Mighty Meats

• Ground beef is the traditional meat ingredient for cabbage rolls, but that doesn't mean you can't use other ground meats. Chicken and turkey have less fat than beef. Veal is on the expensive side, but turns the cabbage rolls into a gourmet dish. Ground lamb and pork are also solid choices. Another option is to combine more than one kind of meat, for example, pork and beef.

Serious Stuffing

• Meat flavors the stuffing which is usually white rice, but it's not the only grain that works. Brown rice has a nutty flavor that's worth the extra time it takes to cook. Bulgur wheat is another option. Quinoa works well, too, although it's more expensive than either rice or wheat.

Seasonings and Herbs

• Plain rice and meat is rather bland, so amp up the flavor with seasonings and herbs. Classic seasonings include onions, salt and pepper, and perhaps parsley and thyme. Go Greek by using fennel seeds, chopped fresh fennel and garlic with a lamb-based stuffing. Add in some Kalamata olives and chopped green bell peppers, while you're at it. An Italian-inspired cabbage roll would include garlic and fennel seeds but also basil and oregano.

Different Cabbages

• Plain green cabbage works just fine, but you don't have to stick with it. Savoy and Napa cabbage are other options. You could also use a combination of red and green cabbage rolls. Steam, boil or microwave the whole head of cabbage until the leaves are pliable and limp but not cooked through. Let the cabbage cool. Remove the leaves and stuff. Another option is to stuff a whole head of cabbage. Don't remove the steamed leaves but gently fold them back and tuck the filling inside each leaf.

Cooking Liquid

• Canned tomatoes are the go-to cooking sauce for steaming the stuffed cabbage. Other options are fresh tomatoes, tomato juice, water or ketchup. Rice absorbs two to three times its volume in water, so if you've used 1 cup of raw rice for the stuffing you'll need at least 3 cups of liquid. Russian stuffed cabbages, called holubtsi, use cooked rice, so you'd only need enough liquid to barely cover the stuffed cabbages.