Community Pick
The Original Cabbage Soup Diet
"I got this out of the National Enquirer in 1995-1996 when the soup diet originally came out. I don't remember the rules of the diet other than you could eat as much of this as you wanted."
photo by Jonathan Melendez
- Ready In:
- 1hr 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 13
- Serves:
-
20
ingredients
- 1 head cabbage, chopped
- 6 onions, sliced or chopped
- 2 green bell peppers, chopped
- 1 bunch celery, chopped
- 1 bunch shallots or 1 bunch green onion, sliced
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes
- 1 (1 1/4 ounce) envelope onion soup
- 1⁄2 cup balsamic vinegar (optional)
- 48 ounces V8 vegetable juice
- 2 (28 ounce) cans chopped tomatoes
- 1 lemon, juice of
- pepper
- 6 garlic cloves, crushed
directions
- Place all in large stock pot and bring to a boil.
- Simmer for 1 hour.
- Refrigerate all leftovers.
Questions & Replies
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Can you use beef broth instead of chicken? -
Silly question. I use chicken or beef bone broth instead. (Higher Protein) Allowed? I usually follow a keto diet, so carrots & onions (higher carbs) I swapped with zucchini & scallions.
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Can you freeze this soup? -
How much water to put in and if I can put APPLE cider vinegar
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Can you add cayane pepper for spice
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Reviews
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Outstanding! Perfect as is, although I usually add a dash of worcestershire and another of hot sauce and puree a serving in my magic bullet so I can drink on the run. I drink it cold...tastes a lot like V8 (duh). I try to keep a batch on hand, not to diet, but because it's refreshing and sooo good for you! Love this soup! -
It's probably pretty good, but I hate to break it to you that the 'original' diet cabbage soup is from ...lemme see....40 years ago? We lived around the corner from Mrs. Gooch's in WLA. I was 'chubby' as a child and was subjected to all kinds of holistic/health food diets. Yes, 'subjected'. Try eating nothing but apples for 3 days followed by an 8th of a cup of olive oil and lemon juice! UCK. <br/>In any event, the original base was just that. Cabbage. Now I realize it's more like a mirepoix with tomatoes added. 4 ingredients plus salt. Cabbage, whole stewed tomatoes, celery and onion. <br/>That said, then we'd add a tiny bit of this or that if desired. My mom was one of those that didn't know the beauty of herbs and spices for flavoring. So it was purely by accident that we came across using parmigiana cheese. <br/>I agree that carrots would be a tad sweet, at least for my palate. Bell peppers sound great. I'm also going to try some parsley. Plus now I add garlic as well. I'm in the process of cooking up a batch at this moment. I'm guessing from the ingredients it will be at least a 4 star soup!
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Be careful of what you add to this recipe as you may defeat the purpose of it. Carrots have a lot of sugar. 3 pounds of carrots equals the sugar found in a 20 oz can of coke. 2lbs.8oz of carrots equals the amount of sugar in a snickers bar. If you want to add flavour add fresh herbs.
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So we did the actual week long diet. . .thanks for the inspiration! We followed it to a "T" and I lost 3 lbs and my hubby lost 6.5 lbs. It was actually an enjoyable diet as I like this soup and because each day they switch it up a bit with veggies or fruit or meat. -
I followed the diet to the letter for 7 days and lost 17 pounds, It does work. It's a little boreing but if you can handle it is worth it.
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Tweaks
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I'm in a hurry and found it quicker to substitute the head of cabbage with 2-3 bags of Cole Slaw and the chopped onion and pepper with a couple bags of Kroger Mirepoix, available in the frozen vegetable aisle. This diet works and these tweaks make it much easier to make.
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We added garlic cloves and Tabasco sauce - yum!
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I switched his up a bit and roasted 2 green and red bell peppers, a container of diced mushrooms and 2 large onions and 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped) with some salt and pepper in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Then I combined 2 cans of Muir Glen fire roasted crushed tomatoes with the remaining ingredients in a large stock pot to warm through before adding the roasted veggies and Spicy V8 (love my spicy stuff) and simmered for the time stated. I squeezed the lemon juice at the end of the cooking time and ate 2 huge bowls. Yummy! I think the balsamic vinegar and lemon are such a great addition to the original recipe. Thanks for posting this "oldie, but goodie."
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Spyder-man
United States
I live in South Carolina, work in north Carolina. Love to hunt and fish. Was in the military for 10 years. Occasional cook for my children while my wife works nights.
