STOP Boiling Cabbage The OLD WAY! Try These 7 Southern Tricks for Two

This cabbage recipe for two skips the big pot of water, so your house doesn't smell of cabbage and the cabbage cooks in about seven minutes. I brown half a head in bacon drippings in a cast-iron skillet with onion, butter, a pinch of sugar and a late splash of cider vinegar. The other half of this cabbage recipe becomes roasted cabbage wedges at 450°F or raw slaw, depending on how you cut the head. Here is why the old pot smells: cabbage has compounds that turn into sulfur smells as it cooks, and the longer it cooks, the stronger the smell. An aluminum pot makes it worse, and stainless steel is the better pot if you use one at all. The real fix is a short cook, just until tender, and the skillet gives you that and the browning in the same few minutes. My half-head amounts for two: about 1¼ pounds of cabbage, four regular slices of bacon, half an onion, half a teaspoon of sugar (Taste of Home uses a teaspoon for six cups), one tablespoon of butter where the recipe has three, and one tablespoon of cider vinegar to start. The lid goes on for two or three minutes, then comes off for four or five minutes of stirring, and you test with a fork, not just the clock. The skillet tricks come from Taste of the South recipes and from my own kitchen in central Virginia. That comes to about $3 in the pan (cabbage and onion at 2023 prices, bacon at the August 2026 price), or about $1.50 a plate, against about $9 at the register for a whole head, a pack of bacon and an onion. The leftover half keeps in the refrigerator for about five days. Cut it down through the core for four wedges on a foil-lined sheet, roasted 15 to 20 minutes, or brown them in the skillet instead. Cut the whole head across the middle the day you bring it home, and the tender top becomes slaw while the bottom goes in the skillet. If supper is at a set hour, I also show you why the cabbage goes in last.