Holubtsi: Ukrainian Cabbage Rolls, Step by Step
The UAFest kitchen team
August 2026 · 8 min read
The kitchen department, where the festival food actually comes from
Holubtsi are cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling of rice and meat and baked until the leaf gives way under a fork. The name comes from holub, the word for pigeon — the little parcels apparently reminded someone of birds, and it stuck.
They are Sunday food and holiday food. A meatless version appears on the Christmas Eve table among the twelve dishes, and the meat version turns up at weddings, wakes and every family gathering in between.
Getting the leaves off the cabbage whole
This is the step that decides whether the afternoon goes well. Cut the core out of a whole head, lower it into a large pot of boiling salted water, and peel the leaves away one at a time as they soften — roughly a minute each. Lift them out with tongs and let them drain.
The freezer method is easier and needs planning: freeze the whole head for a day, then thaw it. The leaves come away limp and pliable with no boiling at all. Whichever way you go, shave down the thick rib at the base of each leaf so it rolls without cracking.
The filling, and how much rice
The classic ratio is roughly equal parts raw rice and meat by volume, with a fried onion and carrot mixed through. The rice should be parboiled rather than fully cooked — it finishes in the oven, drinking the sauce as it goes.
Overfilling is the common mistake. About two tablespoons per medium leaf leaves room for the rice to swell; a tightly stuffed roll bursts in the pan.
- Meat version: pork and beef mixed, or pork alone for a softer filling.
- Lean version: rice with mushrooms, or with buckwheat, for Christmas Eve and fasting days.
- Lazy holubtsi: everything chopped and layered in a casserole with no rolling at all — the same flavour on a weeknight.
Sauce and the long bake
Tomato and sour cream, loosened with broth, is the standard. Pour it over the packed rolls until they are two-thirds submerged, cover the dish tightly, and bake low and slow. Ninety minutes is the minimum; two hours is better.
Holubtsi, like borscht, improve overnight. Make them the day before the people arrive.
Recipe
Holubtsi (Ukrainian Cabbage Rolls)
Cabbage leaves rolled around rice, pork and beef, baked slowly in a tomato and sour cream sauce.
- Prep
- 1 hour
- Cook
- 2 hours
- Total
- 3 hours
- Makes
- About 20 rolls, 6 servings
Ingredients
Rolls
- 1 large head green cabbage (about 2 kg)
- 1 cup long-grain rice, parboiled 5 minutes and drained
- 500 g ground pork and beef, mixed
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 1 carrot, grated
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil
- 1½ tsp salt, ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp chopped dill
Sauce
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 400 g tinned crushed tomatoes
- 200 ml sour cream
- 500 ml beef or vegetable broth
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- 1Soften the cabbageCut the core out of the head. Lower it into boiling salted water and peel off the leaves as they soften, about a minute each. Drain them and shave the thick rib at the base of each leaf flat.
- 2Make the fillingSoften the onion and carrot in the oil for 8 minutes. Let them cool, then mix with the parboiled rice, the ground meat, salt, pepper and dill.
- 3RollPut about 2 tablespoons of filling near the base of a leaf, fold the sides in and roll it up into a parcel. Repeat, packing the rolls seam down in a deep baking dish. Line the bottom with the leftover outer leaves so nothing catches.
- 4Mix the sauceWhisk the tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, sour cream and broth together with salt and pepper. Pour it over the rolls until they are two-thirds covered and tuck in the bay leaf.
- 5Bake slowlyCover tightly with a lid or foil and bake at 160 °C (325 °F) for 2 hours, until a fork slides through a roll with no resistance. Rest 20 minutes before serving.
- 6ServeServe with the sauce spooned over, extra sour cream and dill. They reheat better than almost anything else in the Ukrainian kitchen.
Notes from the kitchen
- Freeze the whole cabbage head for 24 hours and thaw it instead of boiling — the leaves come away soft on their own.
- For the Christmas Eve version, drop the meat and fill the leaves with rice and fried mushrooms; sour cream comes off the sauce as well.
- Lazy holubtsi: chop the cabbage, mix it into the filling, layer it in a dish with the sauce and bake for an hour.
The kitchen team cooks these by the tray for festival day in Carleton Place.
Sunday, September 13, 2026 · 12 PM – 6 PM · Riverside Park, Carleton Place
What people ask
The idea travels across Central and Eastern Europe. The Ukrainian version leans on a tomato and sour cream sauce, uses rice with pork and beef, and appears in a meatless form on the Christmas Eve table.
Parboil it for about five minutes and no more. Fully cooked rice turns pasty during the long bake; raw rice can leave the rolls hard.
Yes, both raw and baked. Freeze them in the sauce, thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat covered at 150 °C.
Sour cream, dill and dark bread. On a festival plate they land next to borscht and varenyky.
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