Bacon & Cabbage with Parsley Sauce
If there's one dinner that means Sunday in an Irish kitchen, it's this. Bacon and cabbage isn't restaurant food and was never meant to be — it's a pot on the stove, steamed-up windows, and everyone called to the table twice before they come.
The dish is really three small tricks in a row: blanch the bacon first so the salt is right, cook the cabbage in the bacon water so it tastes of the whole dinner, and make the parsley sauce from the cooking liquor so nothing is wasted and everything ties together. Granny would no more throw out that liquid than throw out the bacon itself.
Serve it with floury potatoes and a slice of brown bread for the sauce. Leftovers make the best sandwich of your week.
Bacon & Cabbage with Parsley Sauce
Tender boiled bacon, buttered cabbage cooked in the bacon water, and a proper parsley sauce.
Ingredients
For the bacon & cabbage
- 1200 g loin of bacon (boiling bacon)
- 1 onion, halved
- 2 bay leaves & 6 peppercorns
- 1 savoy cabbage, cored & thickly sliced
- 40 g butter, plus extra to finish
For the parsley sauce
- 30 g butter
- 30 g plain flour
- 300 ml bacon cooking liquid
- 200 ml milk
- Large handful parsley, finely chopped
Method
- Blanch the bacon. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, and pour the water away — it takes the excess salt with it. Cover again with fresh cold water.
- Simmer. Add the onion, bay and peppercorns. Bring to a bare simmer, cover, and cook about 1 hour 20 minutes (25 min per 500 g + 25). Skim occasionally.
- Rest. Lift the bacon out, cover loosely with foil and rest. Keep the liquid.
- Cook the cabbage. Simmer the cabbage in the bacon water 4–6 minutes until just tender. Drain and toss with butter and plenty of black pepper.
- Parsley sauce. Melt the butter, stir in the flour, cook 1 minute. Whisk in the strained bacon liquid and milk gradually until smooth; simmer 3–4 minutes, then stir in the parsley. Season with pepper only — the liquor brings the salt.
- Serve. Carve thickly. Cabbage alongside, floury potatoes, and a generous pour of sauce over everything.
Taste the cooking liquid before you make the sauce. If it's still very salty, use half liquor, half milk — the sauce should season the plate, not pickle it.
Tips for getting it right
Bare simmer only
A rolling boil makes bacon stringy. Tiny bubbles, lid on, and let time do the work.
Just-tender cabbage
4–6 minutes, no more. It should still have a bite — grey, silent cabbage helped nobody.
Waste nothing
The cooking liquor is the flavour of the whole dish — it cooks the cabbage and makes the sauce.
Questions, answered
What cut is boiling bacon?
A cured (usually unsmoked) joint of pork — loin or collar. Loin is leaner and slices neatly; collar is fattier and more forgiving. Outside Ireland, ask a butcher for a cured pork loin joint, or use a mild gammon joint.
Why discard the first water?
Cured bacon can be salty. Bringing it to the boil once and starting fresh draws off the excess so the meat — and the liquid you'll reuse — is seasoned, not briny.
Is this the same as corned beef and cabbage?
They're cousins. Bacon and cabbage is the original Irish dish; emigrants in America swapped in corned beef, which was cheaper there, and that became the St Patrick's Day standard in the US.