This is a warming and delicious recipe for Homemade Polish Pierogi, the perfect dish for a chilly night.
About This Recipe
I lived in Poland for around two years when I was very little. So, although I'm sure I saw a lot of Pierogi, I doubt I tried it, and if I did, then I certainly can't remember it. However, my parents do, so this recipe is based on their memory and all of the times they ate it in little cafes or local restaurants.
It's filled with a gorgeous potato, red onion, and ricotta mixture that is SO good you can literally eat it on its own! The dough is very simple to make too, requiring only a handful of ingredients. Garnished with sour cream, (untraditional) chorizo, and dill, it's the perfect dinner to warm you up.
You can make this as a whole meal, but if you fancy making some side dishes, here are some of my favourite pierogi side dishes ranging from roasted vegetables to yogurt chicken.
Ingredients For This Homemade Polish Pierogi
This is one of those recipes where you're most likely to have the ingredients already, which I LOVE. See the things you need below:
For the dough:
- plain flour
- water
- egg
- salt
For the filling:
- potatoes
- onion
- ricotta cheese
For the toppings:
- sour cream
- chorizo
- dill
Variations & Substitutions for This Recipe
How to make it vegan:
- Remove the egg from the dough and simply combine flour, water, and salt.
- Remove the ricotta cheese from the filling, and replace it with a grated vegan cheese alternative...or even better, a vegan ricotta if you can find it!
- For the toppings, simply use a vegan sour cream or vegan yoghurt, caramelised red onions, and dill.
Chorizo substitutes:
Chorizo is definitely not an authentic element of this recipe. Traditionally, you would use fried onions or even bacon. But, I thought it would be fun to try it with Spanish sausage, and it tasted YUMMY. If you don't have chorizo, feel free to use fried bacon, lardons, or even sausage.
If you don't like dill:
Aaaah Dill, it's a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. If you'd rather leave the dill OFF the dish, then feel free to sprinkle on some parsley, coriander, or chives.
Homemade Polish Pierogi
Ingredients Â
For The Dough
- 200g all-purpose flour
- 1 egg
- 80ml water
- 1 teaspoon salt
For The Filling
- 2 large potatoes
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 100g ricotta cheese
For The Toppings
- 2 tablespoon sour cream
- 1 tbsp butter for frying the chorizo
- 50g chorizo, finely chopped
- 2 sprigs of dill, roughly chopped
InstructionsÂ
Making The Dough
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, egg, salt, and water. Stir with your hand or a wooden spoon until a rough ball begins to form. If the dough is too dry, add a little bit more water. Pour the dough out onto a clean surface and sprinkle with flour. Knead the dough for 5 minutes. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle some more flour onto it. You should be able to knead the dough without it sticking to your hands. Place the ball of dough back into the bowl and cover with cling film, set aside for 15 minutes.
Making The Filling
- Chop your large potatoes into pieces. Place them in a pan of water and bring to a boil. Leave them to simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
- Drain the potatoes and leave them to cool for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile, fry your red onion in a drizzle of oil for 5 minutes until the onions have sweated down.
- In a medium-sized bowl, add your potatoes, red onion, ricotta cheese, a pinch of salt, and some black pepper. Use a fork to mash all of the ingredients together to form a rough paste. Set it aside.
Assembling your dumplings
- Get your rested dough and knead for a further 1 minute. It should be smooth and bouncy.
- On a floured surface, roll out your dough using a rolling pin until your dough is around 3mm thick. Grab yourself a cookie cutter about 2 inches in diameter and begin cutting shapes into your dough. You should be able to make around 20-24 wrappers.
- Place a teaspoon of the filling into the centre of one of the wrappers, fold it in half into a semi-circle and pinch the sides to seal the dumpling. Repeat this step until there are no more dumpling wrappers.
Cooking the Pierogi
- Grab a pan of boiling water and gently drop in your pierogi. Cook for 4 minutes.
- Drain the dumplings and then add them to a frying pan of butter. This is optional but I'd highly recommend it. Fry the dumplings for 3 minutes on each side or until they begin to show some colour. Remove the dumplings and place them on your serving plates of choice.
- Don't put your frying pan in the wash, simply pour in your chorizo pieces and fry them for 30 seconds.
Serving!
- Top your pierogi with sour cream, fried chorizo, and dill. Enjoy!
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