Braised Red Cabbage with Apple and Walnuts
Braised Red Cabbage and Apple with Walnuts is a dish that should appear on every Christmas dinner table. Find out how to make it below.
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The perfect accompaniment for Christmas dinner
As long as I can remember, Braised Red Cabbage has had a place on our table on Christmas day. It adds a real pop of colour to the table when lots of the other dishes being served are brown and beige! And with that vivid pink/purple colour, also comes a tonne of flavour.
Braised Red Cabbage and Apple with Walnuts has a sharp, tangy flavour that is mellowed slightly with sugar and spice. That tart flavour cuts through the turkey, pigs in blankets and roast potatoes piled high on your plate. The toasted walnuts provide some welcome crunch!
If that hasn’t convinced you that it deserves a place on your Christmas table, did you know red cabbage is also one of the most nutritious cabbages? It contains ten times more vitamin A and twice as much iron as the traditional green type. At a time of year when we are all gorging on mince pies and glugging mulled wine, a little bit of red cabbage can do us some good! So make sure you pile it high on your plate this Christmas.
How to make Braised Red Cabbage and Apple with Walnuts
Braising is a cooking technique that has lots of uses in the kitchen. It’s a combination of using wet heat and dry heat. First you sautée the red cabbage on a high heat, you then add your liquid, cover the pan and turn the heat down for the remainder of the cooking time. By cooking the red cabbage in this way it gets slightly sweet and caramelised on the outside and retains it’s structure once better when you add the liquid. No one wants soggy cabbage!
Apple is a traditional addition to red cabbage. You don’t need to choose a fancy variety. Any eating apple will do. In fact, I think eating apples work better than cooking apples which, in my opinion, breakdown too quickly.
Although cider or apple juice might seem like the obvious choice for this recipe, the braising liquid I prefer to use is port. It’s more traditional and has the sharpness of the apple but the sweetness of the red cabbage.
Last but not least we need to add our sugar spices. The sugar I prefer to use is light brown sugar as it has more of a caramel flavour. As for the spices, they are the usual spices you’d expect in any Christmas recipe: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg. A little of these goes a long way. Taste and adjust if you think it needs a little more.
The recipe
Braised Red Cabbage with Apple and Walnuts
Ingredients
- 75 g walnuts toasted and roughly chopped
- 1 red cabbage
- 1 red onion thinly sliced
- 2 apples peeled, cored and grated
- 75 g brown sugar
- 75 ml red wine vinegar
- 150 ml port
- 0.5 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- In a dry frying pan, toast the walnuts until their aroma is released. Remove them from the pan and place to one side.
- Remove any tough outer leaves then cut the cabbage into, then slice.
- Add the cabbage to the pan along with the remaining ingredients and season well.
- Bring the liquid in the pan to a simmer, then cover with a lid.
- Lower the heat and cook for 1.5 hrs stirring only occasionally.
- Remove the lid and continue cooking for 30 mins until tender and all the liquid has been absorbed or evaporated.
Nutrition
Make it ahead
One of the best things about this dish is that it can be made a day or two before.
If you don’t want to spend all of Christmas morning cooking then I recommend making dishes like this and my Sourdough Bread Sauce at least a day in advance. All you need to do is gently reheat them before serving. Simple.
More Christmas dinner recipes
Sourdough Bread Sauce
Root Vegetable Gratin
For the full range of festive recipes on the blog, check out the Christmas recipe archive.
Merry Christmas everyone!