Diet-Friendly Light Cabbage Soup (2024)

Recipes By Diet
Low-Fat Cooking
Low-Fat Mains

Diana Rattray

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer.

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Updated on 02/22/24

Tested by

Danilo Alfaro

Tested byDanilo Alfaro

Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.

Learn about The Spruce Eats'Editorial Process

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Prep: 20 mins

Cook: 60 mins

Total: 80 mins

Servings: 7 servings

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The cabbage soup diet is often used to jump-start a long-term diet plan. It was one of the original "soup diets" that became popular in the 1980s, and if you're going to diet, you might as well have a delicious recipe. This basic cabbage soup is an excellent choice and can be made with beans, ground meat, or chicken if you're not dieting. Cook the soup on the stovetop for about an hour or combine everything in the slow cooker and cook all day on low.

The diet plan centers around the cabbage soup, which is eaten throughout the week. In addition, it begins with a few days of fruit and vegetables and with little or no protein. Then, bananas and skim milk are added. Later in the week, beef or chicken and rice are added along with the soup.

By consuming low-calorie and low-fat foods, the diet burns fat fairly quickly. It's not recommended as a long-term diet but as a means to get you started. How much weight you lose will depend on your metabolism. If you have any special health concerns or dietaryrestrictions or issues, you should speak to your health care professional before starting any diet, including this one.

"While I can't comment on how effective this soup is at producing weight loss, it is certainly a delicious and satisfying soup. If you were skeptical of soup made from canned vegetable juice, rest assured that vegetable juice is basically tomato soup anyway, so you’re just adding cabbage, celery, and the rest of the ingredients." —Danilo Alfaro

A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

6 large scallions, sliced
2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 or 2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 bunch celery, sliced
1/2 head cabbage, chopped
1 packagedryonion soup mix(such as Lipton)
1 or 2 cubes bouillon, optional
See Also
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1 (48-ounce) can tomato-based vegetable juice (or 6 cups water)
Kosher salt, to taste
Curry powder, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, optional for seasoning
Parsley, optional for seasoning
Garlic powder, optional for seasoning
Paprika, optional for seasoning

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Add the scallions, bell peppers, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, onion soup mix, and bouillon, if using, and tomato-based vegetable juice to a soup pot or slow cooker.
Cover and cook on low in a soup pot on the stove for 1 hour or in a slow cooker for 5 hours.
Add the salt, curry powder, and any optional seasonings, and continue cooking for a few minutes on the stovetop or 1 to 2 hours more in a slow cooker.
Eat all the soup you want. Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge and reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop.

Tip

The recipe calls for curry powder "to taste," but if you're not familiar with cooking with curry powder, you might not know what sort of quantity to start with. If you're unsure, try 1/2 teaspoon initially, and add more later, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, if it needs it.

Recipe Variations

To embellish this basic recipe, try adding an extra ingredient or two (diet permitting), such as:

1 pound browned ground beef or ground turkey.
Zucchini or summer squash.
1 can drained Great Northern, navy, red, pinto, or black beans.
Leftover diced ham or corned beef.
1 can condensed (or double-strength) beef broth or condensed French onion soup instead of bouillon.
1 cup chopped fresh spinach or kale.
1/2 cup diced or thinly sliced carrots.
Diced cooked bacon, garnish.

The Diet Plan

The cabbage soup diet allows you to eat all of the cabbage soup you like in addition to adding certain foods on specific days throughout the week. No bread, alcohol, or carbonated beverages, including diet sodas.

Day 1: Any fruit except bananas.
Day 2: Any and all vegetables, baked potato with butter for dinner.
Day 3: Combine Days 1 and 2 without potato.
Day 4: Up to 6 bananas, skim milk.
Day 5: 10 to 20 ounces of beef or skinless chicken, can of tomatoes, 6 to 8 glasses of water.
Day 6: All the beef or chicken and vegetables you want.
Day 7: Brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices, and vegetables.

How Does the Cabbage Soup Diet Help You Lose Weight?

In general, soup diets focus on reducing calories and fat for several days. This can lead to quick weight loss and shedding a few pounds, helping some people stay motivated to eat healthier as they move on to a long-term diet. The cabbage soup provides many essential nutrients, and it can increase satiety, helping you feel fuller, so you eat less. However, diets like this should only be temporary because they do not include all food groups and can lead to nutrient deficiencies.

Easy Stovetop Cabbage Soup

Low-Fat Mains
Vegetable Recipes
Pepper Recipes
Recipes By Diet
Low-Fat Cooking

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
83	Calories
1g	Fat
18g	Carbs
4g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 7
Amount per serving
Calories	83
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 1g	1%
Saturated Fat 0g	1%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 727mg	32%
Total Carbohydrate 18g	7%
Dietary Fiber 6g	22%
Total Sugars 8g
Protein 4g
Vitamin C 86mg	428%
Calcium 130mg	10%
Iron 2mg	9%
Potassium 696mg	15%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

Pepper
Diet
entree
american

Article Sources

The Spruce Eats uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Navaro DA, Raz O, Gabriel S, Shriqui VK, Gonen E, Boaz M. Functional foods in fad diets: a review. Functional Foods in Health and Disease. 2017;7(9):702-715. doi:10.31989/ffhd.v7i9.346
Zhu Y, Hollis JH. Soup consumption is associated with a lower dietary energy density and a better diet quality in US adults. Br J Nutr. 2014;111(8):1474-1480. doi:10.1017/S0007114513003954
Hart, K. Chapter 4.6: Fad diets and fasting for weight loss in obesity. In Hankey C, ed.Advanced Nutrition and Dietetics in Obesity. Wiley; 2018,177–182.

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