Pierogi

My son loves pierogi and we are lucky to have a really good pierogi place nearby. However, I decided to try and make some pierogi myself and I was surprised of how easy it is to make pierogi.  Mine don’t look as polished yet but I can assure you that they taste delicious.

Tomorrow, October 8,  is actually National Pierogi Day so what better timing to try making some?

Pierogi are dumplings with various fillings such as potatoes and cheddar / potatoes, ricotta and onion (this is the one I tried)/ potato and bacon / sauerkraut / mushrooms / spinach and cheese / you can also try a sweet variation with a sweet farmers cheese filing and sprinkle sugar. The filling possibilities are endless. Feel free to play around with this but in general you will need about 4 cups of filling for the below dough quantity.

One other thing I love about pierogi is that you can freeze them and defrost as needed. Such a time saver – just make them when you have time and defrost when you need a quick lunch or dinner idea.

Ingredients for the Dough (about 30 pierogi) 

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup warm water

Ingredients for the Filling – Potato and Ricotta Cheese filling

• 4-5 medium potatoes boiled and mashed (just like how you would do mashed potatoes)
• 1 chopped
• 1 TBSP butter
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 garlic clove minced
• salt and pepper to taste

For Serving

• 1/4 cups coconut oil
• Optional – 1/2 cups SourCream
• Optional – Parsley

Preparation:

• Peel potatoes and boil in salted water till soft. Drain and mash.
• Cook the chopped onion in the butter, add garlic and other spices you might like. Cook the onion over medium-low heat until it’s soft
• Add the cooked onion over the potatoes and combine
• Once the potato-onion mixture is cool add the cheese (I used ricotta cheese this time but you can also do cheddar cheese if you prefer that)
• Add salt and pepper and mix everything together. Set the filling aside
• Set a pot of water to boil and work on your dough

• In a bowl combine all dough ingredients – flour, egg and water and knead the dough with your hands until everything is well combined.
• Move the dough on a flat surface and keep kneading, you can add more flour if the dough is sticking to your hands
• Roll the dough in a thin sheet – about 1/8 inch thick
• Cut with a round cutter
• Place a table spoon of the filling in each circle
• Damp the edges of the circle with a little water and bring the edges together
• Make sure the edges stick, you don’t want to loose the filling in the boiling water.

• Add some salt to the boiling water and boil the pierogi in batches
• Once they rise to the surface they are cooked so you can remove from water
• Let the pierogi cool
• This is the stage where you can either freeze the pierogi or you are 1 step away from eating them (if you decide to freeze them just boil them for few minutes when you take them out of the freezer and fry them a bit in a pan)
• Melt 1 TBSP of coconut oil in a pan
• Cook the Pierogi just enough so they get a bit of golden brown color (again this is done in batches)
• Add sour cream and parsley and serve warm

Enjoy!