This corned beef and cabbage skillet takes the traditional flavors of the St. Patrick’s Day favorite and cuts down the cook and prep time to about 30 minutes. You can enjoy this hearty meal any night!
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My family loves corned beef and cabbage.
It is one of their favorite meals even when it’s nowhere near St. Patty’s Day.
This skillet adaptation of that famous meal is perfect for fans of corned beef.
It’s a simple recipe that you can easily modify with onions, beer, or potatoes.
One bite and you’ll know you made the right choice to make this for dinner tonight.
Ingredients
- Bacon – Bacon needs no explanation. Use your favorite kind, hickory, mesquite, regular, thick cut. It’s bacon. You can’t go wrong.
- Salted butter – You could use unsalted butter if you want to but you will have to add more salt.
- Head green cabbage – You’ll need to core and slice/shred the cabbage. You can cheat this if your store sells shredded cabbage.
- Corned beef – You’ll need two cans for a party of 6 or more, or 1 can for less than 6 people.
- Water – For add flavor, you can use chicken broth or your favorite lager or beer.
- Freshly cracked black pepper – You can add as much, or little, as you want.
How to make
When you make this skillet version of the classic, it takes a lot less work and time to prepare than a traditional dinner so you can make it any night of the week.
First, sauté the bacon in a heavy bottomed, deep skillet turning them as needed.
Once they are crispy, remove the strips to a waiting plate topped with a layer of paper towels to soak up the grease.
Keep the grease in the skillet and turn the burner to medium-low heat and add the butter.
Serving and storing
This skillet meal is best served fresh and hot from the stove top.
I like to serve the skillet with crusty bread or rolls to help sop up all the flavor on the plate.
Another favorite is to serve with a crispy hash brown patty.
If you need to store leftovers, place in an air tight container and place in the fridge.
It should save for about 3 to 4 days.
To reheat, you can gently warm it over low heat in a skillet on the stove or place a bowl in the microwave until it is warmed through.
Tips and tricks
- If you plan to serve less than 6 people, keep the rest of the recipe the same but only use 1 can of corned beef instead of 2.
- White onions add great extra flavor.
- Swap the water for chicken broth or a good beer or lager for extra flavor.
- You can also add cooked, diced potatoes for a more meat and potatoes kind of vibe. You could also serve with boiled or baked potatoes or even (my personal favorite) crispy hash brown patties.
Other Irish Inspired Recipes
My family loves this easy corned beef and cabbage skillet.
You can make this tonight for your hungry family who has been looking forward to corned beef all year long.
Looking for other Irish inspired recipes for St. Patrick’s Day?
Try these:
- Irish Beef Stew
- Guinness Gravy Smothered Pork Chops
- Irish Soda Bread Muffins
- Irish Cheddar Cheeseburgers
- Colcannon Potato Soup
- Steak & Guinness Pie
Need some dessert to round out your meal?
Try this Jameson whiskey infused bread pudding or these sweet Bailey’s Irish cream chocolate truffles.
If you’ve tried this CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE SKILLET or any other recipe on my site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and whatever else we’ve got going on!
Corned Beef & Cabbage Skillet
Ingredients
- 4 slices bacon
- 4 tbsp salted butter
- 1 medium head green cabbage cored & thinly sliced
- 2 cans corned beef
- 1/4 cup water
- freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Sauté the bacon in a heavy bottomed, deep skillet turning them as needed. Once crispy, remove the strips to a waiting plate topped with a layer of paper towels to drain off the excess grease.
- Do not drain the grease from the skillet. Keep the skillet over medium low heat, and add the butter to the skillet.
- Once the butter's melted, add the shredded cabbage. Gently toss the cabbage to evenly coat it in the butter mixture.
- Add the water to the skillet and stir. Add the cracked pepper to the cabbage, and stir seasoning to your desired amount.
- Cover the skillet, raise the heat to medium, and let everything simmer for 10 minutes- or until the cabbage has caramelized.
- Open the can of corned beef and turn it out onto a cutting board. Chop the corned beef into chunks. No worries about size, it will break up more in the skillet.
- Add the corned beef to the skillet, and continue cooking another 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally to crisp the corned beef
- Roughly chop the crisped bacon.
- Serve the corned beef & cabbage topped with crisped bacon bits.
Nutrition
This post may contain affiliate links. As an amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. See my full Disclosure Policy for details. As always, all opinions are my own.
Brian says
I hate corned beef and cabbage
4sonsrus says
That’s too bad. Luckily, there’s plenty of other recipes here!
Diana says
I made this, did not use bacon used regular grease and unsalted butter. Did season to my taste, so, so good. Will add white onions next time.
Traci M Crooks Espe says
Great fix when you can’t afford the time or money for corn beef. I put over potatoe cakes. It was great.
4sonsrus says
I haven’t tried it over latkes before, but that is a delicious idea! And yep, total comfort food on a (money/time) budget!!
Pamela says
best yet
jill larosa says
where can i get corned beef in a can never heard of it only cirned beef hash
Audra says
in the canned meat section of any grocery store 🥰
Kevin says
top shelf dude food!
Audra says
in the canned meat section of any grocery store 🥰
L Louis says
I cooked this meal tonight. The whole family said lose the recipe. It filled the hole and that’s it! I will not make it again and the cornbread does not get crispy period!
Deb says
My husband loved it! I served it with some crusty rolls. This is definitely going into the rotation! I really liked that I could enter the number of servings I wanted and it adjusted all of the ingredients.