My Mum loves cooking with cabbage for its flavor and health benefits. She grew up in Hong Kong and always looks for “fancy-looking” cabbages for her recipes. The Napa cabbage is one such cabbage – but it’s hardly available in our area.
So, instead of that, she substitutes with similarly flavored and textured alternatives. This article explores the best options.
Contents
What Is Napa Cabbage?
Napa cabbage is a Chinese cabbage type with long white stalks and an oblong-shaped head of green leaves. It’s a staple in many Asian dishes, and its name derives from the Japanese word “Nappa,” which means “leaves.” Other names include celery cabbage, Peking cabbage, or Chinese cabbage.
The Best Napa Cabbage Substitutes
Chinese cabbage is a versatile ingredient in various recipes, e.g., stir-fries, favorite salad meals, slaws, as a dumpling filler, stews, pickled and fermented kimchi. Depending on your recipe, you can use substitutes for it. Below are some of the suggested replacements you can use if you can’t use Chinese cabbage:
Hispi Cabbage
Hispi, or pointed cabbage, is an excellent substitute for Chinese cabbage. It differs from other cabbages due to its conical shape and thinner green stems. The slightly waxy leaves are glossy and dark green.
Hispi cabbage can be used as a substitute for Chinese cabbage for both raw and cooked recipes. When eaten raw, it has a mild and slightly sweet flavor. This makes it suitable for salads and garnish. When it is cooked, pointed cabbage becomes more tender and sweeter.
Pointed cabbage can be boiled, steamed, and stir-fried. It is also used in stews and soups. To store a partial head of this cabbage, wrap it tightly with cling film and keep it in the crisper drawer for up to three days.
Savoy Cabbage
Savoy cabbage is another ideal substitute for Napa cabbage because it has a similar texture and mild flavor. The leaves on a Savoy cabbage are dark green, appear ruffled or crimped, and become tender and sweet when cooked.
This cabbage is versatile and can be used as a substitute for celery cabbage in soups, stews, curry veggie stir-fries, and casseroles. It has a slightly peppery flavor that adds a unique dimension to dishes. Ideally, it’s best to remove the thick, stringy stem from the leaves when cooking with Savoy cabbage.
Preparing Savoy cabbage includes boiling, frying, stewing, stir-frying, and steaming. Savoy cabbage is suitable for salads and wraps if eaten raw due to its tender texture and sweet flavor.
Bok Choy
Bok choy is also called Chinese white cabbage and is a suitable substitute for Napa cabbage. This vegetable is very popular in Asian cuisine (and my mother’s kitchen!) due to its thick, crunchy stalks and tender green leaves. It has a mild and slightly sweet yet peppery flavor and works well for stir-fries, soups, stews, and salads.
When selecting Bok choy at a store, avoid those with wilted or yellowed leaves, as that suggests it’s past its prime. When preparing Bok choy for a meal, rinse the leaves and cut them into the desired sizes. For stir-fries, you can cut the leaves into thin strips. For soups and stews, you can add whole leaves to the pot.
Green Cabbage
Green cabbage is the most budget-friendly and widely available substitute for Napa cabbage. While the flavor of green cabbage is slightly stronger than Chinese cabbage, it makes a good substitute in cooked dishes like stir-fries, casseroles, and soups. I also use green cabbage in my lazy keto meals such as the ground beef and cabbage stir fry with bacon recipe.
What’s important to remember, though, is that green cabbage has a denser texture and bigger leaves. This means it might take longer to cook than Napa cabbage unless you prepare it carefully beforehand.
Green cabbage makes an excellent substitute for Napa cabbage in salads and slaws and for making flavorful dumpling fillers. I often use green cabbage and enjoy eating it raw – especially when it’s thinly sliced for slaws, perfect for my air fryer turkey burger recipe. It’s also great when grilled on a barbecue (wrapped in aluminum, with white pepper and some butter). Plus, it has so many incredible health benefits.
