Lock the lid and close the pressure valve and cook for 1 minute. Allow a 5 minute Natural Pressure Release.
Remove cabbage from Instant Pot and run under cold water to cool. Dump out water from Instant Pot and rinse pot. Place cooking pot back into Instant Pot.
Cut out core from cabbage. Carefully remove 14-20 cabbage leaves. Gently, shave off the raised/thick part of the vein at the base of each Leaf. Set the Leaves aside.
Chop up the rest of the cabbage (which is white-ish) and set aside.
Prepare Meat and Rice Filling
Add all Filling Ingredients to a Bowl.
With a Course Hand Grater, grate about 1/4 cup of onion into the bowl of filling and mix together well. Set aside.
Slice the rest of the onion(s) and set aside with the bowl of the chopped cabbage. Set aside for assembly set.*
Make the Sauce
Set aside one cup of tomato juice for the assembly step.**
To the container of a VitaMix, Blender, or Large Food Processor add all sauce ingredients except for the pureed/diced tomatoes. Process to combine.
Dump can of can of pureed/diced tomatoes into the sauce and mix by hand. [Sauce should have some texture, so do this by hand.] Taste sauce and adjust for sour or sweetness according to your preference. Set the sweet and sour sauce aside for the assembly step.***
Roll the Cabbage and Meat Mixture
Take a softened cabbage leaf and add one scoop of the meat mixture (about 2 Tablespoons worth) to the center of the cabbage leaf.
Fold in sides of cabbage leaf and roll up, tucking in the sides as you go. Repeat until all filling has been used.
Assemble Cabbage Rolls and Sauce
*Grab the bowl with the chopped cabbage and sliced onions, which was set aside and add 1/3 of it to the bottom of the Instant Pot. Spread out evenly along the bottom.
**Pour in the one cup of plain tomato juice, which was set aside.
Place a very short legged trivet into the cooking pot over the onions, cabbage, juice. This will act as a buffer so that the pot can easily come to pressure.
Place half the stuffed cabbage rolls on to the trivet.
Add half of what is left from the bowl of onions/cabbage and layer them evenly over the cabbage rolls
***Pour half of the sweet and sour sauce over the onions and cabbage layer.
Repeat process by adding another layer of cabbage rolls to the pot and top with the rest of the onions/cabbage and prepared sweet and sour sauce. (If you have made extra cabbage rolls, you may need a third layer.)
If using any of the optional add ins, sprinkle them over the top layer.
Lock on lid and close pressure valve. Cook at high pressure for 9 minutes. When beep sounds, wait 15 minutes and then manually release the rest of the pressure (if any is left).
With a slotted spoon, remove stuffed cabbage rolls to a platter and carefully pour over some sauce. Pour the rest of the sauce into a gravy boat or other bowl and serve on the table.
Notes
Sweet and Sour Sauce Tips
Before mixing up the sweet and sour sauce for the cabbage rolls, set aside one cup of the pure tomato juice. It will be used once we start to assemble the cabbage rolls into the Instant Pot.
I like using Sour Salt for the sour part of the sweet and sour sauce. Sour Salt does not contain salt and is just citric acid. It adds a nice citrus/sour flavor pop to the sauce.
If you do not have Sour Salt (although I do suggest buying some), there are other ingredient options.
True Lemon Crystals) or freshly squeezed lemons can be used instead of Sour Salt. They both will add a nice sour taste.
Pro Tip:If you do not want a sweet sauce for the cabbage rolls, simply leave out the sugar. You can make the sauce more sour by adding more sour salt or lemon if you prefer a more sour taste.Some people like to add more sweetness and other flavors to the stuffed cabbage rolls.
Brown Rice Option
If using Brown Rice, add the raw brown rice to the Pressure Cooker cooking pot when you cook the cabbage. After pressure is released, pour out the water and brown rice through a strainer basket. Rinse with cool water and then add to meat mixture. The par boiling of the brown rice before adding to the meat mixture will render perfectly cooked brown rice.
Ground turkey stuffed cabbage rolls are fantastic.
To "beef" up the flavor, add a Tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce to the meat mixture.
Ground turkey is paler and less course than ground beef. It is also softer, wetter and mushier than ground beef, which makes it a bit more difficult to roll.