Gordon Ramsay’s cabbage soup is a creamy, bacon-laced bowl of savoy cabbage simmered with celeriac, carrots, and chicken stock, finished with cream and topped with crispy lardons. It comes together in about 40 minutes, with most of that time spent letting the soup do its thing on the stove.
Gordon Ramsay doesn’t publish a standalone cabbage soup in any of his 20 cookbooks, but his approach to cabbage is consistent across several books. In Home Cooking, he pairs shredded savoy cabbage with bacon, celeriac, and cream for his turbot accompaniment. In Make It Easy, he blanches both savoy and white cabbage before folding them into bacon cream for roast pheasant. This recipe adapts those techniques into a soup, using his creamed cabbage flavour base as the starting point.
The technique borrowed from his creamed cabbage: render the bacon first and cook the vegetables in that fat before the cabbage goes in. The bacon fat carries smoky flavour into every vegetable in the pot, which is why his cabbage sides taste richer than versions that just throw everything in together.
Gordon Ramsay Cabbage Soup Recipe
Course: SoupsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4-6
30
minutes45
155
kcal1
15
minutesAdapted from Gordon Ramsay’s creamed cabbage techniques in Home Cooking and Make It Easy, built into a soup using his standard aromatics and stock base. The celeriac comes from his turbot with creamed cabbage, where he uses it alongside savoy cabbage for a warmer, earthier flavour. Partially blended so half the soup is silky and the rest stays chunky.
Ingredients
5 oz (150g) celeriac (celery root), peeled and diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, trimmed and diced
6 slices (6 oz / 170g) smoked bacon, derinded and cut into small lardons
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
1 small savoy cabbage (about 1.5 lbs / 700g), quartered, cored, and finely shredded
5 cups (1.2 litres) chicken stock
2/3 cup (150ml) heavy cream (double cream)
Few thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Small handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Directions
- Render the bacon: Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the bacon lardons and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the fat has rendered and the pieces are starting to turn golden. Lift out about a third of the lardons with a slotted spoon and set aside on paper towels for the garnish. Leave the rest in the pan with all the rendered fat.
- Sweat the aromatics: Add the onion, carrot, celery, and celeriac to the pan with the remaining bacon. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring a couple of times, until the celeriac turns translucent. This covered sweating is how Ramsay softens his vegetables without browning them, so the soup stays clean in colour.
- Add the cabbage: Toss in the shredded savoy cabbage, garlic, thyme sprigs, and bay leaf. Stir everything together and cook uncovered for 3 to 4 minutes until the cabbage wilts down.
- Pour in stock: Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes until all the vegetables are completely tender and the cabbage has no bite left.
- Blend for body: Remove and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Ladle about half the soup into a blender and puree until smooth, then pour it back into the pot. This gives the soup a creamy base while keeping chunks of cabbage and vegetables throughout.
- Finish with cream: Stir in the heavy cream and simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Go easy on the salt because the bacon has already salted the base.
- Serve it up: Ladle into warm bowls, scatter over the reserved crispy bacon lardons and chopped parsley.
FAQs
Why is this recipe adapted rather than taken directly from a cookbook?
Gordon Ramsay doesn’t include a standalone cabbage soup in any of his 20 published cookbooks. He does, however, cook cabbage the same way across multiple books: rendered bacon first, then savoy cabbage with cream. His turbot with creamed cabbage in Home Cooking and his pheasant with creamed cabbage in Make It Easy both follow this pattern. This soup takes those flavour combinations and techniques and builds them into a broth-based dish using his standard soup method.
Why savoy cabbage instead of green or white?
Ramsay uses savoy cabbage almost every time he cooks cabbage across his books. Savoy has softer, more crinkled leaves that break down into a tender texture without turning to mush the way flat-leaf green cabbage can. The flavour is milder and sweeter too, which means it takes on the bacon and cream without fighting them. His Make It Easy recipe is the one exception, where he mixes savoy and white cabbage together for a bit more crunch.
Why render the bacon before anything else goes in?
This comes directly from Ramsay’s creamed cabbage method in Home Cooking. He always starts by cooking the bacon in the pan so the fat renders out, then sweats his vegetables in that fat rather than in plain oil. Every piece of carrot and celeriac picks up a smoky, savoury flavour from the bacon drippings. If you add the bacon later, it sits on top of the soup as a garnish but never gets into the base. His pea and ham soup follows the same principle of building the pork flavour from the bottom up.
What does the celeriac add that regular celery doesn’t?
Ramsay pairs celeriac with cabbage in his Home Cooking creamed cabbage, using diced celeriac alongside carrot and bacon. Celeriac has a warm, nutty sweetness that regular celery stalks can’t match, and it thickens the soup slightly as it breaks down during blending. It bridges the gap between the smoky bacon and the mild cabbage, giving the soup a rounder, more complete flavour. You’ll find the same pairing in his celery soup, where celeriac does the heavy lifting.
Why blend only half the soup?
Pureeing the entire pot would give you a smooth, pale green soup with no texture, which isn’t what cabbage soup should be. Blending just half creates a creamy base that coats the back of a spoon while leaving ribbons of cabbage and chunks of vegetable in every bowl. It’s a technique Ramsay uses in several of his chunkier soups, where you want body without losing the character of the main ingredient. His chunky vegetable soup takes a similar partial-blend approach.
Can you make this without cream?
The cream adds richness, but the soup already has a solid flavour base from the bacon fat, stock, and celeriac. If you skip the cream, increase the stock by about 2/3 cup (150ml) and blend a slightly larger portion of the soup to compensate for the lost body. The result will be lighter and more brothy, closer to his chicken broth in style. Add an extra knob of butter at the end if you want some richness without the cream.
I’m Ava Taylor. I’m A Self-taught Home Cook Who Loves Gordon Ramsay Recipes. I Try Every Dish In My Small Apartment Kitchen And Tweak It Until It Works. I Write Clear Steps With Simple Words So Anyone Can Follow. I Share Honest Wins, Mistakes, And Quick Tips To Help You Cook With Confidence.