This simple dish highlights cabbage in all of its simple glory. It has just four ingredients, but that’s enough to transform a head of cabbage into a savory side dish, perfect for St. Patrick’s Day and any time you need a delicious, easy cabbage side. Also, think about roasted cabbage wedges!

Simple Beer Braised Cabbage: Four ingredients add up to a homey, simple cabbage dish — perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.

Ingredients

• Bacon – If you can get high-quality bacon from a butcher, you’ll be so happy!
• Onion – Adds flavor.
• Cabbage – Use pale green cabbage or napa cabbage if you prefer.
• Beer – Don’t use a beer with an overly strong flavor — if you want to go full Irish, use an Irish beer like Guinness!

Cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day

Do you know why cabbage is so popular on St. Patrick’s Day? It’s a quintessential part of Irish cuisine, along with bacon and potatoes. Tenant farmers in the 17th century were forced to pay substantial rents to their landlords, and relied heavily on their crops of nutrient-dense cabbage and calorie-dense potatoes, both hardy vegetables, to get them through the year. The more prosperous farmers also grew pigs, so were able to season their vegetables with the parts that weren’t needed to pay off their monthly tariff.

In 1845, the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland, eradicating much of the country’s potato crop, and cabbage became even more critical as a food source. On St. Patrick’s Day, it’s quite customary to eat cabbage in some form. It remains one of the most affordable and durable vegetables around, a reliable source of something green in the colder months, and when paired with its old compatriot bacon, it may be humble, but it’s delicious.

How to Make Braised Cabbage

Here the bacon is crisped up in a heavy large pot, and then some onions are quickly sautéed in a bit of the remaining pork fat. Then the cabbage is added, along with the beer of your choice, and in 30 minutes, you have a dish that may be modest in cost and appearance, but quite grand in flavor.

1. Cook the bacon: In a pot, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels.
2. Sauté the vegetables: Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes, until golden brown. Add the cabbage and cook for 3 or 4 minutes until the cabbage begins to wilt.
3. Add the beer and simmer: Cook until the cabbage is tender and most of the liquid is evaporated.
4. Serve: Crumble the reserved bacon and stir it into the cabbage. Serve hot or warm.

What to Serve With Braised Cabbage

This would go very well with corned beef, but also with roast chicken, salmon, a steak, pretty much anything. The whiter the cabbage is, the sweeter it is — you can also use savoy cabbage instead of regular; either is fine.

Other Cabbage Recipes

Like cabbage? Try these cabbage recipes:

• Slow Cooker Fall-Apart Braised Pork with Cabbage and Apples
• Roasted Cabbage Wedges
• One Pot Cod, Cabbage, and Edamame
• Spicy Braised Radicchio and Red Cabbage with Citrus