Roasted cabbage. Sliced nice & thin …almost like a wide noodle. Add a generous amount of crunchy bacon and toss it all together in a delicious creamy sauce. Sounds like a perfect side dish to me. Enjoy this Roasted Cabbage & Bacon Carbonara on your next chilly evening.
The prep on this isn’t super intensive. If you follow along with the directions, you’ll find that the cabbage will have plenty of time to roast while you prepare the delicious carbonara sauce.
What is carbonara sauce, anyway?
In most cases, it is a pasta sauce consisting of cured pork, egg, pasta water and grated cheese. Even though it is traditionally made with whole eggs, we’ll be using just the egg yolks here to produce the smooth creamy texture.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Lightly oil a rimmed cookie sheet.
- Remove the cabbage core and outer leaves.
- Slice the cabbage into 1/2-inch thick slices.
- Place them in a single layer on the prepared cookie sheet.
- You may need to use several cookie sheets to accommodate the entire head of cabbage.
- In a small food processor, mix the garlic cloves with the olive oil & salt.
- Process until they form a smooth, runny paste.
I find that it works really well to use my Cuisinart mini-processor for this task.
Since you’ll be blending just a quarter cup of oil with the garlic, the bowl of a full-size food processor would be just too large. You could also achieve the same result by using an immersion blender.
- Brush the oil paste onto the cabbage slices evenly with a pastry brush.
- Save about 1/3 of the paste for the flip side of the slices.
- Place the tray in the preheated oven and bake for about 30 minutes.
- Turn the slices halfway through.
- Brush the other side with the reserved oil paste.
While the cabbage is hangin’ out in the oven…
- Cut the bacon into small 1-inch pieces.
- Cook in a medium pan over moderate heat until crispy.
- Remove the cooked bacon from the fat and set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, melted butter, creamed coconut & pepper to form a smooth cream.
- If you like your carbonara to be very spicy, add extra freshly ground black pepper at this time.
- The coconut cream may create what appears to be small lumps in the sauce.
- They’ll dissipate when the sauce is mixed with the “hot-from-the-oven” cabbage.
- When the cabbage is done, it will be tender and caramelized with slightly burnt edges.
- The roasting will cause it to shrink a bit, so that it will resemble fettucini.
- Add the roasted cabbage, along with the bacon, to the bowl with the carbonara sauce.
- Gently combine it all until the cabbage is coated and the bacon is evenly distributed.
- Serve immediately while hot.
Need a vegetarian version of Roasted Cabbage & Bacon Carbonara?
Why not eliminate the bacon and replace it with sautéed mushrooms? About eight ounces should do the trick. Maybe a bit more.
roasted cabbage & bacon carbonara
Adapted from The Nourished Caveman
Roasted cabbage "noodles" smothered in creamy carbonara sauce, topped off with crunchy bits of bacon.
Ingredients
Roasted Cabbage
- 1 small head of green cabbage (about 20 ounces)
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 8 ounces bacon
Carbonara Sauce
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1/3 cup unsweetened creamed coconut, melted (about 3 ounces)
- 2 organic pastured egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
-
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a rimmed cookie sheet.
-
Remove the cabbage core and outer leaves. Slice the cabbage into 1/2-inch thick slices and place them in a single layer on the prepared cookie sheet. You may need to use several cookie sheets to accommodate the entire head of cabbage.
-
In a small food processor, mix the garlic cloves with the extra virgin olive oil & salt, until they form a smooth, runny paste. Brush the oil paste onto the cabbage slices evenly with a pastry brush. Save about 1/3 of the paste for the flip side of the slices. Place the tray in the preheated oven and bake for about 30 minutes, turning the slices halfway through and brushing the other side with the reserved oil paste.
-
Cut the bacon into small pieces of about 1-inch. Cook them in a medium pan over moderate heat until crispy. Remove the cooked bacon from the fat and set aside.
-
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, melted butter, creamed coconut & pepper to form a smooth cream. If you like your carbonara to be very spicy, add extra freshly ground black pepper at this time.
-
When the cabbage is done, it will be tender and caramelized with slightly burnt edges. Toss it in the bowl with the carbonara sauce and bacon pieces. Serve immediately while hot.
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