Grandma's Perogies Recipe

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Grandma's Perogies Recipe (Perogy / Pyrohy / Pierogi)

Recently, I was craving perogies something fierce. At the time, I settled for crappy store bought frozen perogies, but vowed to make a batch of homemade perogies soon.

Growing up, my grandmother used to make amazing perogies, and I've never forgotten that - most else pales in comparison! Of course, she was the first person I called when I decided to try my hand at making them. She graciously provided her recipe, as well as an endless rant of tips. LOL.

My husband had never tried homemade perogies, and I'd never actually made them by myself before (just helped or watched!).. so using my grandma's perogies recipe was an interesting experiment. Luckily, he was a huge help in the kitchen, and they actually whipped up a lot quicker than I thought they would! I had remembered them being an all-day kind of task, this was more like 2 hours, start to finish. This recipe may look involved, but it's actually really easy. SO good - best comfort food ever!

Enjoy my Grandma's Perogies Recipe!

Makes 4 or 5 dozen perogies - Enjoy!

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Grandma's Perogies

Growing up, we always had the BEST perogies. You can, too - this is my Grandma’s Perogie Recipe. A bit of work, for the best comfort food ever!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Ukrainian

Keyword perogie, perogies, perogy, Pierog, Pierogi, Pyrohy

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 1 hour

Resting time 1 hour

Total Time 3 hours

Servings 5 dozen perogies

Equipment

Perogi Maker, optional

Ingredients

Perogy Dough

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 cups lukewarm water
• 5-6 cups flour

Filling

• 3 lbs red potatoes peeled and halved/quartered
• 1.5-2 lbs cheese shredded *
• 1 lb bacon optional*
• 1 lb saurkraut well drained, optional*
• 1 lb cottage cheese optional*
• Finely chopped onion optional*
• Dill Weed optional*

Instructions

Dough

• Beat eggs, add salt, oil, beat until mixed together well. Add water, beat again.
• Add 5 cups flour, adding more flour if sticky. Lightly knead until well incorporated and smooth. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest one hour. While waiting, work on filling!

Filling

• Boil potatoes until fork tender and ready to mash.
• I like to use my KitchenAid to mash my potatoes, and it works doubly well for this. You can, however, always mash and mix by hand. Either way, mash potatoes until smooth, and mix in your choice of cheese and flavorings until well incorporated

Assembly

• Roll out dough on floured counter top. Aim to get it pretty thin – 1/16th – 1/8″ of an inch or so. When you’re first starting out, a bit thicker is ok – you’ll just have a bit more dough to bite through to get to your yummy filling!
• Cut dough with large glass or round cookie cutter – I like to use a glass that’s about 3″ in diameter.
• Place 1 tbsp of filling in the center of each round:
  
• Lightly brush the edges with water, which will act as a glue.
  
• Pick 1 round up in your non-dominant hand, and use your good hand to fold the dough around the filling, sealing the edge from one side to the other.
  
• Make sure your perogies are sealed well,or they will explode when you cook them! Also, I like to flatten them out a little.
  
• Have a large pot of water heated to a low boil. (Too rolling of a boil will rip your perogies apart!). Drop a few perogies in at a time – our pot can take about a dozen. Cook until all rise to the surface, then for 2-3 minutes longer:
• Removed cooked perogies from water, lightly toss with melted butter. This will prevent them from sticking together.
  
• Enjoy as-is, or fry them in butter, onions.. maybe with some Kielbasa sausage… serve with some sour cream.. YUM!
• Theoretically, you can freeze these (individually on a cookie sheet, then bag them together when frozen).. but unless you make several batches (or don’t really like perogies!), they’ll never make it to the freezer!

Notes

*Ideas for fillings:

Traditional: 2 lbs sharp Cheddar cheese.

Onion, Bacon, and cheese: 1.5 lbs cheddar cheese of your choice, 1 lb crisp bacon (crumbled), chopped onion to taste.

Saurkraut: Add 1 lb (or more) saurkraut to your potatoes. Cheese is optional – up to you!

Cottage Cheese, Onion, and Dill: 1 lb cottage cheese (or more, whatever!), onion and dill weed to taste.

The beauty of perogies is that you can customize your fillings in SO many ways. Have fun with it!

** Grandma’s Note – Grandma is very adamant that this is time consuming (wasn’t really!), and that – rather than cutting the dough into rounds, taking the scraps, and re-rolling/cutting more – I should DEFINITELY use her technique. I didn’t. Sorry, gramma!

What she says you should do is this: Roll your dough out,and cut into 3″ strips. Cut those again into 3″ squares, place filling in the middle, and fold/seal them to make triangles. Yes, it would be quicker than the rounds – I just don’t have the big hatred for cutting rounds that she seems to!

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