Save This Recipe
Just drop your email here and We'll send it right away!
Bacon and cabbage is the dish that actually fed Irish families for generations — long before corned beef became the American St. Patrick’s Day standard. This Slow Cooker version keeps it simple: three ingredients, one pot, and a deeply savory result that tastes like you did a lot more work than you did.
Why You’ll Love It
Only 3 ingredients — thick-cut bacon, green cabbage, and water. That’s it.
Set it and forget it — six to seven hours on low and dinner takes care of itself.
Budget-friendly — a fraction of the cost of a corned beef brisket, especially around St. Patrick’s Day.
The broth is everything — the cooking liquid turns into a rich, savory pot liquor you’ll want to ladle over every bite.
Leftovers get better — the next day, reheated in a skillet, it’s arguably even more delicious.
Ingredient Notes
The bacon matters. I don’t mean you need to go to a specialty butcher, but get the thick-cut kind — the thin stuff just dissolves and you lose something. Grocery store thick-cut bacon is fine. If you happen to find Irish back bacon or a slab of cured pork belly, use that and you’ll be even closer to the real thing. Cut it into thick chunks before you add it.
The cabbage should be a big, heavy green one. I usually grab whatever looks densest at the store. Remove the sad outer leaves, cut it into big wedges — I do maybe six or eight depending on the size — and keep the core attached so they don’t fall apart completely while they cook. They’ll soften considerably regardless, but the core holds them together enough that you can lift them out in one piece.
The water. Yes, just water. One cup. I know it seems like it won’t be enough liquid but trust me — the cabbage releases a shocking amount of moisture as it cooks and you’ll end up with actual broth, not just steam. If you swap some of it for chicken broth, it’s a perfectly fine choice, but then I’ll argue it’s not really a three-ingredient recipe anymore, so that’s your call.
Ingredients
1 medium to large head green cabbage (about 2½ to 3 pounds), cored and cut into large wedges — I usually do 6 to 8
1 pound thick-cut bacon, strips left whole (or cut into large chunks if using slab)
1 cup water
Instructions
Pour the cup of water into the bottom of your Slow Cooker first. I use a 6-quart one; anything in the 5-to-7-quart range is going to work fine. The water is mostly just there to keep things from scorching in the first hour before the cabbage starts releasing its juice.
Arrange the cabbage wedges in the pot. They’ll be crowded. That’s okay. Pile them in, press them down a little, it doesn’t have to be perfect — nothing about this recipe needs to be perfect. They’ll be sitting above the rim probably, and that’s fine too because they cook down considerably.
Then lay the bacon over and around and between the cabbage. I try to tuck some pieces down along the sides so it’s dispersed throughout the pot rather than just sitting on top, because you want the fat to render down through everything as it cooks. That fat is doing a lot of flavor work here.
Put the lid on. Set it to low. Walk away for six to seven hours. I know it’s hard for some people to just leave something alone but please resist the urge to lift the lid in the first few hours. You lose heat and moisture every time you do it and the cooking time goes sideways.
When it’s done, taste a piece of cabbage and a piece of bacon together. This is important — they need to be eaten together to make sense. The cabbage will be silky and savory and a little sweet, and the bacon will be soft and fatty and salty. Some people like to pull the bacon out at this point and crisp it up in a hot skillet for a couple of minutes. I do this maybe half the time? It adds a nice texture contrast. Worth trying at least once.
Serve it in shallow bowls with some of the cooking broth ladled over the top. Do not skip the broth. The broth is half the point. Potatoes alongside — boiled or mashed, doesn’t matter — and something sharp on the side. A good sharp mustard. Horseradish if you have it.
Variations
Adding a ham hock is delicious and also makes it more of a production. A bay leaf and a few peppercorns are technically not ingredients but also barely count, and they’re lovely. If your cabbage is giant — and sometimes they are enormous, I don’t know why — you can do 1½ cups of water instead of one. Potatoes added directly to the Slow Cooker with everything else come out fine, a little waterlogged, but workable if you want a one-pot meal.
Storage
Leftovers keep in the fridge for three or four days, well covered. The broth is amazing the next day, honestly better. Reheat in a covered skillet with a splash of the cooking liquid — let the edges of the cabbage brown just slightly and you’ll get a little caramelization that makes it taste completely different in the best way.
This is one of those recipes that doesn’t ask much of you and gives back more than it should. Serve it with soda bread or crusty bread to mop up the broth, add a sharp mustard on the side, and honestly — that’s a meal worth making any time of year, not just in March.