How to make Polish Pierogi

Pierogi Recipes from a Polish Village

Pierogies are the quintessential Polish food. I hope you will love these simple recipes.

  • I grew up in as an American with Polish and Ukrainian roots with where homemade pierogies were a staple.
  • My wife grew up in a Polish village where the tradition is 100% authentic Polish from Poland.
  • We live in Poland and America. However, no matter where we are, we eat Pierogies.

My wife Kasia created a video on how she makes pierogies from the Polish countryside. Her parents have a farm in a Polish village. You will not get more authentic than this.

Download 101 Ideas for Pieorgi Filling & the Recipe from the countryside

Polish Pierogi Recipe Video

How I make Pierogies – the Polish countryside way

Hi this is Kasia’s writing now and here we go.

To make amazingly tasty pierogi dough at home all you need is:

Dough Ingredients

  • flour
  • egg yolks
  • butter
  • salt
  • warm water

Homemade pierogi are great for many reasons. One of them, you can make a lot of them at once and either have a pierogi feast that day or a fantastic meal for a few days.

From this recipe you will get about 50 or so, that is why I like to make the different stuffing. Polish Dumplings are delicious. Preparation takes some work, but it is worth it.

Steps to Make Pierogi

  1. Choose a stuffing and saute it in a pan
  2. Make the dough
  3. Flatten the dough and cut into circles using a glass
  4. With a small amount of filling add it to the pierogi dough cuttings
  5. Fold the cuttings and pinch them closed
  6. Boil them for 3 minutes after they float to the top.
  7. Add a topping such as butter, onions or yogurt.

I start from making my stuffing first – it has time to cool down and also the dough will not dry out while I make the stuffing.

You can experiment and fill your pierogi with anything you like – sweet, sour, or a mix of both; there is plenty of ideas here.

The critical thing to a proper stuffing it to make it reasonably sticky but not wet, so it does not leak out of your dough.

If you have dry stuffing – like walnuts and mushrooms add an egg – that will bind the filling together.

Making pierogi is pretty straightforward, but it does require some time. If you have any helpers around- that will speed the process, and it also makes it enjoyable.

Potato and cottage cheese recipe is classic.

To make a good dough, it is essential to have a right balance of flour and water – you want your dough to be soft but not sticky. Hard dough means you did not put enough water – you can soften it by adding water and working it in. After a few minutes of kneading the dough should be ready – soft and fluffy. Adding some butter or oil will prevent dough from drying out.

When your dough is ready, start a pot with water. It takes a few minutes for the water to boil, and it will give you time to assemble your pierogi.

While cooking, put one pierogi at the time, do not crowd them so they can float to the surface quickly and will not stick together.

For the topping – Pierogi taste great with sour cream, yogurt is good too but not as fat. Fried onions on top are amazing and add flavor.

Here you have it – delicious pierogi, which anybody will like. Smacznego!

What to do with your fresh batch of Polish Dumplings

If you make enough, then you can have them throughout the week. We often make it on Sunday’s after Mass and before we go for a Sunday walk. We freeze some and put some in the fridge. You can warm them up with a salad for example for a light supper, pack them for your kids lunch as a snack or incorporate them into a full meal.

The point is do not feel obligated to use them up all at once, they will not go bad if you freeze them.

My Favorite type of Pierogies

  • mushroom
  • sauerkraut
  • spinach
  • blueberry

The standard are:

  • Potatoes and cheese
  • Potatoes

More exotic I like

  • Nuts
  • Tropical fruit

A note on healthy Pierogies

I like anything healthy.

You can make Pierogies as healthy or unhealthy as you want.

In fact, I was thinking of writing a book called “The Pierogi Diet” and prove out that you can lose weight and look great with a pierogi centered diet. Let me know if you think that would be a good idea.

In the above video much of the ingredients are from our garden, for example the potatoes, if you notice are organic we grew, or the eggs from our backyard chickens. Here we do not have a farm but a large 1/4 acre homestead under cultivation.

If you fill them with anti-oxidant rich stuffings, rich in micronutrients or with a superfood, you can transform pierogies into a superfood.

You can use organic ingredients or gluten-free flour for example. There is no need to the dough to rise so you can use any type of flour you want. I use organic white flour, but make sure the filling and the toppings are super healthy.

Also, the oil you use is a consideration. You can fry them in polyunsaturated oils (harmful, as heating these oils creates free radicals) or saturated like butter or monosaturated (better) or Coconut oil (Perhaps best). I like butter.

  • Healthy Dumpling Toppings – Usually, my toppings are organic yogurt and/or sauteed onions
  • Vegan Piegories – You can make it Vegan by simply not adding an egg, the dough will be perfect.

Add dumplings to your soup

You can add these pierogies to a clear broth soup. For example beet soup (Borscht). I make a sound and drain the vegetables and add dumplings as others would add noodles. A variant of traditional pirogi are called lazy pierogi (usually dough and cheese unfilled) which is also added to soup.

History of the Pierogi

The origins of Pierogies are Central and Eastern Europe. The origin of the word comes from Proto-Slavic word pirъ, which means ‘feast’. It is a dumpling with filling, vegetable, fruit, cheese or meat.

With the advent of agriculture, the Slavic tribes went from a hunter-gatherer diet to recipes that are a mix of the above food groups. Hence the invention of the Pierogi.

People will write about the origins of Pierogis with connections to Marco Polo or Saint Hyacinth of Poland. However, it is elementary. People in the countryside had flour, and they started to experiment. It is not that one person gave people the knowledge from above; rather, usually, the people from a grassroots culinary experimentation perspective started to roll dough and fill it. I do not have documented evidence but I saw how my grandmother, who was born in the 1800s cooked. This is what people did. I think the origin coincided with the milling of grains.

Personal history of Pierogi

The most likely reason you have an interest in Polish dumplings is because of your family. Perhaps your grandmother cooked these. I am sure they were vastly superior to anything you ever encountered in a dinner or a store. After eating homemade pierogies I do not know if I could eat anything other than homemade. Therefore, I created this video and post. I hope you liked it, comment and ask questions, give it a thumbs up and share, to get the word out there about the worlds tastiest entree.


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