Step 1 – Preparing the Grape Leaves. Note that you can skip this step if you’re not using fresh leaves and are using jarred ones instead.

First, bring a pot of water to a boil. Once the water is ready, add all of your leaves into the pot.

You’ll need to let the leaves boil for about 1 minute until they change color. Make sure the leaves are submerged in the boiling water.

Using a slotted spoon, take them out and lay them to rest on a plate.

Step 2 – Preparing the Stuffing

Prep the ingredients. Dice the onions. Shred the cabbage and the carrots. Get everything else ready to go.

Put a pan on medium heat and add olive oil.

Add the shredded cabbage and carrots to the pan, and cook the mixture over medium heat, for around 10 minutes.

While the diced and shredded vegetables are cooking, prepare both the meat and rice, ready to add to the pan in due course. Take the meat, and either dice it into small cubes or mince it, depending on preference. We prefer it diced in small cubes. Once diced or minced, set it aside.

Now, rinse the rice in a strainer under running water until the water seeping through is clear. Place the rice in a pot, pour boiling water over it, and leave it to rest for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, strain it, and set it aside.

By now, the vegetables in the pan should be cooking away nicely. Once the 10 minutes passed since you started cooking the onion-carrot-cabbage mixture, add the tomato puree or passata to the pan, and mix it into the vegetables.

As soon as the tomato passata has been added, add the spices (salt, pepper, summer savory or thyme, oregano, and paprika), and cook the whole mixture for 2-3 minutes, blending and mixing as you go.

Now take the diced or minced meat, and add it to the pan.

Cook for around 5 minutes, letting the meat brown and mix with the vegetables and the spices. After five 5 minutes, turn the heat off.

With the heat off, take your drained rice and simply add it to the pan.

Mix everything together to create your rich, hearty, and delicious filling, ready to be stuffed into the grape leaves.

Step 3 – Rolling the Grape Leaves

With your filling ready, now comes the fun part: rolling your stuffed grape leaves. The video below shows you how to do it in a way that seals the leaves, so that the filling won’t pop out when cooking. You’ll notice these are rolled differently from the Greek/Turkish/Mediterranean versions (which are more like small cylinders).

Before you start rolling, have your pot that you will cook your stuffed grapes leaves in ready by your side, so as soon as you roll your leaves, you can place them in the pot. Line the bottom with a few cabbage leaves. It takes a little practice, but you have plenty of leaves and stuffing to get through, so don’t worry if it takes you a few attempts to get it right.

Roll the grape leaves. See the video in the post above for how to roll stuffed grape leaves. In time, your pot will be filled with delicious wrapped grape leaves, as shown below.

Once all of your stuffed leaves are in the pot, add 400ml (about 1 and ¾ cups) of water to the pot. Finally, cover the top with a handful of cabbage leaves, before placing the pot on the stove.

Step 4 – Cook/Bake the Grape LeavesOption A (Bake the Stuffed Grape Leaves): Bake at 200° Celsius (390 Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 180° Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) and bake for another hour. This is my preferred option as the stuffed grape leaves will taste much better (in my opinion).

Option B (Cook the Stuffed Grape Leaves on the Stove): Cover the pot and put it on the stove over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Turn the heat to low and simmer for another hour.

Once ready, serve them on a platter with sour cream.