EASY and HEALTHY Vegan Tomato Cabbage Soup

Get hungry because this cabbage soup recipe is so good. It originally became popular as a diet soup because it's full of cabbage that can become a diuretic and help you lose weight, but at the same time it's such a flavorful soup that I just started making it over and over again for non-diet reasons. So this recipe is made with simple ingredients, lots of cabbage, so much flavor and a little bit of heat from cayenne pepper. I think you're really going to enjoy this recipe, so let me show you how to make it. So the soup starts like many other soups with mirepoix, which is onions, celery, and carrots. We're going to go ahead and get chopping. Once we've got the onions chopped and we're crying a little bit, we're going to go ahead and heat up some olive oil and add the onions to the heated pot. Now we'll go ahead and chop the celery. And time for the carrots. And let's throw the carrots in there. Now we want to cook those veggies for five to seven minutes until they're softened and a little bit translucent. Now anytime I'm chopping vegetables and I have scraps like this, like the outer layers of onions, the ends of carrots, the leafy parts of celery, I just like to throw them all in this little freezer garbage bag is what I call it. So in here I've just got like ends of herbs, lots of onions, carrots, and celery as well. And this is wonderful for making vegetable stock or chicken stock. So I always keep this in my freezer. And if I'm ever, you know, making some chicken broth, I just throw a handful of this stuff in the pot and it makes it so flavorful. While the veggies are sautéing, I'm going to go ahead and chop up a small head of cabbage. And I like to keep the cabbage pretty long and thin. They're just going to shrink in the soup anyways. I like to just kind of keep them thin like this so they just give more texture to the soup. Actually, video Matt brings up a good point. He saw me just toss the end of the cabbage and he's like, what about the freezer trash for the cabbage? So my rule is I actually don't keep the cruciferous vegetable heads because they can be really bitter and they can create a very bitter broth if you ever were to use them. So those I do toss. OK, so the veggies are looking pretty soft and this is the time where I like to add the garlic because the veggies have kind of softened a little bit and the garlic is not going to burn from the initial cook. You can mince the garlic or I like to use my handy dandy little garlic press. And let's do two cloves of garlic. OK, this is also a really good time to go ahead and start seasoning the soup. I like to season soup in layers. So every time I add a group of vegetables or a group of pasta or cabbage or whatever, I'm adding another layer of seasoning. And this is what ensures that it tastes well rounded and perfectly flavorful. We'll start with some salt, black pepper, oregano, and cayenne pepper. Feel free to adjust the cayenne pepper to add more or less depending on the spice level that you can tolerate. And we're just going to cook the spices and garlic along with the veggies for one more minute until it's nice and fragrant. All right, let's go ahead and add some diced tomatoes right along with their juices. Some diced tomatoes also come with like basil or garlic or they're fire roasted. You can also use those varieties if you like. And for some added tomatoey flavor and color and substance, I like to use tomato paste. It has a nice umami flavor that really just adds great depth to this cabbage soup. So we'll add about four ounces from this can. And if you didn't have time to make vegetable broth like most people, I honestly don't have a lot of time to make it. But most of the time I'll just buy some carton vegetable broth and we can add four cups of this to the soup. Since we like to season our soup in layers, this is a really good opportunity to add more salt and pepper. Give it another good mix. Once we see that boil, we can go ahead and add the cabbage to the soup. And just remember that the cabbage is going to shrink in the soup, so feel free to add more if you'd like. I think half a head of a large cabbage or one small cabbage works really well. So here we've got about a medium or a large cabbage and it's looking pretty full. At this point, I'm going to add a little bit more salt and pepper to season that cabbage that we just added to the pot. And we'll close the lid and simmer for 20 minutes. All right, it's been 20 minutes and the soup is looking so good and flavorful. The cabbage is nice and soft. All the veggies are beautifully soft and tender as well. And we're ready to go ahead and scoop some of this into a bowl. And then since it's been cooking for so long, I love to hit it with some fresh herbs as soon as it's done cooking. So I'm just going to add some fresh parsley and time for a bite. Make sure to get all the veggies in there. It is warm. It is hearty. It's a little bit spicy from that cayenne pepper. And I think you're absolutely going to love it. This is such a staple recipe for me to make all year round. It has very simple ingredients. It's vegan. It's hearty. It's easy to make. And everybody absolutely loves it, even the kids. I hope you guys try the recipe and love it. If you like this video and you enjoyed it, please share it with friends and family. And I'll see you guys next time.