Instant Pot Cabbage and Sausage
I love cooked cabbage, and I love smoked sausage, especially with onion added, so I thought this Instant Pot cabbage and sausage recipe would be good. And boy was it! In fact, this is probably one of my all time favorites now. This recipe is also keto, low carb, and gluten free.
The recipe is quick and easy. It consists of simple ingredients: cabbage, smoked sausage or kielbasa (either beef, pork, or turkey), onion, beef stock, butter, salt and pepper, and a bit of hot sauce.
Start off by browning up the sausage with chopped onion in the Instant Pot. Add about a quarter cup of butter to melt after the sausage has browned and add the hot sauce and salt and pepper.
Chop the cabbage into fairly large sections. It will shrink a lot when cooked.
Add the cabbage to the pot, making note that you do not go over the max line! Pour in the beef broth.
I have seen Instant Pot sausage and cabbage recipes that use up to 2 cups of beef stock for this. That would pretty much make soup! Cabbage lets off a lot of liquid when cooking. I cut the beef stock down to a cup and honestly probably could have used less. But, since Instant Pot says to use at least one cup of liquid when cooking, I stuck with one cup. Plus, I like to have some of the broth with my cabbage when serving. It is also tasty to dip bread in it!
For very soft cabbage go as high as 5 minutes. For firmer pressure cook for as low as 0 or 1. I have been doing two minutes for mine. Use quick release.
The result is a pretty darn tasty Instant Pot cabbage and sausage dish with a lot of flavor.
Serve up your cooked cabbage and sausage with some malt vinegar or hot sauce. Yum!
Here is the recipe for cabbage and sausage in the instant pot. You can adapt this for other pressure cookers as well.
Want something to serve with it? try these low carb buns.
Instant Pot Cabbage and Sausage
Instant Pot Cabbage and Sausage made with onions, and broth. This is an easy a very tasty meal.
Ingredients
- 24 ounces smoked sausage or kielbasa, sliced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup beef stock
- 1/2 teaspoon hot sauce, or to taste
- 1 head cabbage, cored and chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Using the saute function, cook sausage and onion until well browned, 5 to 10 minutes.
- Add butter to the pot and let it melt.
- Stir in hot sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.
- Add cabbage, do not exceed the max line.
- Pour in beef stock and stir until cabbage is coated.
- Close and lock the lid.
- Pressure cook on manual high pressure for 2 minutes.
- Use quick release for the pressure.
- Serve with hot sauce or malt vinegar
Nutrition Information:
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 490Total Fat: 38gCholesterol: 95mgSodium: 1435mgCarbohydrates: 17gProtein: 20g
Very tasty! I will say that the cabbage came out overcooked, so I might suggest taking a minute or so off the cooking time (and I did use immediate release). I think I’ll also halve the butter next time too.
Having made this a few more times myself, I agree that a minute or two off works just fine! The amount of liquid can also be slightly decreased if desired. Although I like using extra liquid to soak up with some bread.
Very good but my cabbage was over cooked also.
Good taste but definitely delete a minute or two. Cabbage very soggy.
Did high pressure for 3 minutes with 1/4 cup broth and it still came out very soft, which is fine, I was just hoping for a little more crisp. Tasted great just more cooked than I like!
I have updated the recipe to pressure cook for 2 minutes.
Can you use water instead of stock
Hi! Yes, you can. I like to use stock for more flavor. It will be more bland with water.
Cooked this up with precooked turkey sausage so no need to sauté first. I loved it with the beef broth and hot sauce. My cabbage was very firm so it required 7 minutes of cook time with a quick release. No more stovetop cooking of cabbage for me, this is the only way to go. Thanks for a very good recipe.
This came out exactly how I like it when pressure cooked for 2 minutes. Great cabbage and sausage!
Hi, I was just wondering if I added a few cut up potatoes if I would have to adjust the amount of liquid and/or cooking time?
I can’t guarantee results since I haven’t tried it, but You could probably get potatoes added OK with the same amount of liquid and go for the higher cooking time of 3-5 minutes, which will make the cabbage quite soft. The smaller you cut the potatoes, the less time you will need. If adding quite a few potatoes I would add another half cup of liquid. If you try it and it works, let me know! It could take a bit of experimenting to get the potatoes cooked without overcooking the cabbage.
