Cabbage Leek Soup

I remember walking into my house as a teenager (who knew everything of course) and wondering what that horribly awful smell was. Turns out my mom was on the cabbage soup diet. I obviously wouldn’t recommend this for so many reasons, although I think she did lose quite a bit of weight during that experience. Regardless, it left me with a prejudice against cabbage until, well, a couple years ago.

I found a few recipes that used cabbage and realized it wasn’t so bad, although it still smells a little funky! As I frequently do, I was scrolling through Pinterest because it’s my food porn fix, and I saw some pictures of tomato-ey cabbage soup. Inspired, I decided that cabbage soup was going on my meal plan, and this cabbage leek soup was born.

I didn’t originally intend for this to be a freezer to crockpot meal, but let me tell you what happened.  I went to the grocery store on an empty stomach, after an outdoor workout, with a burning desire to eat more vegetables. The outcome was over $300 in groceries and more produce than I could possibly consume in a single week.

But the benefit goes to you, because immediately upon arriving home I spent several hours creating 4 (yes 4!!!!!!) brand new freezer recipes. This is the first installment of the great freezer prep of 2018 (blame in on the pregnancy ha!).

I love freezer meals. When I was pregnant with my second child I decided I was going to do this thing, so I would have lots of healthy food during the postpartum period when priority #1 is to get-the-food-in-my-mouth-as-fast-as-possible! My mom came and we spent a whole day chopping, dicing, and dividing. Funny how when you have one child everything seems like a momentous task, but having three you just embrace the crazy!

It was so nice when my husband went back to work and I had 2 kids under 2 to be able to thaw a bag, then cook it. Another really great way to do freezer meals is to get together with some friends. each of you pick a recipe and pack a ton of bags, then split them up so you all have an assortment.

You can obviously make the cabbage leek soup from cutting board to crockpot. But I placed 99% of the ingredients into a bag and froze it! This one is great too, because I used a whole head of cabbage and pound of meat and split everything in 2 bags, so I actually got 2 whole meals instead of 1! So without any more rambling, I’ll let you in on the simplicity of this cabbage leek soup. Oh and I completely JUST realized this was Whole 30 compliant!

You’ll be placing your ingredients in gallon size freezer bags. I like the original seal bags versus the zipper style because your first mix needs a little air, but it’s personal preference. I think the zipper seal bags are cheaper too! Place your ground turkey with some avocado oil into a skillet, and get it started browning. While it’s cooking, cut your head of cabbage in half. Chop it into large strands, and divide between 2 bags.

Next you’ll chop the leeks and carrots. My little blurb on leeks: I love these little sweet onion-y things. They’re probably my favorite onion variety. To slice them, you need to cut off the dark green ends and the roots. Rinse them out, making sure there is no dirt collected in the rings. You’ll then slice down the length vertically, then across the leek, making moon shaped or semi-circle pieces. Place one sliced leek in each bag. Divide a pound of carrots (sliced into rounds) between the two bags as well.

Now that all the produce is prepared and placed in the bags, we’ll add seasoning and some liquid. I used thyme, oregano, turmeric, celery seed, salt and pepper. Then I added vegetable broth, diced fire roasted tomatoes, and tomato sauce. Divide the cooked turkey and add to each bag. Leaving air in the bag, seal and toss well. Remove air, and reseal bag. To freeze, flatten as much as possible and lie in freezer. Once frozen, you’ll be able to stack your skinny bag vertically if desired.

If you are not freezing the recipe, then you would simply place all these items in your crockpot, along with some extra broth.

When you are ready to cook your soup, remove bag from freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw. Helpful tip: these bags sweat a lot, so placing a paper towel under the bag as it thaws will save you some clean up. Once thawed, pour contents into crockpot, add some vegetable broth, and cook on LOW for 8 hours.

Voila, beautiful cabbage leek soup!