The cabbage "Caesar" has become a signature staple dish at Luncheonette in Portland. It's garnished with seaweed-sesame seed furikake and fried Maine Grains rye berries. (Courtesy of Luncheonette)

Seems like every few years, the food world develops a brassica fixation. About 15 years ago, we were obsessed with kale. Then Brussels sprouts. Then cauliflower. Now we’re on a cabbage fix.

At the start of the year, the New York Times and other media outlets dubbed cabbage the “it” vegetable of 2026. Pinterest called it the “cabbage crush.” “In the year ahead, Boomers and Gen X will say goodbye to their cauliflower obsession and crown cabbage the new kitchen MVP,” the social media platform wrote in its annual forecast roundup.

Whether they use napa, shown here, conical caraflex, textured savoy or the more standard green and red varieties, chefs are making room on their summer menus for cool-weather cabbage. (Scott Suchman for The Washington Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post)

“Right now, we’re seeing cabbage really take off, and it comes down to two things people are craving: comfort and creativity,” said Sydney Stanback, global trends and insights lead for Pinterest. “People are taking a familiar ingredient and giving it a more modern spin — searches for cabbage dumplings are up 110%, golumpki soup is up 95%, and cabbage alfredo is up 45%. It’s a great example of how people are finding comfort in nostalgic foods while also experimenting with new flavors and recipes.”

While cauliflower and sprouts still seem to have momentum, cabbage is indeed cropping up on more and more Maine menus. Like other brassicas, it’s often associated with fall and winter dishes. But savvy chefs are finding room for cabbage on their summer menus, using it in ways far more compelling than ho-hum cole slaws. They sear, grill and roast it to amp up its natural sweetness, slow-braise it for velvety tenderness, serve it raw for maximum crunch.

“I don’t like to be governed too much by what the internet says is trendy,” said Sam Helmke, executive chef at Portland tapas restaurant Sur Lie. “But for those of us who pay attention to headlines, it is nice to do something for everyone who sees this is in right now.”

Helmke put a cabbage salad on his menu at the end of last fall. The dish pairs chopped green, red and bok choy cabbages with Korean chile flake-seasoned whipped tofu and a red curry vinaigrette. “I have to think about not taking it off because it’s so popular.”

At Wayside Tavern on Congress Street, chef and co-owner Michael Sindoni has a napa cabbage salad with ranch-green goddess hybrid dressing, topped with crisp bacon and fried shallots. He first put it on the menu in the fall of 2022 to fill a seasonal gap, and it’s since become one of their most in-demand dishes. “It’s one of those things where if we took it off the menu, people would kill us,” Sindoni said.

“At the end of the day, everyone always makes cabbage synonymous with boiled dinner or coleslaw,” Helmke said. “It doesn’t have to be — it’s really this wonderful vehicle for flavor, and it has characteristics that allow you to use it year-round. I’ve grilled it, braised it, smoked it, pureed it, pickled it, used it raw in salads. Cabbage is quite possibly one of the best multi-use ingredients in a kitchen.”

DIRT CHEAP

At a time when food costs are soaring across the board, chefs can appreciate a cheap ingredient being on-trend.

“Cabbage is $2 a pound, so it’s a great margin for us,” said Alex LeBlanc, a chef and co-owner at Luncheonette on Cumberland Avenue, which specializes in prepared veggie salads. Their cabbage “Caesar” — roasted local cabbage and creamy tahini dressing seasoned with fruit-sweetened tamari and gochugaru chili flakes — has become one of their signature dishes. “We can give you a plentiful salad for $8. It feels like you’re eating something filling. It’s a good deal for you and for us.”

Helmke said cabbage certainly helps his own kitchen budgeting. Sturdy cabbage has a longer shelf life than other leafy greens, making it even more cost-effective. “You are having to go find these cheaper crops right now,” Helmke said. “We’ve all had to react to this economy. Ten years ago when I was working in this town, summer meant you could load on every expensive ingredient, and the economy allowed for that.

“It’s all about balance,” he said. “Some dishes, you’re breaking closer to even, and on some things, that’s where you’re making your money. With cabbage, I’m happy to both have something that affords the restaurant a chance to make some money, but also surprises guests and shows them that this is something that can be delicious.”

