Napa Cabbage Gratin

An easy, affordable, and surprisingly delicious side for all your holiday (and winter) meals.

Happy Saturday! Is everyone else’s December already so packed you can barely keep up? I blame the late date of Thanksgiving this year. It feels like I’m on a rollercoaster that runs straight from turkey leftovers through class plays and school holiday assemblies into Christmas trees, stockings, and then, immediately (on Christmas night!), into latkes and sufganiyot. And in the middle of all of this, a family reunion in Mexico—which I’m not actually complaining about. In fact, I’m not actually complaining about any of it; the more holiday events the merrier! But, let’s be honest, I’m going to be exhausted by New Years. (I’m kind of already exhausted now, just planning it all.)

I haven’t officially unveiled my cookbook cover, but here’s a sneak peek!

Before I dive into today’s recipe, a tiny bit of self-promotion: If you haven’t done so, check out my new Substack, Snacking Dinners! It’s based on the idea behind my upcoming cookbook—that dinner can be fast, delicious, and also fun—and I’ll be sending out free recipes once a week. This week it was a delicious combination of marinated goat cheese and tapenade—perfect for making for a holiday party or for stashing in the fridge for dinner, or both. Check it out! I’d love your feedback!

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Napa Cabbage Gratin

This recipe began with a humble but gorgeous gift: a Napa cabbage from SingleThread farm. One of the very best parts of my job is that when I’m writing someone else’s cookbook, I get to step into their world for a day at a time and learn all kinds of wonderful things. For the past couple of years, this has meant that I sometimes get to spend a day shadowing the farmers and chefs at SingleThread—a stunning farm and restaurant (and inn) with three Michelin stars and a spot on the World’s 50 Best list (and currently the #1 restaurant in the US, according to La Liste!)—about 90 minutes from me in Healdsburg. It’s a pretty great gig. The team is amazing, and their food is amazing, and I feel lucky every time I get to go up there.

A few weeks ago, just as the fall weather was starting to get really chilly, I spent the morning with the sous chef in charge of retail and NA beverage development, learning to make SingleThread’s kimchi and layu chile oil. When I left, he handed me a bunch of ingredients, including cabbage for making the kimchi—and one extra, for making dinner. SingleThread’s produce is picked when it’s exactly, perfectly ripe, so I didn’t want to let this cabbage sit in the fridge for more than a few hours before using it. I dug through my fridge to see what I could make with it and found some leftover cream, the last inch of a block of Gruyere, and a bit of shredded parmesan, so I decided I’d make a rich, wintery gratin.

The method I used to cook the cabbage and make this gratin wasn’t revolutionary or complicated; all I did was sear the vegetable a bit, to wilt it and give it some caramelization, then pour/sprinkle the other ingredients on it in a casserole dish and season it well. But for some reason, once it came out of the oven, it was absolutely delicious in a way that epitomized the idea that in cooking, the whole is often more than the sum of its parts. I don’t remember what we ate it with that first night—whatever it was, it wasn’t as memorable as the gratin—but I plan to make this dish a lot this winter, both for the holidays (to go with my Christmas duck and latkes) and when I want a treat for weeknight dinners. (Realistically, you could also just have it as a main course with some white rice to soak up all the sauce. That’s how I’ve been eating the leftovers.)

Serves 6–8

1 large Napa cabbage
Extra virgin olive oil
2½ ounces (¾ cup) freshly grated Gruyère
1 ounce (⅓ cup) shredded Parmesan
1 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
Freshly ground pepper
Fresh nutmeg

1. Cut the cabbage lengthwise into eights or tenths, making sure to cut through the core each time, so the leaves stay together.

2. Heat a slick of olive oil in a large pan, and cook the cabbage wedges, cut sides down, in batches over medium heat, flipping them once; they should wilt as they cook and be nicely browned on both sides. Add more olive oil to the pan as necessary with each batch (or after flipping). Line the cooked wedges up in a casserole dish.

3. Preheat the oven to 400℉. Sprinkle the Gruyère and Parmesan over the cabbage, tucking small handfuls of it into and under the wedges of cabbage where they overlap. Pour the cream over everything, and season the casserole generously with salt, pepper, and a whole lot of nutmeg grated on a Microplane zester.

4. Bake the gratin in the bottom third of the oven until the cream has been bubbling nicely for a while and the top of the casserole is golden brown in many places, about 40 minutes; the longer you cook this for, the more delicious it will be.

Other Holiday Recipes From the Archives

This December, I’m revisiting some of my favorite holiday recipes from past newsletters:

This weekend I spent a few hours making a massive batch of Christmas stollen (adapted from my great aunt’s recipe) to send to friends and family across the country:

Next, I’m making these gorgeous buñuelos de viento from Chicano Bakes:

And, lastly, I’m going to pull out the recipe I developed for panettone bread pudding. Instead of making it after the holidays, I might just make it for Christmas morning. (My dad visited this weekend, and he told me that he made this almost a dozen times last year, so that’s a big win!)

What are your holiday cooking plans? Let me know in the comments!

Photos: Georgia Freedman, Leela Cyd (courtesy Hardie Grant), Georgia Freedman, Esteban Castillo (courtesy of HarperCollins), Georgia Freedman