I used polish sausage which was ok but next time I’ll use kielbasa. Used 1 cup chicken broth and had plenty of liquid which I will freeze the leftover juice for soups. I added penzeys bavarian and garlic powder. Tasty!
This is so good. About flipped when I saw hot sauce. I could taste when eating. I think that is what set it off. I added little yellow potatoes cut in half and cooked one more minute
Thank you
Glad that you liked it! It is definitely my favorite way to do cabbage in the Instant Pot.
Why? Why? Why would you use HOT SAUCE in a Polish dish? I am German, and we ate Polish and Hungarian food as though it was our own. In fact, you can find German-Polish restaurants all over the States. But what I simply don’t understand is the American penchant for adding hot sauce onto any food they like? Do you have no respect for what the food tasted like in its own country? Let me tell you — no northern European dish had any hot peppers, or anything like cayenne pepper, or anything that burns the palate! It hurts my mouth, and it bothers me that just because Americans have come to like it, I have to worry about every dish in the United States, in any restaurant or purchased frozen, to have heat that I can’t tolerate! For gawd’s sake, keep the heat for dishes that originated where hot peppers grow! Have Indian food hot, have Mexican or Tai food hot, but please don’t bastardize Irish Stew with heat, or Polish-German cabbage-potato meals with heat, or put it where it doesn’t belong! If you must have it at home, don’t add it to your online recipes, as this will eventually remove the uniqueness of foreign meals, and make everything taste alike! At the very least, I beg that you add heat as an OPTIONAL thing… to differentiate it from something that will eventually be perceived as having originated there, in those countries where these meals originated. I am so disturbed by the melding of flavors, and the loss of genuine flavors from the countries they come from. No more FUSION cuisine! Restaurants that advertise that’s what they’re doing, okay. But please leave recipes alone, and post genuine ones only. Otherwise the next generation will think Polish kielbasa is supposed to be hot and spicy! What a shame to lose national identity!
Hi! This recipe is not billed as a traditional ethnic recipe nor is it intended to be. In any event, certainly adding hot sauce is entirely optional. In fact the recipe card notes to add it to taste. Personally I like it with a bit of extra flavor from that, but it is perfectly fine to leave it out.
This is a great recipe! It is simple and the cabbage/pork marriage is so good. I eat pork fried rice with cabbage too. Having just found some local really good English sausages this recipe is now a regular. I pressure for 2 minutes with a quick release and it is perfect. I have shied away from pressure cooking cabbage. I always understood cabbage is only good if cooked for 4 mins or less OR over an hour as in minestrone. However this works brilliantly. Thank you. Happy New Year from the UK!
Glad you liked it! Happy New Year to you too!
I’m always looking for recipes that transfer from skillet to Instant Pot, and this is a good one. Thanks for posting.
@Sally Baker, I use my instant pot sauté function for a lot of recipes to sear or brown meats, and find no need to transfer from a skillet. Why wash two pans?
I found myself staring a 3/4 head of cabbage and had a kielbasa and it’s 80° so no oven. I should say I minimally altered the recipe as follows:
We eat a clean paleo diet and only organic grass fed beef products. I used Teton brand and it was awesome. I substituted ghee for butter, and the only hot sauce we had was Cholula so it had to suffice. My chicken stock is homemade. I roast two or three free range organic chickens at a time, then pull off the meat and use the carcass in an 8 qt instant pot. The broth I’ve made recently has been frozen in 8 ounce containers so I used just under 8 oz.
It wasn’t soupy or too liquidy even with a smaller sausage and only 3/4 of a rather small cabbage. I used my Duo Nova set to high pressure 5 min with a 10 min natural release. This one is going on my regular rotation! It’s easy to use good low carb foods in organic healthy versions. I really hope no one passes up your site just because many recipes don’t fit their exact way of eating. I loved this guilt free, additive free recipe.
After reading the earlier comments I think mine was not soupy because I cut my cabbage into quarters — only had three of them, and I cut out the core before cooking them essentially uncut.