Cabbage-stuffed courgettes

Cabbage-stuffed courgettes are not stuffed only with cabbage, they’ve also got leeks, red pepper and onion in them. The cabbage stuffing can be served as a side vegetable in its own right too – so this is really two recipes in one!

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Stuffed courgettes

If you’ve got a garden allotment, as we do, or even if you grow vegetables in your own back-yard, you’ll know just how prolific courgettes can be. Now, I’ve called them courgettes, but depending on where you live in the world, you may know them as zucchini or baby marrows.

Once they start producing, one plant can grow enough courgettes to feed the entire street (or it feels like it when I get presented with yet another bagful).

So I’ve been wracking my brains to come up with original recipes that use up this bounty. I’ve made sweet desserts (zucchini and pistachio cake), savoury bakes (cheesy zucchini bake with cream crackers), and sauces (easy arrabbiata sauce with marrow). I’ve even shared my favourite South African way of preparing baby marrows with tomato and onion.

I love the tiny 3 to 4-inch-long courgettes that can be just braised in butter. But hubby seems to think that size does matter and so he waits until they are a bit longer before bringing them home.

The last offerings were about 8 inches long with a 2-inch diameter and the moment I saw them I knew I had to stuff them with something.

So I devised this recipe for cabbage-stuffed courgettes using cabbage, leeks, red peppers and onions, with a crispy topping of cheese and breadcrumbs. Even though there are lots of vegetables in the stuffing, I’ve called this recipe cabbage-stuffed courgettes. I think calling it cabbage, leek, red pepper and onion stuffed courgettes would be silly!

To be honest, it was quite delicious and I now happily anticipating the next delivery 🙂

And just by the way, you don’t even need courgettes for this recipe. The cabbage mixture on its own makes a delicious side dish! How good is that? 2 recipes in one!

What you will need

Equipment

You don’t need much by way of equipment – just a saute pan for softening the vegetables, and a baking dish for putting it in the oven. The size of the baking dish will depend on how large your courgettes are.

Other items you will find useful would be a sharp knife, and a chopping board.

Ingredients

I’ve used two 8-inch long marrows for this recipe (weighing 500 grams or just over 1 pound in total), You will find this is sufficient for 8 people (one-quarter of a marrow each) as a side dish. If you intend to serve this as a vegetarian meal then it will probably serve 4 people (half a marrow each).

Any leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days and warmed up in the microwave.

**You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making cabbage-stuffed courgettes on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**

Courgettes – Your courgettes should be about 8 inches long and round enough so that you can hollow them out nicely.

For the vegetable stuffing, you will need one cup each of chopped leeks and shredded cabbage, and approximately half a cup each of finely diced onion and red pepper (capsicum). You will also need a diced tomato. In total, you should have about 3 cups of mixed vegetables which seems like a lot, but they do cook down.

Sunflower oil for brushing on the outside of the courgettes.

Butter – used to saute the vegetables.

Mustard seeds – for extra flavour. You could leave these out if you prefer.

A mixture of grated cheese and breadcrumbs to sprinkle on top. If you prefer you could substitute the breadcrumbs with a handful of crushed cheese and onion flavour potato crisps.

Salt and black pepper for seasoning.

What to do

Prepare and cook the vegetables

• Cut the leeks in half down the length and then slice them into narrow semi-circles.
• Cut the cabbage into narrow strips.
• Peel the onion and cut it into a fine dice.
• Remove the seeds and membrane from the red pepper and cut it into a fine dice.
• Cut the tomato into a fine dice.

If you would like to serve the vegetables as a side dish (without stuffing them into a courgette), you can transfer them to a serving dish at this point.

Prepare the courgettes

If you are wondering why the courgettes are arranged differently in the above two images, it’s because I forgot to take the photo of the courgettes with the cheese on top, so I had to remake the recipe. The courgettes were different sizes and that was the only way I could fit them in the dish 🙂

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Serving suggestion

I like to serve these cabbage-stuffed courgettes with barbeque pork fingers. Cabbage and pork go so well together. Add some peas and a dish of spicy mushroom rice and you have a delicious supper.

However, these cabbage-stuffed courgettes make a delicious side dish to accompany any roast.

Freezing and storage

Cabbage-stuffed courgettes are not suitable for freezing because they will turn mushy once defrosted.

However, the cabbage stuffing can be frozen in a suitable container for up to 3 months.

Leftovers can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and reheated in the microwave.

You can also make the cabbage stuffing up to 3 days ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to stuff your courgettes.

What’s the difference between a courgette and a marrow?

There is no difference – they both come off the same plant. I think the South African name baby marrow explains it best. In South Africa, a young courgette (or zucchini) is called a baby marrow and when it grows larger it is known as a marrow.

Both the skin and seeds of a baby marrow can be eaten. Once the courgette has turned into a marrow the skin and seeds become hard and inedible and should be discarded.

Save for later

If you would like to try these cabbage-stuffed courgettes for yourself, why not pin the recipe to one of your Pinterest boards so that you can find it easily. Just click on the image below.

Alternatively, you can save the recipe by clicking on the floating heart icon on the right-hand side of the screen.

Other recipes

If you enjoyed this recipe, you may like to try some of my other vegetable recipes:

• Crustless tomato quiche
• Spicy beetroot salad
• Curried green bean salad
• Glazed carrots
• Potatoes Romanoff
• Spicy braised red cabbage
• Creamy leek and brussels sprouts bake

The recipe

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