larger than it is today. It included many areas of today’s China in the distant past. So, the geographical reference to northern China might be China of today or known as another country back then. However, this cabbage origination period is very much prior to that so, it remains as northern China. “Vegetable Facts” talks about the history of Cabbage.
And, here’s some good info if you want to grow your own Cabbage.
Conclusion
So, we’ve covered a lot of aspects of and variations of how to cook Southern fried cabbage with bacon and onions, and also without meat. Enjoy exploring with this recipe to suit your own cooking styles. As a final tip, you can spice it up further and add 1/4 tsp of cayenne red pepper if you want to add a little heat to it.