Cabbage rolls are a delicious and nutritious dish that contains only healthy products. They are also prepared for various minced meat, for which, in addition to rice, vegetables, fish, mushrooms or meat can be used. In the classic version, cabbage rolls are made with minced meat and rice and meat, their calorie content is low, but if you follow a strict low-calorie diet, you can try to keep the number of calories to a minimum.
Recipe for classic cabbage rolls
To make stuffed cabbage according to the classic recipe, you will need:
- 250 g minced pork;
- 250 g ground beef;
- 0.5 kg of white cabbage;
- 1 carrot;
- 1 onion;
- 1 glass of rice;
- 30 g of olive oil;
- 1 large tomato;
- 15 g tomato paste;
- salt;
- black and red ground pepper;
- fresh herbs.
Salt, pepper and other spices do not contain any calories.
To analyze how you can reduce the calorie content of cabbage rolls prepared according to the classic recipe without significantly deteriorating their taste, you need to know the technology of their preparation. If we consider the composition of the products, the calorie content of 100 g of cabbage rolls will be about 145 kcal per 100 g. The main part of calories falls on pork and ground beef - 33 and 27% each, respectively, white rice - 17%, olive oil - 11% and cabbage - 7 %.
In terms of technology, it's pretty simple. Grind beef and pork in a meat grinder. Pour vegetable oil into a preheated pan and fry finely chopped onions on it until golden brown, then add carrots grated on a coarse grater. After the carrots and onions are fried, a finely chopped tomato is placed in the pan, all the vegetables are slightly stewed, then half of them should be separated and added to the minced meat, in the second part you need to put the tomato sauce, stir and set aside the pan - this frying will be added to the sauce when cooking stuffed cabbage.
Boiled rice, salt, pepper and finely chopped greens should also be added to the minced meat. After that, the finished minced meat is wrapped in cabbage leaves, which are slightly boiled before these, so that they do not break when twisted. Then the cabbage rolls should be folded into a pan in layers, put the frying on top of them, pour a little water so that it slightly covers the top layer of the cabbage rolls, and salt it.
From the moment of boiling, cabbage rolls should be simmered over low heat for 25-30 minutes.
How can you reduce calorie content
As you can see, the surest way to significantly reduce the amount of calories in cabbage rolls is to use, for example, ground chicken or ground turkey. The calorie content of stuffed cabbage, for the preparation of which minced chicken will be used, will be only 108 kcal, and if turkey replaces the pork and beef, the calorie content of the dish will be 115 kcal. There is no substitute for rice in this recipe, leave this ingredient unchanged.
Another way to reduce the calorie content of classic cabbage rolls is to refuse frying. In this case, grind the onion with the meat and add grated carrots to the minced meat without frying it. If you change the recipe in this way, the calorie content of the dish will be 127 kcal. Well, in the case when you use minced chicken and refuse to fry, your cabbage rolls will be the lowest in calories - one 100 g cabbage roll will contain only 92 kcal.
