Colcannon Red Potatoes With Cabbage
1349 days ago
Skip to recipe
Colcannon potatoes are a traditional Irish side dish that can be served any time of year, but I typically make this dish for my St. Patrick’s Day celebration. What’s not to love about mashed potatoes, butter, cream and cabbage? That said, I’ve modified the recipe over the years and eliminated the cream, changed up the type of potato I use and cut back on the butter. I’ve also added bacon because, why not?
This isn’t your typical mashed potato side dish as the key to making it is adding cooked green cabbage. You can use kale but I prefer the traditional Irish side of cabbage, which also works well with the addition of bacon. I used red potatoes for this recipe, keeping the skins on the potatoes for an additional pop of color.
When choosing your cabbage, look for a firm head of cabbage that is heavy and has fresh leaves on the outside with good green color. Shredding cabbage is quite easy. I used the Santoku-Style 10" Slicer to remove the core and cut the cabbage into quarters. To shred the cabbage, I thinly sliced the quarters into shreds. Take a look at our How to Core and Shred Cabbage video for step-by-step instructions.
In this recipe, we’ve recommended quartering the red potatoes although you may want to make an additional cut if your potatoes are a little larger. The key is to cut the potatoes to a similar sizes so they cook evenly. Keeping the skins on, I used the 5" Petite Santoku to quarter the potatoes and for my larger potatoes, I cut each half into thirds.
For the green onions (or scallions), use both the white and green parts. Make sure to cut off the white root and cut the top stems down to where it becomes firm. Our video, How to Slice Green Onions, will show you the perfect way to cut them using the 7-5/8" Petite Chef knife. Make sure you cut thin slices of the onion.
When cooking the cabbage, you don’t want it to turn mushy so keep an eye on it throughout the cooking process. To carry over that cabbage flavor, use the water from the cabbage to cook your red potatoes.
Once you have all the elements of this dish cooked, mash the potatoes in a large bowl. I used the Potato Masher and kept some lumps in my potatoes for extra texture.
Then it’s a matter of blending everything together, being careful to not over mix the ingredients. Remember, I mentioned cutting back on the butter? I don’t add the butter until the end, drizzling it over the potato and cabbage mixture and then topping with bacon and fresh parsley.
This Colcannon Red Potatoes with Cabbage dish is not only is pretty to serve, it’s darn tasty. We had some cabbage sceptics in the kitchen when we made this recipe but by the end, they were diving in for seconds. It’s an Irish side dish that is the perfect St. Patrick’s recipe. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 small head green cabbage (approximately 7 cups), shredded
- 2 cups water
- 3 pounds red-skinned potatoes, cleaned and quartered
- 1 1/2 cup whole milk
- 3 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 6 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled
- Fresh parsley, minced
Directions
- In a large saucepan, combine the cabbage and water and bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat, cover the saucepan and simmer until the cabbage is tender. Approximately 10 minutes.
- Drain, reserving the cooked water and place the cabbage in a covered dish to keep warm.
- Place the red potatoes and reserved cooked water into the same saucepan, adding additional water to cover the potatoes, if needed. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat, cooking uncovered until the potatoes are tender, approximately 10-12 minutes.
- While the potatoes are cooking, mix together the milk, green onions, salt, black pepper, onion powder and garlic in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. As soon as it starts to boil, remove from heat.
- Drain the potatoes and place in a large enough bowl to mash. After the potatoes are mashed, add the milk mixture and mix until just blended. Stir in the warm cabbage – taking care to not over mix.
- Place the potato and cabbage mixture into a serving dish and drizzle with butter. Top with the crumbled bacon and fresh parsley.
Recommended Tools
