Chinese Sauteed Cabbage With Vinegar Sauce

Chinese Sauteed Cabbage: My Go-To Veggie Dish

Home cooking in China relies a lot on quick, healthy dishes that use fresh veggies, and this one is a perfect example. It uses fresh cabbage, garlic chili peppers, oil, and a sauce of five ingredients to create a dish that is surprisingly delicious. When I was growing up my mom would make a couple of dishes like this one every day. Speed and simplicity are really important to keep the routine from becoming exhausting. Nowadays, I follow my mom’s example and cook this dish all the time because it’s among the tastiest and easiest dishes to make. Once you get the hang of it, it’s really a handy recipe!

Convenience to Make on Demand

Another thing I love about the recipe is that it is super convenient because practically all of the ingredients are pantry staples. It does use fresh cabbage and garlic, but those two ingredients stay good for a pretty long time – literally weeks if you keep the cabbage head whole and pull off only the leaves you need. More often than not, I have a head of cabbage in the fridge so I’m ready to whip this up at any time.

Getting the Best Flavor from Simple Ingredients

To maximize the potential of this dish we need to do three things: cook the cabbage properly, infuse the oil with aromatics, and make a balanced sauce.

Cook the Cabbage to the Right Doneness

I know that it’s common in many Western dishes to braise cabbage until it is very tender, for example in soups, stews, or with corned beef. We’re going to cook it a bit less than that. Sauteeing it too long can make it mushy and give off weird aromas – we want it just barely tender and still sweet.

Infuse the Oil with Aromatics

The first cooking you’ll do in the recipe is actually frying the Sichuan peppercorns, then the chili and garlic, in the oil. This gives the oil a ton of flavor and makes your room smell amazing. Once the oil is infused with these flavors, the cabbage, which gets cooked in the oil, takes on the aromatic flavors and you’ll have great tasting cabbage.

Make a Balanced Sauce

The sauce of Chinese sauteed cabbage here follows a common flavor profile in Chinese cooking – umami-sweet-sour. We’re not talking Panda Express style, though. We’re using just a touch of sugar and a balance between umami and sour.

Tips for Making Chinese Sauteed Cabbage

Cut the Cabbage Properly

This method, shown in the accompanying photos, will help the cabbage cook evenly and to the right tenderness.

Cut the cabbage into quartersSlice out the stem and center “core” and discard it – it’s too tough Separate the outer layers and cut them into trianglesThe inner layers will be a bit thicker and may be harder to separate – cut this part thinner

Keep Quality Pantry Ingredients on Hand

In such simple dishes, it can make a big difference what kind of soy sauce, vinegar, and aromatics you use. Here are some of my favorites:

For soy sauce, the ones from Pearl River Bridge are very tasty and tend to be quite affordable too. Their “Superior” line is my go-to for everyday cooking.The vinegar I recommend for this one is actually the clear rice vinegar rather than the more-common-in-China Chinkiang Vinegar. Mizkan is a good one. Make sure the vinegar you use isn’t “seasoned” and that it doesn’t contain salt.I love the dried aromatics (chile peppers and Sichuan peppercorns) from The Mala Market. Imported direct from Sichuan, they are the freshest and most flavorful you’ll find outside of China.