Red cabbage salad
Raw red cabbage can be tough and bitter. Two steps fix that: shredding it paper thin and massaging it with salt, then leaving it for 25 minutes. The cabbage softens, loses its bitterness and shrinks noticeably — with no cooking and while keeping a light crunch.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Shredding 12 min
- Salting and massaging 25 min
- Dressing 5 min
- Combining 5 min
- Resting 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneShred the cabbage very thinly
Remove the outer leaves and the hard core, halve the cabbage and shred it on a mandoline at 1–2 mm. Thicker strips stay tough even after salting — a common reason red cabbage slaw turns out stringy.
Ingredients: 700 g red cabbage · 2 tsp salt
TipWithout a mandoline, use your sharpest knife and work slowly. Thinness matters more than speed here.
Paper ribbons, not strips — the condition for tenderness.Massage with salt
Add the salt and massage the cabbage with your hands for 3 minutes, as if kneading dough. Leave for 25 minutes. It releases purple liquid, softens and shrinks noticeably.
Ingredients: 700 g red cabbage · 2 tsp salt
TipDo not rinse after salting — you would wash out the salt that has already gone in and the slaw ends up bland. Just squeeze.
After massaging the cabbage loses both stiffness and bitterness.Squeeze out the liquid
Take the cabbage in handfuls and squeeze it hard over the sink. Squeezed, it will not water down the dressing later. Keep the juice if you like — it is a natural, intensely purple dye for mayonnaise or vinegar.
Ingredients: 700 g red cabbage · 2 tsp salt
Cut the apple and carrot
Grate the carrot coarsely but cut the apples into matchsticks, do not grate them. Grated apple turns to mush within an hour; matchsticks stay crisp and distinct. Slice the onion thinly.
Ingredients: 2 pcs apples · 1 pcs carrot · ½ pcs red onion · 60 g walnuts · ½ bunch parsley
Make the caraway dressing
Shake oil, cider vinegar, honey, mustard, caraway and pepper in a jar. The caraway is not decorative — it is traditionally added to cabbage because it is thought to aid digestion, and above all it gives this slaw its characteristic warm note.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp rapeseed oil · 3 tbsp cider vinegar · 1 tbsp honey · 1 tsp mustard · 1 tsp caraway seeds · ½ tsp pepper
Combine and rest
Toss the cabbage with the apple, carrot and onion, pour over the dressing and mix. Leave for 15 minutes for the flavours to marry. Add the walnuts and parsley just before serving so the nuts stay crisp and the parsley fresh.
Ingredients: 2 pcs apples · 1 pcs carrot · ½ pcs red onion · 60 g walnuts · ½ bunch parsley
Before you start
Keeps three days
It keeps 3 days in the fridge and mellows each day. Add the walnuts and parsley per portion rather than to the whole bowl.
Colour under control
Vinegar fixes the purple. Without acid the cabbage turns steel blue against alkaline ingredients — a natural anthocyanin reaction.
Creamy version
Replace half the oil with Greek yoghurt. You get a coleslaw lighter than the mayonnaise kind but still creamy.
