Authentic German Cabbage Soup (Kohlsuppe)

By popular demand, this reader-favorite recipe made it into my debut cookbook, German Kitchen-Classic Dishes!

Jump to:

• What is German Cabbagge Soup
• Cabbage in German Cuisine
• German Cabbage Recipes
• How to make German Cabbage Soup
• Slowcooker Method Option:
• Recipe Variations:
• How to serve:
• Storage Instructions
• More German Soups
• Have you made this recipe?
• Recipe

What is German Cabbagge Soup

Kohlsuppe, as Cabbage soup is called in German, is in essence a vegetable soup with cabbage. "Kohl" is the German word for Cabbage and "Suppe" means soup. The most used kind of cabbage used for this soup is white cabbage, but also recipes called savoy cabbage. There is no one unique recipe for this kind of soup. Some recipes use ground beef, others beef chuck or bacon.

Cabbage in German Cuisine

The cabbage did not originate from Germany but is probably an import from a Medditeranien country. It became popular in the Middle Ages. Karl the Great started to cultivate cabbage at the end of the 8th century. In Germany, all kinds of cabbage varieties are popular, red cabbage (rotkohl), kale (Grünkohl), savoy cabbage (Wirsing), or green and white cabbage (Weißkohl).

Cabbage was known as a poor people's food, as it was cheap and easy to cultivate yet packed with vitamins and minerals. The term to describe Germans as "Krauts" stems from the United States. It refers to the Sauerkraut that poor German immigrants used to eat when first entering the country. It became a widespread nickname for the German people in the second world war.

Today cabbage has experienced a sort of renaissance in German cuisine. Because it is low in calories but high in nutrients. It was, in part, made popular by Karl Lagerfeld's infamous "Cabbage Soup Diet". The effectiveness of this diet is controversial though. [Source: Planet Wissen.de] However, my soup recipe is not the diet kind.

German Cabbage Recipes

How to make German Cabbage Soup

My Kohlsuppe is a simple vegetable soup with cabbage as its main ingredient. I like to add the sausages at the end of my soup because it always leaves the option of making it vegetarian.

The soup is flavoured with caraway seeds, juniper berries (affiliate link) and vinegar for the iconic sweet and sour flavour.

Kohlsuppe Recipe Step by Step:

1. Peel the onions and garlic, and chop finely. Peel the potato and carrots and chop them into bite-size pieces. Finely chop the parsley. Wash the cabbage and remove the outer leaves. Quarter through the stem and remove the dense core with a sharp knife and discard. Roughly slice into bite-size cubes.

2. Heat the oil in the pan and fry the onions until translucent. Then add in the garlic and fry for a further minute.

3. Add the cabbage with a teaspoon of salt. Briefly fry with the onions. The salt will extract moisture from the cabbage. Pour in the vegetable broth, the crushed juniper berries (affiliate link), bay leaves and caraway seeds. Cover the pot with a lid and leave the cabbage to cook for a total of 40 minutes.
4. Now add in the potatoes, carrots and parsley and cook for a further 20 minutes until the vegetables are done.

5. Before serving add the sugar and vinegar to taste. The exact amount depends on your personal taste. Add until you achieve the desired sweet and sour flavour, then season with salt and pepper.

6. Lastly, add the smoked sausage to the soup. The soup no longer needs to be cooked because if you use a smoked or preboiled sausage such as Mettenden or Frankfurter Sausages, they just need to be warmed up.

Recipe Variations:

Here are some suggestions on how you can change the soup around:

• Add bacon or ham when you try the onions for a more meaty flavour.
• In some recipes, add cubes of beef to the soup and then cook it with the cabbage to give it a goulash texture.
• You can also fry ground meat / minced meat with onions. Add some tomato mark to the onions before adding in the broth.
• Change up the cabbage and try it with savoy cabbage instead of this cabbage..

How to serve:

Serve this sweet and sour cabbage soup hot, with some rye bread or a crusty roll on the side.

Storage Instructions

Store the soup in the fridge in an airtight container for up to three days. Reheating the soup will make it even better, as the flavours have more time to infuse (in my opinion). So it is a great soup to prepare the day before.

The Kohlsuppe is also suitable to freezing. It will stay good in the freezer up to 6 months.

More German Soups

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