Spring is on the horizon (just ignore the white-out conditions outside it really is coming), and St Patrick’s Day is coming in just a few days! I don’t know if you have a special dish you make every year, my mother always had corned beef and cabbage cooking all day March 17th. This cabbage is the perfect side dish to whatever you’re cooking and whether or not your celebrating. It’s that good. Cabbage is cut into wedges and high temp roasted topped with bacon and finished with a lemon. While it’s roasting you can put together some kind of main, or maybe you’ve had a stew simmering all day.
For a crowd, two whole cabbages will cook a nice amount, for a smaller group just use half of a purple with half of a green cabbage. I really love the contrast of colors here, but if that’s not important to you just use one whole cabbage.
Once the cabbage is cut just drape the sliced bacon all over it and scatter some on the pan. It will cook up to be chewy and crispy, a great contrast to the softened cabbage. Halfway through cooking the cabbage is carefully flipped over, so that the edges brown nicely on both sides. If you like your bacon on the crispier side, just slide the bacon off each wedge, flip, then re-top with bacon. It doesn’t take long. Then return to the oven. The whole dish is ready in 30 minutes and has under 5 ingredients making it more than week-night worthy.
Roasted Cabbage with Bacon
1/2 green cabbage and 1/2 purple cabbage or 1 whole cabbage of your color choice
about 4 slices bacon – more or less depending on your preference
1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt + pepper to taste
about a tablespoon olive oil
Preheat oven to 450F. Slice cabbage into quarters, and slice each quarter into thirds, remove core. Lightly oil a baking sheet, and arrange cabbage slices. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt, and a few grinds fresh black pepper.
Roast at 450F for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking. Squeeze half a lemon over cabbage, and serve garnished with remaining lemon cut into slices.
Vegetarian Variation: Omit bacon, top each wedge with a thin slice of butter at the beginning of cook, then top with toasted sunflower seeds and lemon after cooking.
