Healthy, hearty cabbage soup with potatoes and pancetta is easy to make and is sure to fill you up and warm you up.
One day I was driving around with the top down on my car and the next I’m in Uggs and a down jacket. The colder weather has set in – with lots of rain lately. So soup is a must. Last week, I made broccoli cheddar, a favorite in our house. But this week, I decided to try something new (largely due to the abundance of cabbage from my Dreyer Farms CSA…). So I made cabbage soup.
This is not the watery cabbage soup that Charlie Bucket probably ate in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Instead, it’s thick and rich, loaded with potatoes, carrots, onion and pancetta. I puree some of it with an immersion blender to make it even thicker (one of my all-time favorite soup tricks). It only takes minutes to make too which is a big plus.
Here are our favorite soups:
- Broccoli cheddar soup
- Creamy corn chowder
- Parmesan soup (my kids’ favorite!)
- Instant Pot baked potato soup
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 4 oz. diced pancetta
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 6 cups chicken, vegetable or pork stock
- 2 carrots, diced
- 4 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 1 small head of cabbage, chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- ⅛ tsp. ground allspice
- ¼ tsp. dried marjoram
- ¼ tsp. smoke paprika (or more to taste)
- 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
- In a pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook until fat is rendered and pancetta is browned. With a slotted spoon, transfer pancetta to a dish.
- Add the onion to the pan and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir until the tomato paste has melted into the soup. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until potatoes are soft and cabbage is cooked, about 10 minutes.
- Discard bay leaf.
- Transfer about ⅓ of the soup to a bowl and puree with an immersion blender. Pour if back into the pot and stir. (This will thicken the soup). Stir the cooked pancetta back into the soup and season to taste with salt and pepper.
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