Skip to main content
Salad

Pickled Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage is cabbage preserved in boiling spiced vinegar with brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickled Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the red cabbage finely.

  2. Pack the sliced cabbage into a jar.

Pickle

  1. Pour boiling spiced vinegar over the cabbage.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of brown sugar for each head of cabbage.

  3. Once cooled, seal the jar.

  4. Let it sit for about ten days before using.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cabbage + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Provides the main bulk and crisp texture, and releases pigment that turns the pickle purple-red.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Spiced vinegar
Supplies the acidity that softens and preserves the cabbage while carrying the spice flavor.

The step that matters

Letting it sit for about ten days. The cabbage needs time for the acid and spices to penetrate and for the pigments to shift, so the flavor mellows and the color deepens. Using it early gives a sharp, raw taste.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Cabbage DressingCabbage Dressing9 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipes