Easy Cabbage Fritters

Make these easy cabbage fritters with just main 4 ingredients - cabbage, eggs, flour, and seasonings. These fritters are pan-fried until golden brown and can be served with your favorite dip, as side dish or appetizer. 

Love vegetable fritters? Try these next: potato fritters, zucchini fritters with corn, zucchini and haulumi cheese fritters.

What you'll need

• Small cabbage: smaller cabbages are more tender as they is younger. Perfect for raw and slightly cooked dishes like fritters. 
• Egg: egg binds the ingredients and helps fritters to hold their shape.
• Flour: I use all-purpose flour. But any other flour works well in this recipe.
• Seasonings: I used salt and black pepper.
• Avocado oil: you can also use olive oil or vegetable oil for frying.

Cabbage fritters recipe with step-by-step visuals

You can find the printable version of the recipe with the ingredients quantities in the recipe card at the end of this post.

Cut the cabbage into four wedges. Slice each wedge into thin shreds. 

In a large bowl, add shredded cabbage, egg, flour, salt and pepper. Mix well with a fork. Let the cabbage mixture rest for 10 minutes. 

Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Test by dropping a tiny bit of batter - if it sizzles, it's good to go. Scoop the batter with a spoon or a cookie scoop ( about 2 tablespoons per fritter) and place it in a hot pan. flattening each fritter gently with the back of the spoon. Fry for about 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Flipping them carefully with the spatula.

You can tranfer them on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb any extra oil. Cook the rest of the batter. You may need to add a little bit of oil after each batch.

Recipe shortcut: you can use the food processor to shred the cabbage or even buy the package of a coleslaw mix at the grocery store.

Recipe tips

• Shred cabbage thinly, you can even chop shredded cabbage with the knife.
• The batter should coat the cabbage shreds but not be runny. You can add an extra 1-2 tablespoons of flour if needed.
• Cook them on medium heat with a generous amount of oil, so they cook through and have crispy edges
• This fritters go well with sour cream based dips, garlic Greek yogurt sauce or aioli.

Storage and reheating instructions

• To refrigerate: store these fritters in airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.  
• To reheat: to keep them crispy, warm them in a preheated 350°F oven on a parchment-lined baking pan for 5–7 minutes. You can also use a microwave, but they won’t be as crispy.
• To freeze: arrange them on a baking sheet in a single layer and freeze until solid (1-2 hours), so they do not stick. Transfer them in freezer bags or containers and place some parchment paper between the layers. 

Recipe variations

You can have a lot of fun by adding different ingredients, flours, herbs and different spices to the fritters. 

• Add more veggies: you can add grated carrots, zucchini, corn or onion. 
• Spices: I like to add garlic powder, onion powder and some dried thyme.
• Spicy: add about ½ teaspoons of red pepper flakes or chopped green chili pepper.
• Cheese: add some grated cheddar cheese to the batter for the cheesy version. 
• Herbs: great way to use up any fresh herbs you have, chop and add them to the batter.
• Gluten-free: you can use rice or gluten free oat flour instead of wheat flour.

More cabbage recipes to try

This recipe uses only half of the cabbage to make a large batch of fritters. If you have any leftover cabbage, you can use it to make one of the recipes below:

• Savory cabbage pie (with yeast dough crust)
• Ukrainian braised cabbage
• Lazy cabbage rolls