Cabbage is quickly becoming this winter’s menu super star. The versatility, the health benefits, and the hearty consistency make it the perfect highlight of soups, stews, salads, pastas, and more.

As winter foods and ingredients can tend to leave guests feeling full, adding a cruciferous, winter vegetable like cabbage to your seasonal menu can offer just the right amount of balance to any dish.

With less than 20 calories per half cup cooked, cabbage health benefits serve up a great nutritional, and cost effective, ingredient for guests. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database*, other health benefits of cabbage, include: a half-cup of cooked cabbage provides approximately 47% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C, as well as over 100% of vitamin K, 8% of manganese, and 6% or less of folate vitamin B-6, calcium, potassium, and thiamin.

Plus, an interesting cabbage nutritional value fact: red cabbage tends to contain more of these compounds than green cabbage.

Play off of cabbage’s versatility. Grill it, sauté it, boil it, bake it, stuff it or pickle it for delicious main dishes like the savory classic stuffed cabbage and as a hearty addition to stews and soups to warm guests up on a cold, winter day; or craft tasty, cabbage side dishes such as pickled red cabbage, cole slaw or sautéed and paired with corn beef for a perennial guest favorite.

*photo credit