Other Substitute Options
The four substitutes listed above are by no means your only options. Thankfully, many other suitable cruciferous vegetables make suitable replacements for Chinese cabbage. Some excellent choices include the following:
- Red cabbage
- Swiss chard
- Spinach
- Kale
- Brussels sprouts
- Cauliflower
Understanding Napa Cabbage
Chinese cabbage is a widely produced vegetable in Japan, China, and Korea. In China, this staple vegetable has been cultivated since the 14th century. It accounts for a significant fraction of the total vegetable consumption in northern China. It was introduced to Korea and Japan in the 1850s and, by the 1880s, was introduced to the Americas courtesy of Chinese immigrants.
In China, Napa cabbage is considered a sign of prosperity. As such, many glass and porcelain figures have a Chinese cabbage symbol printed on them. In Japan, it accounts for around fifty percent of the country’s total national production.
Is Napa Cabbage Healthy?
Chinese cabbage and other cabbages are chock-full of nutrients and health benefits. Some are listed below:
It has a high nutritional value and is perfect to include in your low-calorie meal recipes. The nutrients in half a cup of cooked Chinese cabbage include high doses of vitamins A, C, and K, plus potassium, magnesium, folate, and fiber.
The health benefits of Chinese cabbage include the following:
- It can help keep away cancer
- It can boost your immune system
- It boosts digestion
- Napa cabbage may help prevent diabetes, Alzheimer’s onset, and cancer
- It helps ease inflammation in soft tissue
- It can help your heart and lower “LDL” fats in your arteries
Reasons to Substitute Napa Cabbage
While Chinese cabbage is a preferred choice for many recipes, there are legitimate reasons for substituting it. They include the following:
- Limited availability: Napa cabbage is only sometimes available in smaller centers unless there is a significant demand for it. However, you should be able to get it in Asian food markets.
- Allergies: If you’re allergic to Chinese cabbage, the chances are that eating other Brassicaceae will also elicit an allergic reaction. In this case, consider using zucchini as a replacement for recipes requiring raw cabbage.
- Personal preference: You might choose to substitute Napa cabbage due to your personal preference, e.g., color, flavor, and texture.
- Dietary requirements: People who take blood thinners might need to substitute cabbage in their meals for something with less vitamin K. Vitamin K helps blood to clot, but excessive amounts negate the effects of blood thinners. Additionally, those who struggle to digest cruciferous vegetables would find it better to substitute cabbage with a vegetable from a different family.
Related Questions
Do you still have questions regarding substitutes for Napa cabbage? The FAQs below might answer them:
Is Napa Cabbage the Same as Romaine Lettuce?
While they look similar, Chinese cabbage is different from Romaine lettuce. However, Romaine lettuce is a worthwhile substitute for it as it can be grilled or used in salads.
What’s the Taste Difference Between Napa and Regular Cabbages?
Chinese cabbage is slightly sweeter than red and green cabbage. It tastes like a mix of cabbage, iceberg lettuce, and celery. Also, since the leaves are more tender, they have a milder flavor than regular cabbages.
What’s the Best Napa Cabbage Substitute for Kimchi?
Suppose you can’t get your hands on Chinese cabbage for your kimchi. In that case, you can use almost any other Brassicaceae family variant. Some examples include red, green, white, and Savoy cabbage, and Bok choy.
Conclusion
Finding a substitute for Napa cabbage is straightforward, as so many similar options are available. The replacements covered in this article include Bok choy, Hispi, Savoy, green, and red cabbage. Still, there are many others from which to choose! Your choice will depend on local availability, your preferences, and if you struggle with allergies.
Nathaniel Lee is an avid cook, drawing on his decades of home cooking and fine dining experience. He is a contributing chef at Mashed, and his recipes and contributions have been featured in Tasting Table, Edible Arrangements, Insanely Good Recipes, and The Daily Meal.
