Easy Braised Red Cabbage

From the moment we first made it, this laughably cheap and easy Braised Red Cabbage recipe instantly became a heavy rotation favorite in our kitchen.

This recipe can serve in a pinch as a main dish, but you'll most likely want to serve it as a side. We ate ours alongside an amazing sauerbraten, and it was a flawless combination.

I'd like to thank my fellow blogging roundtabler Tara at Beach Eats for introducing us to this absolute keeper of a recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
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Braised Red Cabbage
(modified and adapted from Beach Eats)

Ingredients:
1 small to medium sized red cabbage
4-5 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon Olive oil
1/3 cup onion, sliced into slivers
1 apple, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth or stock (or optional chicken stock)
1 medium onion, peeled and studded with 3 whole cloves

Spice mixture:
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 pinches dried mustard
1 pinch each of rosemary, garlic powder, thyme and sage
1/2 bay leaf, crumbled

Directions:
1) Cut cabbage into quarters, remove core, and slice into thin shreds. As you slice up the cabbage, place it in a large bowl and drizzle with the 4-5 Tablespoons vinegar.

2) Heat olive oil in a saucepan to medium high, add the cabbage and toss/saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the sliced onion and chopped apple and toss for 1-2 minutes more.

3) Nestle the studded onion with the cabbage, add the broth and spice mixture, and stir well to combine everything.

4) Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, or until the cabbage is cooked to your liking.

Serves 4 as a main dish, serves 6-7 as a side.
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Recipe Notes:
1) If you told me I'd someday borrow a recipe and deliberately plagiarize the phrase nestle the studded onion you'd be, well, exactly right.

2) Substitution ideas: You could easily substitute regular cabbage for this recipe to save even more money, but the luscious, deep red color of the red cabbage is worth the modest added expense in my opinion.

3) Why drizzle the cabbage with vinegar? Red cabbage has a tendency to fade in color if you leave it out in the open air. The vinegar helps protect the cabbage's rich color and it adds some of the recipe's most important flavor notes.

4) Extra points to whoever eats the studded onion. It won't disappoint.

5) Finally, a brief quantification of this recipe's laughable cheapness:

red cabbage: $2.25
2 onions: 40c
1 apple: 40c
vinegar: 5c
broth: 10c
spices: 25c

All told, this dish comes in under $3.50. You can't beat that with a studded onion.