Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese

Red cabbage may be a food photographer’s nightmare, but don’t let that stop you from making this amazing Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese! This delicious salad is low-carb, Keto, low-glycemic, gluten-free, and South Beach Diet friendly if you don’t mind splurging on the bacon! Use the Diet-Type Index to find more recipes like this one.

Click to PIN Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese!

A few months ago I re-discovered this amazing Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese back in my archives and realized it was never going to get the attention it deserved without better photos, and then three times I tried to get a really good photo of this salad!  I made the salad three times and took lots of photos, but after three tries the picture above is the best photo I could come up with for this amazing salad with slightly-wilted red cabbage, bacon, and goat cheese. Please don’t let my limitations as a photographer stop you from trying this recipe; I promise this salad tastes amazing even though it was hard to photograph!

When I was a kid, my mom used to make a type of bacon and cabbage salad that everyone in our family loved. Her salad had lots of bacon, and used a huge amount of bacon grease and a little vinegar as the dressing.This cabbage salad has a lot of healthy red cabbage and a lot less bacon than mom’s salad, and the dressing is mostly made from olive oil, for tasty salad with less saturated fat.  I used six slices of pre-cooked bacon (which has only 3 grams of fat per slice.) Then I cooked the bacon until it was very crisp and blotted off and drained more fat. The small amount of fat that’s left in the pan delivers just enough bacon flavor!

The addition of soft goat cheese is also a big flavor boost, and goat cheese has only 3 grams of fat per ounce.  I think Feta cheese would also be great here.(Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese was first posted April 2007 and updated with new photos April 2015.  And if you’re a big cabbage fan like I am, here are more Favorite Salads with Cabbage.)

Cook the bacon until it’s very crisp and most of the fat is cooked out, then drain the pan but don’t wipe it out.  Drain the bacon on paper towels.

Cut up the cabbage in to quarters and cut away the core.  Slice the cabbage into thin strips.  (I like a mix of thinner and slightly thinner strips for texture.)

Add the olive oil to the pan and heat, then saute the red onions until they’re starting to soften. Add the vinegar and simmer 30-45 seconds.  Then add the cabbage and cook until it’s barely wilted, tossing to coat with the dressing.  Season cabbage with salt and pepper, then put cabbage in a bowl and toss in the bacon and goat cheese.  YUM!

Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Goat Cheese
(Makes 4-6 servings, recipe slightly adapted from Vegetables Every Day.)

Ingredients:
1 small head red cabbage
6 slices bacon (For South Beach, use pre-cooked bacon, then crisp and blot off as much fat as possible)
3 T extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup diced red onion
3 T red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
salt
fresh ground black pepper
3 oz. crumbled goat cheese (about 2/3 cup)

Instructions:
Heat a frying pan (large enough to hold the cabbage) and cook bacon until very crisp. Drain bacon on paper towels. Pour out bacon fat, but don’t wipe out frying pan.

Remove discolored outer leaves of cabbage, then quarter cabbage and cut away the core. Slice cabbage into thin strips and put into large bowl.

Add olive oil to pan and saute onions until barely softened, 2-3 minutes. Add vinegar and simmer 30 seconds. Add cabbage and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring to coat cabbage with dressing. Cabbage should still be crisp.

Crumble bacon while cabbage cooks. Turn off heat and season cabbage with salt and pepper. Pour cabbage back into bowl, add bacon, crumble goat cheese over and stir to combine. Arrange salad on individual plates and serve.

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Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
This salad would be a great side dish for any phase of the South Beach Diet, keeping in mind that it should probably be a “once in a while treat” due to the saturated fat. It would be suitable for other Low-Carb eating plans.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use the Recipes by Diet Type photo index pages to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Nutritional Information?
If you want nutritional information for a recipe, you can sign up for a free membership with Yummly and use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information. Another option is entering the recipe into this Recipe Nutrition Analyzer, which will calculate it for you.

More Salads with Cabbage:
Apple-Jicama Slaw with Sweet and Spicy Sriracha Dressing ~ Kalyn’s Kitchen
Red Cabbage Salad ~ Taste and Tell
Thai-Style Spicy Cabbage Slaw with Mint and Cilantro ~ Kalyn’s Kitchen