Thing is, cabbage is about as unsexy as it is cheap. “It’s definitely a challenge to make a humble cabbage into something that people will not only enjoy, but go, ‘Wow, that’s not what I expected,'” said Neil Zabriskie, chef and co-owner of Regards on Congress Street.

Zabriskie grills local cone-shaped caraflex cabbage for a Caesar-style salad with anchovies, fermented ramp kimchi, cured lemon and Opus 42 cheese from Lakin’s Gorges Cheese in Waldoboro. He’s tinkering with a new cabbage dish for later this season, braised cabbage coated with a thin mole and sprinkled with sesame seeds, a plant-based twist on barbacoa.

“Cabbage is usually a side character in dishes,” Zabriskie said. “But to use it as a main character is being inventive and creative. It’s a good way for cooks to show some ingenuity and skill with putting flavors into something you don’t usually see on a menu as being important.”

“I love a full-blown cabbage salad,” said Chef Joshua Kagenski of Crown Jewel on Great Diamond Island. He’d crafted one for his menu this year, but ran into a practical problem: Crown Jewel uses compostable wooden utensils. “Trying to stab those (raw) leaves with the woodware just didn’t work,” he said. “It was delicious with a metal fork.”

So Kagenski pivoted, using cooked cabbage to accompany seared scallops. He quick-ferments outer leaves of the best available local cabbage — savoy, green, red, caraflex — for a tangy sauerkraut effect. Then he chars the outer leaves of the remaining head, braises the inner leaves and gently cooks the cores to tenderness. It’s an ingredient that lets him meet his no-waste ethos and helps keep costs in check, though it still comes at a price.

“A lower price point means you put in a more work, but you get everything out of every bit,” Kagenski said.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Maine’s brief growing season makes chefs much more eager to work with summer stars like tomatoes, summer squash and sweet corn. “Cabbage is like turnips,” said Sara Jenkins, chef-owner of Nina June in Rockport. “I’m excited about them in the winter, but by the time winter is over, I really don’t want to see them again. Everyone gets all excited about the caraflex cabbage or another cabbage, meanwhile I’m just trying to stuff my face with as many tomatoes and eggplants as I possibly can.”

Still, she pairs ricotta gnudi dumplings with light and leafy Tokyo Bekana cabbage, charred and drizzled with chive oil. She also chars napa cabbage and dresses it with cashew-thickened nuoc cham.

“It’s one of the local vegetables available to us, and they’re really different from the storage cabbage we get in the winter,” Jenkins said. “They’re lighter, more salady.”

Home cooks can also take advantage of budget-friendly cabbage this summer, in unfussy dishes that showcase its versatility.

“Treating it simply is the best way to go at home,” said Zabriskie. He recommends splitting a cabbage head in half, seasoning it with salt and letting it sit 20 minutes so the crystals can penetrate. Roast the cabbage until softened, and dress the tender cooked leaves with some oil and acid. “Those can be really good summer bites.”

LeBlanc suggests coaxing out cabbage’s sweetness over open flames. He quarters cabbage heads lengthwise, leaving the cores in to keep the leaves together. “Season it with oil and salt and grill it like you would meat,” he said. “Then you can cut it and dress it with whatever vinaigrette you like, maybe some nuts for texture, and it’s really an easy way to have a delicious vegetable dish. It gets really, really sweet, and the char gives it a nice balance. And it really keeps its crunchy texture, too.”

“Cabbage has a lot of flavor, even though I don’t think that’s something people think of,” Kagenski said. “They use it as a carrier for mayonnaise a lot of the time.”

But it’s summer, and there will be slaw. LeBlanc offered an invaluable tip for avoiding the soupy pool that forms in the bottom of most coleslaw bowls: Before dressing the thinly sliced cabbage, season it liberally with salt and leave it at room temp for about two hours, then squeeze out the water.

Jenkins has paired shaved raw red cabbage with tahini miso vinaigrette, though she also likes it simply dressed with salt, lemon juice and olive oil to accompany a fatty, rich pork chop. She advises using cabbage however you can now, while it’s still cheap. “Soon it won’t be, I’m sure.”