Avoid This Common Mistake That Turns Southern Fried Cabbage Into A Mushy Mess

Cabbage is one of those universal foods that's eaten all over the globe. In Japan, cabbage is used to make a tasty salad, while stuffed cabbage rolls called golabki are among the Polish foods you should try at least once. In the United States, corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner and was also a meal that 19th-century POTUS Grover Cleveland called one of the best he'd ever had. In the South, some cooks like to fry this vegetable, but there's a trick to doing it. According to J.D. Alewine, who blogs about food on his website Them Bites, one major mistake is overcooking the cabbage.

"Born and raised in Greenwood, South Carolina, I grew up eating fried cabbage that was tender but still had a little bite. That's the target. You want it soft enough to chew easily, but not limp," he declared. This means you'll need to keep a close eye on it as it fries. As Alewine explained, "Cabbage releases water the longer it sits on heat, so it stops frying and basically steams itself into mush. When it's overcooked, the texture gets soft and sloppy, and you lose that clean cabbage taste." Steamed cabbage has a time and a place, but that's not what we're trying to make here.

The quickest way to mess up fried cabbage, Alewine told us, is to over-fill the pan. "If the cabbage is piled high, it steams instead of frying," he explained. Alewine recommends using either an extra-large frying pan or cooking the cabbage in batches. Another mistake he warned of is dumping the cabbage into a cold pan. As he advised, "Preheat the pan, then add your fat, then add the cabbage so it actually hits heat right away."

So, how will you know when to take the pan off the heat? In Alewine's experience, "I know it's done when the thicker stem pieces are just tender and the leaves look glossy, not watery. If it starts collapsing into a wet pile, you've gone too far." If you do accidentally overcook the cabbage, though, all is not lost. Simply puree it with cooked potatoes, onions, tomatoes, leeks, chickpeas, carrots, or any combination thereof and repurpose it as a creamy cabbage soup.