Exciting new levels of sautéed cabbage enjoyment are here! The humble cruciferous vegetable combines beautifully with chopped kale and soft butter beans in this 1-pan recipe. This vegan dish is loaded with aromatics like shallots, dried thyme, and garlic. The finishing touch is a creamy and dreamy stone ground mustard cream. You get the soft cabbage, bright green and tender kale, silky butter beans for protein, and the lush sauce. I top mine off with crunchy toasted almonds. This works as a veg side or as a main with some crusty bread. Served warm straight out of the skillet, this is a homey and vegan weeknight dinner delight!
Sometimes I like to do a nice sauté of vegetables and beans, add a complimentary sauce and some garnishes, and then call that dinner for the night. After trying this combination with a straggly cabbage on a whim one evening, I knew that it needed further recipe testing so that a final dish could debut here. It’s that good! Sometimes my winter veg game gets a little tired, so this is a fun way to shake it up.
I love the flavour of cruciferous vegetables with mustard and a hint of maple. It’s a cold weather dream in my opinion. For a delightful finishing touch, I have you quickly whip up a mustard “cream” (cashew based) to drizzle over the finished dish. This is not my most glamorous looking dish, but the flavours are so pleasant in these cold months!
The cabbage takes about 15 minutes to soften up in the skillet. You don’t have to hover over it the whole time though! Leaving it alone ensures that you get some extra brown bits and caramelization, which is where the flavour is. Once the cabbage is good, we hit it with a sparkle of apple cider vinegar and then add the kale and butter beans. Kale takes about 4-5 minutes to wilt, and then we’re ready to serve!
Drizzle the veg and beans with the mustard cream, top with the chopped almonds and extra black pepper. Spoon all of that sautéed cabbage goodness on crusty bread? This is my idea of vegetable heaven.
More cabbage appreciation:
- Vegan Chopped Cabbage Roll Skillet
- Oven-Roasted Cabbage Wedges with Caper Raisin Relish
- Smoky Chickpea, Cabbage & Lentil Soup with Kale
- Grilled Cabbage Steaks with Jalapeño Chimichurri
Sautéed Cabbage, Kale & Butter Beans with Mustard Cream
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup raw cashews, soaked for at least 2 hours and drained
- ⅔ cup water
- 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
- ½ teaspoon maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon Tamari
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium shallot, halved & thinly sliced (about ½ cup sliced shallot)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ medium green cabbage, cored & chopped (about 600 grams)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 3 cups chopped kale, packed
- 1 ½ cups cooked butter beans, drained & rinsed (from one 15.5oz/458 ml can)
- ¼ cup toasted almond slices, roughly chopped
Equipment
Notes
- Red cabbage will sub in fine here, but it will look a little grey by the end of the cooking process. Just warning you!
- Cashews can be replaced with pine nuts, raw sunflower seeds, raw sliced almonds, or macadamia nuts (soak at least 8 hours).
- I use about ¾ of the mustard cream when I make this! That makes it creamy enough for me. I use the remainder on a salad or grain bowl later on in the week.
Instructions
- Make the mustard cream. In an upright blender, combine the drained cashews, water, nutritional yeast, stone ground mustard, maple syrup, Tamari, and a pinch of salt. Blend this mixture on high until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute Set aside.
- Place a large skillet on the stove over medium heat. Once hot, pour in the olive oil and swirl it around. Add the shallots and sauté until translucent and a bit soft, about 5 minutes. If they’re browning too fast, lower the heat. Add the garlic and dried thyme and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the chopped cabbage and season with salt and pepper.
- Sauté the cabbage, uncovered, for about 12-15 minutes, stirring it up here and there. The cabbage should be soft, browned in spots, and tender. You mostly want to leave it alone to get that nice caramelization! Once the cabbage is tender, stir in the apple cider vinegar and scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the skillet.
- Add the chopped kale and butter beans, and stir to combine. Pop a lid on top to get some steam going. Once the kale is wilted, bright green, and tender–about 5 minutes–you’re good to go! Season again with salt and pepper.
- Add ½ of the mustard cream to the skillet and stir. Take a taste and add more of the cream if you like. Also adjust the seasoning if necessary here (more salt, pepper, vinegar). Serve the sautéed cabbage, kale, and butter beans hot with chopped almonds and extra black pepper on top.
So delicious! I added some shredded carrots to the cabbage and finished the dish with some fresh basil and parsley. Total winner dinner! Thank you Laura!
Followed the recipe to the T and it was really delicious! Perfect winter meal. Even my partner (who is very suspicious of everything vegan) said it was good, which is basically a miracle.
Really delicious and unlike anything I’ve made before! The sauce is awesome, good delicate flavor, and really sold me on cashew cream (I’m not strictly vegan). Heads up to others that I was able to get away with a shorter soaking time using a Vitamix!
I need to make this again and actually follow the recipe properly. It was good, but I didn’t make the cashew cream mustard, instead I made a cream sauce with mustard using whole milk (clearly I’m not vegan) and it was quite bland. But I loved the carmelized cabbage, beans, and greens.
Just discovered this website and am pretty exciting about lots of things I want to try. Pickle soup tomorrow!
Such a great meal! I am maybe a little extra and added more mustard and more vinegar to make things punchier. The cabbage and kale combo with this creamy sauce is delightful! Perfect for a winter evening. Oh, and the almonds are the perfect touch! Thanks, Laura!!
This recipe was AMAZING in every way!! So delicious! I used fagouli beans because of their creaminess and subbed baby spinach and kale for the kale YUMMO
We’ve been snowed/iced in at home for going on 8 days, so I didn’t have all the produce to follow this recipe exactly as written. However, I thought I could get close enough with what I had. The substitutions I made were 1/4 of a green cabbage+1/2 a head of radicchio. I subbed the butter beans for Christmas lima beans, and I used a baby spinach/chard mix instead of kale. It turned out pretty tasty with those modifications, but I’ll definitely be making it again when I have all the correct veg. The mustard cream definitely makes the dish. Thanks for another stellar plant-based recipe, Laura!
Delicious recipe!
This looks AMAZING!! I can’t wait to try it! Is there any way you can provide a nutritional breakdown? I need to limit my potassium intake and wasn’t sure if this recipe would comply with a low potassium diet…or if some modifications may be needed… thanks for any guidance and for the great recipes!!
Hi Molly,
I do not provide nutritional information on my recipes just because I don’t love seeing the calorie and fat, sugar, carb etc numbers here. I enjoy eating for pleasure and try to extend that way of living to all visitors of the site. With that said, I do understand that lots of folks have dietary guidelines that they absolutely need to follow for their best health! I would recommend checking out one of the free food tracking apps that are available, such as My Fitness Pal or Lose It. From there, you can plug in the core ingredients and it should give you an approximate nutrition table for your consideration.
-L
Beautiful-sounding recipe, which I look forward to making this weekend. Love cabbage (which definitely does not get enough attention or appreciation, in general), love mustard….will come back with a review. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
This is going to be supper tonight, but will have to use a different bean! It s so hard to find dried lima beans now. Where do you find yours? (On the off chance there’s a similar source in BC)?
For tonight I’ll sub in pinto beans because they seem to be the silkiest.
I buy the dried large lima/butter beans by Cedar brand! I can usually find Eden brand canned butter beans, but once you make them from dried it’s hard to go back. They’re much larger and so much creamier.
-L
Yes, I used Royal Corona Rancho Gordo beans, and they are superb in this dish!