Anti-Inflammatory Cabbage Soup

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 Published January 3, 2024

Originally Published March 15, 2023 by Dr. Stephanie Gray, DC

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I love a good bowl of homemade soup. Warms the belly and the soul. This is a vegetable soup with onion, carrots, celery and of course, cabbage. Add chicken or pork if you want to make it non-vegetarian. The special ingredient is turmeric spice, which not only adds a nice colour to the soup, it offers  a wide range of therapeutic benefits. Turmeric is a powerful anti-oxidant and is known to fight inflammation, which can help decrease joint pain.  This recipe is healthy, easy to follow and is made with simple, whole food ingredients.

Soup is something that should always be made in a kitchen and never a factory. Soup is one of the easiest things to make at home. You basically put ingredients in a pot, add liquid and let it cook.

While canned soup may look benign on the surface, if you read the ingredients, you will quickly see that most soups have WAY too much sodium, and often contains gluten, MSG, sugar, seed oils and other unnecessary chemical ingredients. One cup of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup has 1780 mg of sodium. One cup is a pretty small serving. There’s no way one cup of soup is filling me up! If you weren’t aware, the top limit of sodium for people over the age of 14 is 2300 mg /day. So one tiny cup of canned soup gets you pretty close to that limit. Too much dietary sodium is a problem because it causes your body to retain fluid, which can drive up blood pressure.

I always make my own broth for soups. If I don’t have a homemade broth on hand (which I often don’t), I simply use water and add a little sea salt and a bay leaf. Nobody can tell I didn’t use broth.  Like canned soup, commercial broth is also usually full of unhealthy ingredients. Campbell’s Ready to Use Chicken Broth is no better than their canned soup. Sorry Campbell’s, I don’t mean to pick on you! While they promote all “natural ingredients” the ingredient label reads: yeast extract (yeast extract is made in a lab, not found in nature), sugar (highly refined) and canola or soybean oil (which are both highly refined, pro-inflammatory seed oils). Common ingredients? Yes. But far from “natural” in my opinion. No thank you Campbell’s. I’ll pass.

Soup in my opinion should be healthy. This cabbage soup is loaded with vegetables and with added turmeric, which packs a nutritional punch. Try it, it’s good!

Gluten free, grain free, dairy free, vegan, low carb.

If you like soup, try my 5 minute Instant Pot Cauliflower Soup,  or my amazing Roasted Carrot Soup

Here’s a list of some more soups:

Sheet Pan Butternut Squash Soup

Leek & Cauliflower

Broccoli Soup with Curry & Kale

Roasted Carrot & Sweet Potato Soup

Why you will LOVE this Cabbage Soup!

•  Very EASY. Super nutritious! With added turmeric, this soup fights inflammation.

• No MSG, gluten, sugar, excessive salt, seed oils or other harmful chemicals in this soup

• Gluten free, dairy free, vegan, low carb

• Simple ingredients, inexpensive to make

• Very large soup. Goes a long way!

What equipment do you need? 

• 1 large soup pot

What ingredients do you need?

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion diced
• 1 carrot finely diced
• 2 celery stalks diced
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 798 ml can fire roasted tomatoes
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 4 cups shredded green cabbage
• 6-8 cups homemade vegetable/chicken broth or water
• 1 bay leaf

Key Ingredients & Substitutions:

• Fire roasted diced tomatoes– If you haven’t tried fire roasted diced tomatoes- they are the best. They cost a little more, but they are worth it for the added flavour. I use Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes. Regular diced tomatoes is an acceptable substitute.   

• Green cabbage- I used a standard green cabbage for this recipe but savoy or napa cabbage would also work. A finer cabbage would need less cooking time. If you’re averse to chopping your own cabbage, use bag of raw coleslaw. That would also work.

• Turmeric– I used ground turmeric but you could use turmeric root also. Use 1 tbsp grated turmeric root in place of ground turmeric. 

• Broth– I always make my own broth. It’ s much, much, much healthier. If I don’t have homemade broth on hand, I use water and add a little sea salt and a bay leaf. 

How to Store Leftover Soup

Store leftovers in a glass container with a sealable lid. Keep in refrigerator for up to 5 days. Reheat in microwave.

This soup freezes well.