Vegan Winter Vegetable Stew with Cabbage and Lentils

An easy and flavorful vegan Winter Stew loaded with vegetables like Cabbage and Lentils.

This quick one pot soup is a great vegan winter recipe for those chilly days and makes a great meal prep recipe to eat for a couple days. This vegetable stew freezes well. 

You can either prepare this vegetable stew in a crock pot or instant pot.

A cabbage soup recipe loaded with protein from lentils and flavored with classic pantry spices and herbs to get all the comforting taste you need for a vegan soup. 

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Jump to:

• Is cabbage good for me?
• Ingredients
• Substitutions
• Instructions
• Cooking Time
• Storage
• Tips
• 📖 Recipe

When you like stews like Chili, then this is one of your new favorite recipes for a winter meal. It also makes a nice crowd pleaser or just when you want to prep a lunch or dinner in advance. 

Let me show you how to make a vegan winter cabbage stew with lentils. Hold on, it is not just an instruction you get here. I want to show you how you can substitute certain ingredients, it will never get boring with this vegetarian cabbage stew. 

Is cabbage good for me?

Cabbage is a classic winter vegetable. Cabbage, no matter which variety, is incredibly nutritious. Vitamin C and K in particular are available in large quantities. Which in turn strengthens your immune system.

Cabbage is also said to reduce the risk of certain diseases, help a better digestion and help against inflammation.

Ingredients

Now let's take a look at the ingredients in the vegetable stew. You can find the exact quantities below in the recipe card.

Onion

Garlic Cloves

Celery Root

Carrots

Leek

White Cabbage

Green Lentils

Vegetable Broth

Potatoes

Rosemary

Lovage (opt)

Thyme

Soy Sauce or Coconut Aminos

Apple Cider Vinegar

Smoked Paprika Powder

Bay Leaves

Juniper Berries

Vegan Chicken Broth Powder

Parsley

Nutritional Yeast

Frozen Peas

Substitutions

Let's take a look at what ingredients you can substitute in this great meatless stew.

White Cabbage

Instead of white cabbage you can also use another cabbage such as savoy cabbage or red cabbage. You can choose the right cabbage for your preferences.

Lentils

The lentils give the pot a great creaminess, if you don't have green lentils, you can also use beluga lentils.

You could also use white beans, kidney beans, or black beans.

For beans, I recommend pre-cooked beans.

Soy Sauce

You can replace the soy sauce with, for example, tamari, a gluten-free soy sauce, or coconut aminos.

Vegan Chicken Broth Powder

For this recipe, I use my homemade vegan chicken broth powder. You can of course go back to what you bought or quickly make mine.

Variations

Now let's just take a look at what you need to adapt in order to adapt it to appropriate diets.

Gluten free

If you use tamari or coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, this vegan lentil vegetable stew is gluten free.

Nut free

We don't use nuts in this stew. So you have a delicious nut-free dish.

Paleo

For a paleo version, just skip the soy sauce and you have a great paleo stew. As with gluten-free, you can use coconut aminos to add extra flavor to your stew. If you do not eat legumes just use green beans instead of lentils. 

Keto

With keto we have to replace or omit the starchy foods. For one thing, you can replace the carrots and potatoes with pumpkin, for example. The lentils are high in carbohydrates and should therefore be left out. Use green beans instead of the lentils here.

Instructions

Chop the onion and garlic cloves. In the same way, peel a piece of celery root and finely dice it.  Now cut the carrot into fine cubes and the leek into slices.

Put the cut vegetables in a large pot and fry them with a little water.

While the vegetables are braising, peel the potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Now add the lentils, vegetable broth, and potatoes to the onions. Cut half a white cabbage into thin strips.

Add the cabbage to the soup and let it simmer. Now add the spices and the rest of the ingredients except for the peas and taste it.

Let the soup cook until the lentils and cabbage are tender. This can take about 20 minutes. Now add the peas and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

Slow Cooker

For the slow cooker version, put all the ingredients in a crock pot and let it cook on a low level for about 8 hours.

Instant Pot (Pressure Cooker)

If you're using a pressure cooker, cook the vegetables as described at the beginning. Now add all the remaining ingredients and cook under pressure for about 10-15 minutes. Let the pressure cooker stand for about 10 minutes.

And let the rest of the pressure out through the valve. Be careful when opening it, I once opened the pot too quickly and burned both hands.

Prepared in Advance

The soup is easy to prepare in advance. Later, all you have to do is warm it up. To do this, store the cabbage soup in the refrigerator.

Cooking Time

You need about 35 minutes for the soup, which includes cutting, etc.

Storage

You get a lot out of this stew. I guess you have something left like us. I recommend you to store the stew as follows.

How to refrigerate it?

You can store the stew in the refrigerator in airtight containers for up to 5 days.

How to freeze it?

I recommend you to freeze the cabbage and lentil stew in portions in containers. The stew can be stored in the freezer for about 2 months.

How to reheat it?

Take the soup out of the freezer the night before and let it thaw in the fridge. To warm up, simply heat the soup in a small pot.

Tips

I usually buy a whole celeriac and cut it into slices. I then freeze these slices. So you always have some celery on hand. Celeriac gives your soups an incredibly great taste.

Use a food processor to finely chop the cabbage. So you can quickly cut all the cabbage and you can make German Style Coleslaw from the remaining cabbage, for example.

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Have you tried the recipe?

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