Napa cabbage is an ingredient commonly found in East Asian dishes. Unlike regular cabbages, Napa cabbages are leafy and long. Although Napa cabbages were once indigenous to Asian cuisine, they have now begun to gain popularity in America, Australia, and some European countries.
Like most fruit and vegetable, napa cabbages are hard to find when they are out of season. However, there are other great ingredients you can use during those months when you can’t find any decent napa cabbage.
Our 3 Substitutes for Napa Cabbage
Napa cabbages are a sweet, crispy, and high fibre vegetable suitable for salads, ramen, or a meal of their own. You can use Napa Cabbages to make different types of sauce.
They are a very light food, taking the edge off of hunger without filling you up too much. This makes them a suitable ingredient for light meals and starters.
Here are our top 3 substitutes for Napa Cabbages:
1) Kale
Kale sounds like your garden variety leafy vegetable, but it’s a type of cabbage. It has a distinct taste that gets pronounced as it ages. This makes it a suitable choice when you want to balance salads that are too sweet.
Its leaves are crunchy and can be added to various meals, including soups, dumplings, and vegetarian meals.
However, kale has a bitterness to it that only gets more intense the more mature it gets. You can use mature kale as a napa cabbage substitute if you have it to hand, but you may want to prepare it with a light drizzle of lemons or add some basil to your dish so that it doesn’t make your dish overly bitter.
How to Cook Kale
Kale is a versatile ingredient, so it can be consumed raw. However, kale doesn’t need to sit on a fire for long when it’s to be cooked. It can be seasoned with ginger, garlic, peppers, and salt. These ingredients help to enhance the already potent taste of kale and give it a tastier balance.
2) Endive
If you’re looking for versatility, endives are an excellent alternative for spicing up meals.
Raw endives have a subtle but bitter taste that you can enjoy in salads. However, endives taste like mild, sweet nuts when they are cooked. Compared to Napa Cabbages, Endives contain less sugar and more nutrients, making an all-around diet pleaser.
Endives are spicier than Napa Cabbages and can be used to prepare a variety of dishes, including slaw, soup, rolls, etc. You can even try experimenting with endives when making kimchi.
There is a range of ways that you can use endives, but the best way to cook them is to boil or bake them. This will make them a much more pleasant texture that is similar to napa cabbage when that is boiled or baked. That being said, you do not need to cook endives to enjoy them as they can be eaten both cooked and raw.
Allow Time for Cooking
Endives take much longer to bake and boil than napa cabbage. There is not really a way to speed up their cooking process so just make sure to allocate enough time to their preparation if you are on a tight schedule in the kitchen.
3) Boy Choy
Bok Choy is a fibre-rich alternative to Napa Cabbages with a hard stalk. It is common in Asian cuisine and is used to replace Napa cabbages in dishes because of its taste.
Bok Choy is commonly used to prepare soups and ramen. However, the method used to prepare it is pretty different from Napa Cabbages. This variety of cabbage is full of vitamins and tastes like a mix of cabbage and celery.
How to Prepare Bok Choy
Bok Choy is prepared by first removing the stalk and boiling it before adding the leaves. After the stalks become soft and tender, the leaves are added. It is cooked like this because of the high fibre content of its stem. It is suitable for replacing Napa Cabbages in stir-fry and grills.
Other Substitutes for Napa Cabbage
Sometimes, when a new or exotic vegetable takes our fancy in the supermarket, it is often easier to waste it than try an intimidating new recipe to use it up. Here are a couple of more niche vegetables that you can find a use for in replacing napa cabbage:
- Green Swiss chard– You can use green Swiss chard in omelettes, stir-fry, and soups. Trying them out in ramen is also a great idea.
- Kohlrabi – A highly nutritious plant also from the cabbage family, kohlrabi is full of health benefits and has a similar use to napa cabbage even though it tastes sweeter.
Summary
Findinga perfect alternative to napa Cabbages for your meals can be tricky. Each substitute listed above has its distinctive properties to enhance your meals while still maintaining the function of napa Cabbages, but kale comes the closest to replicating the flavour and texture of napa cabbage.