Keto Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

As I was perusing the Bulletproof website for new recipes to try, I came across this one for stuffed cabbage rolls. They were described as comfort food and I vaguely remember eating them as a kid, so I thought I would try it out. Plus, I love anything with a good tomato sauce on it. 

Yes, I still like printed recipes...especially when shopping

I did end up making a few changes to the recipe. Since I didn't have any bone broth ready and because it was raining and I was feeling lazy, I opted to use a jar of Rao's Arrabbiata sauce. I also couldn't find ground lamb at Bel Air, so I bought a pound of grass-fed beef. Pound for pound, lamb has more calories than beef, more on this later.

The directions for this particular recipe had me feeling a bit like I was doing a technical challenge on The Great British Baking Show. The instructions told you what to do, but I still felt like something was missing. 

For example, Step 2: "Immerse the head of cabbage in the boiling water. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until cabbage leaves are pliable."

It was a pretty good sized head of cabbage, cooking it for 5-10 minutes would clearly soften up the outer leaves, but would do nothing for the inner. I decided to peel off the outer leaves as they became pliable and then stacked them up on a plate. This ensured that the inner part of the cabbage was exposed to the hot water as well and that I didn't up with a half raw head of cabbage.

Cabbage head as the outer leaves were removed

Stacked and ready for the next step.

More Cabbage Confusion

Step 5 instructed me to "Peel 16 large leaves off the cabbage. Lay each cabbage leaf on a flat surface. Use a knife to cut a V-shaped notch to remove the thick part (stem) of the cabbage rib." No problem, other than for some of the leaves, they were practically cut in half. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to use them. I figured I would worry about that when it came time to make the rolls.

I prepared the filling ingredients and mixed them together much like meatloaf.

When it came to filling the cabbage leaves, I ended up cutting the large leaves in half and using the smaller leaves whole. This worked out well. However, I ended up with only 12 rolls instead of the 16 that the recipe was supposed to make. This was fine, the size seemed right and the extra calories per serving was offset by the lower calorie beef I used in the filling. Even if I had divided the filling in 16 portions, I would not have had enough usable cabbage leaves to wrap them.

Roughly two tablespoons of filling

Twelve rolls wrapped and ready

Final step, cover with sauce and bake

Dinner Time

The recipe said to "Cover the dish and bake for 90 minutes, or until cabbage is tender and the meat is cooked through." I ended up baking the cabbage rolls for 75 minutes.

Looks like we are having cabbage rolls for lunch tomorrow

Here is my result...if I had a ring light for my phone, I'm sure it 
would look more like the picture below

https://www.bulletproof.com/recipes/keto-recipes/keto-stuffed-cabbage-rolls/?print

Nutritional Info per Roll (If I had followed the recipe exactly as written)

• Calories: 141
• Fat: 10 g
• Protein: 7 g
• Fiber: 2 g
• Sugar: 4 g
• Carbohydrates: 7 g
• Net Carbs: 5 g
• Sodium: 156 mg

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