Mulled Wine Red Cabbage

This Mulled Wine Red Cabbage is a super spice-laden seasonal side dish for your holiday table. Shredded red cabbage and a chopped sweet red onion are first braised with fresh ginger in clarified butter, then simmered in a homemade mulled wine mix. Finally, the cooked cabbage is tossed with fresh orange pieces.

Mulled Wine Red Cabbage can be served as a side dish or a condiment. If you are planning a holiday roast, this is an unusual yet festive pairing. This recipe beautifully compliments most beef and pork dishes as well as adding lots of color and flavor to your holiday meal.

There are two other great points about this Mulled Wine Red Cabbage recipe besides the flavor. Firstly, this dish takes just over half an hour to create. Consequently, this is a huge time saver when prepping your holiday meal.

Secondly, it’s a great make-ahead recipe, up to three days. This dish actually works better if made ahead of time. That gives the red cabbage more time to marinate in the spiced wine flavors and deepens the flavor.

If you already have a bottle of ready-made mulled wine, use a half cup of that in this recipe and skip the spices and sugar. Also, you can add more of your own favorite spices. Pinches each of star anise and cardamom powder would be lovely additions.

The oranges add additional festive flavor to this  Mulled Wine Red Cabbage. Additionally, the beautiful orange color provides a nice contrast to the purple cabbage makes a lovely presentation.

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Mulled Wine Red Cabbage

Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Yield: Serves 4

Course Side Dish

Cuisine German

Keyword Red Cabbage

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Author Lora Wiley-Lennartz

Ingredients

• 1+1/2 lbs red cabbage
• 1 medium-sized sweet red onion
• 2 oranges
• 1 tablespoon peeled and freshly grated ginger root
• 4 tablespoons clarified butter
• 1/2 cup red wine any type
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Instructions

1. Cut the red cabbage into quarters and remove the stalk completely. Discard any outer leaves that are wilted or damaged.
2. Shred the red cabbage with a large knife.
3. Peel the onion and dice into small pieces.
4. Zest and juice one of the oranges.
5. Heat the clarified butter in a pan. Add the diced sweet onion and grated ginger to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally until the onions become transparent.
6. Add the shredded red cabbage to the pan and sauté briefly.
7. Add the red wine to the pan and stir to coat.
8. Stir in the orange juice and add the whole cloves, bay leaves, ground cinnamon, orange zest and brown sugar to the pan.
9. Mix everything together and let simmer for 8-10 minutes.
10. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and remove from heat.
11. While the cabbage is simmering, take a small sharp knife and cut off the top and bottom of the orange.
12. Insert the knife into the orange and separate the orange from the pith.
13. Cut between the partitions and detach the segments.
14. Cut the orange segments into small cubes and mix into the red cabbage.
15. Transfer the spiced red cabbage to a serving bowl and serve.
16. If you like, garnish with the orange peels.

Like this Mulled Wine Red Cabbage recipe? Try some of my other holiday side dishes:

RED CABBAGE PUMPKIN TORTE

APPLE CINNAMON RED CABBAGE

RED CABBAGE PEAR GOUDA TART