A typical German soup with savoy cabbage, ground meat, and potatoes. This is a comforting and delicious cabbage soup recipe, perfect for cold winter days.
After the Chinese-inspired Mushroom Noodle Soup and the Indian-inspired Yellow Lentil Soup (with Beef Bones), I have a German soup for you today, this German cabbage soup with ground meat and potatoes.
As mentioned above, this is a typical German soup made with cabbage, ground meat, and potatoes, there are many similar recipes to be found in the German kitchen, made with white cabbage, pointed cabbage or German kale.
I have tried many of these soups during the past years spent in Germany, and I must say I love all of them. There is something so comforting about a good, hot soup with ground meat and soft potatoes, don't you think? And cabbage is one of my favorite vegetables anyway...
A soup I would only eat in autumn and winter, I think, when it is really cold outside, nothing for the sunny days.
In summer, I would rather eat other kinds of soups, lighter ones, something like this Fish Soup with Potatoes and Garlic Sauce or this Romanian Spinach Soup with Eggs.
Recipe ingredients
- Savoy cabbage is a very popular sort of cabbage in Germany; you can buy it just about anytime and anywhere, it is cheap, and there are many traditional German recipes made with savoy cabbage. For instance, these amazing stuffed savoy cabbage rolls are so very German and so delicious!
- Or this less typical but equally delicious dish: Savoy Cabbage Cake.
- Savoy cabbage has a curly appearance, and emerald green, crunchy and tender leaves. I would say it is the prettiest sort of cabbage.
- The heads we can buy here are huge; one head of savoy cabbage would be way too much for this soup. To make things easier, I weighed the cabbage I used; it was less than half a cabbage, about 450 g/ 1 lb.
- Black pepper: The only thing I feel that I still have to mention is that you should be generous with the freshly ground black pepper, the German cabbage soup should be a bit spicy, and you should be able to taste that black pepper.
- I think that is an important part of this recipe; you should really feel the black pepper on your tongue.
How to make German Savoy cabbage soup?
- This savoy cabbage soup is very easy to make, a one-pot affair, so to say, the only “challenging” part of it is chopping all those vegetables.
- Once you've done that, there is not much work left to do, actually. Just throw everything in the pot, following the indicated succession, and wait for the soup to be done.
- You can serve the soup either as it is or with a dollop of crème fraiche/smetana/sour cream.
- The German savoy cabbage soup can be reheated; it tastes even better the next day.
Other delicious cabbage recipes
German Savoy Cabbage Soup with Ground Meat
Ingredients
- 1 lb savoy cabbage 450 g/ about ½ a not very large cabbage
- 1 lb potatoes 450 g
- 75 smoked streaky bacon preferably one thicker piece
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 lb ground meat half beef, half pork, 450 g
- 1 teaspoon sweet ground paprika
- 1 teaspoon hot ground paprika
- 8 ½ cups beef or vegetable broth 2 liter
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- small bunch of chives
- crème fraiche /smetana/sour cream to serve, optional
Instructions
- Chop the savoy cabbage into small pieces. Cut the potatoes into small cubes. Chop the bacon and the onion finely as well.
- Saute: Heat the oil in a heavy bottom soup pot. Add the bacon and the onion to the pot and let cook until the onion is translucent and some of the bacon fat has rendered. Add the ground meat and cook until brown, stirring and breaking the lumps in between.
- Add spices: Both sorts of ground paprika, salt, and pepper, and stir well.
- Add the savoy cabbage, potatoes, and beef or vegetable broth to the soup pot. Stir well, cover, leaving a small crack open, and let cook on medium-low heat for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
- Adjust the taste with salt and generously with freshly ground black pepper.
- Serve: Sprinkle with finely chopped chives and serve with a dollop of crème fraiche, if desired. The soup can be reheated; it tastes even better the next day.
Paul says
This looks so good! I love when soups come out a bit spicy, it helps a lot more to eat them on a cold weather for sure!. From the instructions, it does seem pretty simple to make. I would have to try this one day. Thanks for sharing!
Adina says
Thank you, Paul. I hope you will like it! 🙂
Sissi says
I always love to learn a new way to use ground meat! And I don't think I've had it in a soup yet... This soup looks wonderful and I am glad to see someone else emphasising the importance of a big amount of pepper in certain dishes: I know many dishes that must be spicy especially from the pepper but some people don't understand why...
Adina says
German cuisine is full of soups featuring ground meat, very hearty and delicious all of them. And many of these thick soups need a lot of pepper, chili is not very typical for old German recipes, so they had to rely on pepper for some spiciness. And it is really a different taste you get, nothing like when using chili.
Christina Turpin says
It looks absolutely fantastic! Can't wait for a cold day to try to make in in sunny Las Vegas!
Adina says
Thank you Christina. Sunny Las Vegas sounds great, here has been so cold lately, time to eat lots of soups again.
Barbara says
Hi Adina, I made this soup tonight and it was so tasty!! Thank you so much for the recipe.
I made some changes, due to lack of ingredients. So, I didn't have mince, so instead I used sausage meat (swiss farmer sausage). And I used a mix of smoked paprika, sweet paprika and cayenne pepper. I added a little crushed fennel seed too. We will be making this soup a lot this autumn and winter
Adina says
Hi Barbara. Thank you for the feedback. Sausages are a great substitution and I love the fact that you used fennel seeds, they are amazing. I also often use them for soups and when making Spanish meatballs, they add a flavor that is just out of this world. I will add them to the cabbage soup as well next time.
Amy says
Delicious soup! This ranks as the best ground beef soup I’ve ever made. I followed recipe pretty closely, only missing the chives and just used ground beef, not beef and pork mix. It was wonderful. I added fennel and cayenne pepper to make up for not having hot paprika as suggested by another commenter.
Adina says
Hi Amy. That's so great to hear! Thank you for the feedback.
Betty Sue Deitz says
It's snowing here in WNC today. I have a love one in Germany and like to practice some of their foods. I'm doing mine in a slow cooker today in high for 4 hours. It smells so good right now. Can't wait to get some out to eat. Keep the German recipes coming.
Lee Neyhart says
Do you think you could use ground Turkey with this recipe?
Adina says
Sure, ground turkey is fine.
Rachael says
Most excellent Recipe for marvelous flavors and broth!! Was looking to make something from cabbage that did not have tomatoes.. hooray and thank you. I did use bacon, just 4 thin slices, cut up so tiny, and it still took a very long time for the bacon compared to the onion and beef. The beef was a-burnin! I had to get out another pan and try again. But it is really worth it. Next time I'll just fry up some bacon by itself I think. Only had one kind of paprika. It's beautiful! Serving with cayenne and sour cream at the table. In case these people don't like cayenne. Crank that pepper mill, soup's up!
Adina says
So happy to read this. Thank you for the feedback, Rachael.