Instant Pot Cabbage: Simple and Delicious (and Vegan)!

This easy Instant Pot cabbage is a tasty and quick way to add more vegetables to your plate!

I love cooking using the Instant Pot because once you seal the lid, there’s no babysitting required, as there is with most other forms of cooking. You can just set it and forget it.

Pressure cooking your cabbage in the Instant Pot leaves the rest of your kitchen available for whatever else you’re eating.

While I also enjoy stir-fried cabbage, this recipe is especially nice when you’ve just cleaned the kitchen and don’t want to have to re-clean the oil droplets all over the stove that are the inevitable result of stir-frying.

Cabbage: Highly Nutritious and Affordable

In addition to being quite friendly on the wallet, cabbage makes a great addition to your overall diet.

Cabbage shares many of the same nutritional benefits as other cruciferous vegetables, such as Brussel sprouts and broccoli.

You can read more about the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of cabbage in this article from health.com.

What do you serve instant pot cabbage with?

Grains

Instant pot cabbage goes well with flavorful grains, such as brown rice, wild rice, and farro. Try adding mozzarella cheese (vegan or dairy, whichever you prefer) on top of your grain bowl for a more satisfying meal.

Corned Beef – Vegan or Traditional

You can also try it with my vegan corned beef, made with instant pot seitan! Whether or not it’s around St. Patrick’s Day when you read this, you can’t go wrong with a high-protein, vegan meal and a side of greens.

Cornbread

Southern recipes tend to go well together!

What size cabbage should I buy?

Honestly, any cabbage in your diet is better than none! I would say the cabbage I used was medium-sized, and most of it fit in my Lux Mini Instant Pot, but not quite all of it.

If you also have a mini Instant Pot, a small head of cabbage should fit just about perfectly.

On the other hand, if you have a full-sized Instant Pot or pressure cooker, feel free to use a large head of cabbage so you have plenty of leftovers!

I usually feel that it’s best to cook as much as you can stand chopping at once so you don’t have to cook again right away.

How long do you cook instant pot cabbage?

As always, it depends! I cooked mine for five minutes, and it was fully cooked, soft, and tender. It reminded me of the texture of cabbage in soup.

If you like your cabbage with a bit more crunch, try 3-4 minutes and see how you like it. This will more closely resemble flash fried cabbage, or cabbage stir-fried for a short amount of time.

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How to use the saute function on the instant pot

1. Add your cooking oil to the stainless steel insert pot. Leave the lid off.
2. Press the “Saute” button and wait until the display changes from “On” to “Hot.”
3. Add your aromatics – cook the diced onion for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Add in the garlic and stir again. Once fragrant, you can either turn it off until you’ve added the rest of the ingredients (or directly change it to the manual/pressure cook setting for the next step if you’re confident in how fast you can add them).

Once you’ve added the rest of the ingredients and are ready to pressure cook, seal the valve on the lid, twist it completely shut, and set it to pressure cook

Variations on this recipe and Optional Substitutions

For nights when you are short on time, feel free to skip the whole sautéing of onion and garlic parts of the recipe. You can just pressure cook the cabbage with the vegetable broth, salt, pepper, and maybe garlic powder and use your energy for other things.

If you don’t need this recipe to be vegan, feel free to use butter instead of olive oil.

I used green cabbage, but this method would work just as well with purple cabbage.

As always, feel free to experiment with seasonings you like. Try oregano, thyme, or even fresh dill – any of these herbs would go nicely with cabbage.

For a bit of a kick, add some fresh chopped jalapeño pepper. While this may not be the traditional way of cooking cabbage we are used to, it sounds really good.

Green bell pepper, carrots, and even potatoes would also make great additions here for a heartier and more flavorful side.

Related Cabbage Recipes

• You may also enjoy:
• Cabbage curry
• Tikil gomen (Ethiopian cabbage with potatoes and carrots)

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Instant Pot Cabbage Ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

Edible Ingredients

• 2/3 of a head of green cabbage (Note: if you have a full-size instant pot you can fit the whole thing. I have the Lux Mini, so only most of it fit.)
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 an onion (again, if you have a bigger pot, feel free to use the whole thing)
• 1 large clove of fresh garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional, but adds a nice zing)

Tools and Equipment

• Instant pot
• Knife and cutting board
• Measuring cups and spoons

How to Make this Easy Instant Pot Cabbage

1. To begin, wash your head of green cabbage and roughly chop it, removing the core. I aimed for approximately 1″ cubes, and let the leaves fall where they may.
2. After that, peel and dice the onion. At this point, you can peel and mince the garlic as well.
3. Then, add your olive oil to the Instant Pot and set it to “Saute.” Leave the lid off.
4. Once the display shows “Hot,” add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add the minced garlic and stir until fragrant.
5. Next, turn off the Instant Pot while you mix in your salt, pepper, and vinegar. Add the cabbage and broth, then seal the Instant Pot and pressure cook on “Manual” mode for 5 minutes (or see note above on cooking times).
6. Finally, when the 5 minutes are up, release the pressure, serve, and enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this simple instant pot cabbage recipe!