How to Cut Cabbage
Here’s a quick guide for How to Cut Cabbage for dishes like Coleslaw and Sautéed Cabbage, plus to how to core, slice, or shred cabbage with a knife or mandolin.
Ingredients matter too, but so much of how you experience food can be changed just by how you cut it.
Whenever I pick up a fresh head of cabbage from the store, this is how I prep it for cooking.
Then you can change up how you cut it depending on the dish, whether you’re making cabbage steaks, cabbage soup, or need some thinly sliced cabbage for cole slaw.
How to Prepare Cabbage:
If the cabbage comes from the store with thick, dark, and fibrous outer leaves, and you’re making something like cole slaw where the cabbage will be eaten raw, you will likely want to remove those first:
Those leaves are tougher than the inner part, and I’ll remove them and save for cooked applications, like sautéed cabbage or soups:
How to Cut Cabbage:
Locate the stem on the bottom, then cut the entire cabbage through the stem:
Cut those halves in half to yield quarters, then it’s very easy to cut the core out, like this:
How to Slice Cabbage:
For dishes where you want thin ribbons of cabbage, use a knife or mandolin to cut, laying the cabbage quarter on its flat side:
However, if you have a mandolin, I think it’s much better for slicing and shredding.
You will get more even, uniform long strands, and it can be a little quicker than cutting with a knife:
You can see the difference here between the hand-cut cabbage on the left, and the mandolin-cut cabbage on the right:
I probably could’ve taken my time a bit more and made then knife-cut pieces thinner, but the mandolin is so much easier.
Now the cabbage is ready to be used in whatever recipe you’d like, such as a Classic Coleslaw:
For more produce cutting guides, I have How to Dice Zucchini, How to Cut a Watermelon, and more in my Vegetable Sides section of the recipe index. Happy cooking!
How to Cut Cabbage
Ingredients
- 1 head of red or green cabbage
Instructions
- If using the cabbage for a raw preparation such as coleslaw, I recommend removing any thick and fibrous outer leaves.
- Rinse and dry the cabbage well, then cut in half through the stem.
- Cut those halves in half to yield quarters, then cut the core out of each quarter.
- Lay each cabbage quarter on a flat side, and thinly slice into ribbons. The cabbage is now ready to be used!
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
8 Comments on “How to Cut Cabbage”
Breville food processor with adjustable slicing disc slices paper thin and quicker than a mandolin.
Can I use the “S” blade to chop the cabbage instead of slicing it?
Hello Joanne,
Thanks a lot for this post.
Was wondering if I can see the photo of the mandolin you used in this post. Or better still the make.
Warm regards
Winnie
Hi Winnie, they don’t make this particular model anymore. I think it was made by progressive and they changed it. Regardless, it was a fairly cheap Mandolin that was gifted to me, I would try to find a better rated one. Hope that helps.
Nice comparison , convinced me to get my mandolin out. And take time to make quarters instead of whole hog shredding
Hi Joanna,
Just found your site today and wanted to know if you had any recommendation for a mandolin for a first time user. I am interested in making coleslaw but would love to have a mandolin for other uses as well.
This is the first time I’ve had simple instructions which I could follow without being encouraged to buy an expensive gadget. Shame on you all !! Found a basic mandolin for 5 of her majesty’s pounds. Thank you🔪 We did the cookie cheesecake things too. Gorge💛
Totally agree. I’ve been trying for years to get it so thin . Never knew a mandolin would do the trick 👏🏻👏🏻