Perogies

Back when I first wrote this post - in 2009! - I was craving perogies something fierce. It’s pure comfort food, something I’d been needing of late.

It had been a long time since I’d had decent perogies. At the time, I settled for crappy frozen store-bought perogies, but vowed to make a big batch of homemade perogies soon.

Growing up, my grandmother used to make amazing cheese perogies, and I've never forgotten that - everything 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 homemade pierogi recipe, as well as an endless rant of tips. LOL.

My husband had never tried homemade perogies, and I'd never actually made them all by myself before (just helped or watched!).. so using my grandma's perogies recipe for the first time 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 actually had a good time.

I had remembered them being an all-day kind of task, this was more like 2.5 hours, start to finish.

This is a great recipe, that the whole family will love, whether as a delicious meal on a random weekend, or for special occasions.

It may look involved, but it's a simple dish that’s actually pretty easy to make - just a little time consuming.

These are nothing like store bought perogies, btw.

These are the kind of Perogies you get from Ukrainian church sales - SO much better than what you find in stores or restaurants!

The best part? These are super customizable! More on that in a bit.

What Are Perogies?

Perogies - AKA Pyrohy, Pierogi, and Varenyky - are delicious dumplings from Eastern Europe.

A simple dough - the ingredients and recipe vary from person to person - is formed around a cheesy potato filling, sealed off, and boiled.

Pierogi are a SUPER popular dish back home in Winnipeg, where you can get them almost anywhere - as a snack, main dish, or appetizer.

Though they’re not necessarily a special occasion kind of food, they’re definitely a staple at Christmas... at least in Winnipeg, where there is a huge Ukrainian population.

While even just the most basic form of pyrohy is amazing, a great thing about them is how much you can customize them, both in filling and preparation.

More on that in a bit, though!

Perogy Ingredients

You need just a few simple ingredients to make perogies:

Perogie Dough Ingredients

All purpose flour
Eggs
Vegetable Oil
Salt
Water

Filling Ingredients

- Red Potatoes (Large or medium potatoes, for ease in peeling!)

- Cheese (Usually Cheddar - more on that in a bit!)

As a note, while I’ll usually add a little butter or warm milk to mashed potatoes, I do NOT do that for making this filling.

The added moisture would mess up the texture!

Note: You can make a variety of different pierogi fillings, even dividing a batch out and doing several. See the next section for variations!

Perogy Fillings: Variations

While I love the flavor profile of the most basic cheddar pierogies, the beauty of this recipe is that you can customize your fillings for perogies in SO many ways.

Have fun with it!

Potato Perogies: Skip the cheese, season the potatoes with salt and black pepper. (A little garlic powder is great, too!)

Traditional Potato Cheese Pierogi: 2 lbs sharp Cheddar cheese

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

Sauerkraut: Add 1 lb (or more) well drained sauerkraut to your potatoes. Cheese is optional – up to you!

Cottage Cheese Perogies : Add 1 lb dry curd cottage cheese to the potatoes.

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

Sweet Potato Perogies: Roast 3-4 lbs of sweet potatoes. Add a little softened cream cheese - a brick or so - and season with whatever spices or fresh herbs you want.

Multiple Flavours: Divide part of your mashed potatoes into a separate bowl (or bowls!), flavour as desired.

How to Make Perogies

The full recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post. If you’re an instructions-only person, feel free to skip ahead to the recipe.

If you’d like more of a pictorial guide - with some additional info sprinkled in - here we go!

Dough

1. In a large bowl beat eggs, salt, and oil until mixed together well. Add water, beat again.

2. Add 5 cups flour to the wet ingredients, adding more flour if sticky.

You definitely want to go by feel here - if it’s too dry, add a little water. If it’s too sticky, add a bit of flour.

3. Knead until well incorporated, smooth, and stretchy.

This can take about 10 minutes to do by hand, or you can just use a dough hook in a stand mixer for about 5 minutes.

4. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest one hour. This relaxes the gluten in the dough, and helps ensure the best results.

Don’t skip this step!

While waiting, work on filling!

Pierogi Filling

1. Peel potatoes, chop into evenly sized chunks.

2. Boil potatoes until fork tender and ready to mash. Drain well, place potatoes in a bowl.

3. Mash the potatoes until smooth.

I like to use my KitchenAid to mash my potatoes in general, and it works doubly well for this. A food processor or potato ricer are other great options.

You can, however, always mash and mix by hand - it’s just personal preference.

4. Either way, mash potatoes until smooth, and mix in your choice of cheese and flavorings (See “Variations”, above) until you have a creamy potato filling.

Perogy Assembly

1. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface. Aim to get it pretty thin – 1/16th – ⅛″ 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!

2. Cut dough with large glass or round cookie cutter / biscuit cutter – I like to use a glass that’s about 3″ in diameter.

3. Place 1 tablespoon of potato mixture / filling in the center of each circle. (Hint: You can pre-roll balls while waiting for the dough to rest!)

4. Lightly brush the edges of each dough round with water, which will act as a glue. You can also use a whisked egg yolk, if you prefer.

Note: If your dough is a little sticky, you may not need to brush it with water. In the video for this post, I didn’t need it.

5. 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, forming a half-moon shape dumpling.

Also, I like to flatten them out a little.

Make sure your perogies are sealed well, or they will open and leak out when you cook them!

As I seal each of the half-moon dumplings, I place them in a single layer on a lined cookie sheet.

Note: I like to assembly line this - roll, cut a bunch of circles, place a bunch of filling balls, then seal them up.

I find it more efficient than scooping filling and folding one at a time.

Repeat with the rest of the dough, until you run out of dough, filling, or both.

How to Cook Pierogi

1. Have a large pot of salted water heated to a low boil. (Too rough of a boil will rip your perogies apart!).

I’ll usually bring the large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn it down to medium heat or low heat.

2. Place perogies in the hot water a few at a time – our pot can take about a dozen.

They’ll sink to the bottom of the pot, then rise to the surface as they cook.

3. Cook until pierogi float to the surface, then for 2-3 minutes longer.

4. Use a slotted spoon to gently remove cooked perogies from the boiling water, lightly toss with melted butter. This will prevent them from sticking together.

5. Serve immediately, or transfer buttered pierogi to an airtight container and store in the fridge.

Grandma’s Note on Forming Perogies

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 of each square.

- 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!

How to Cook Perogies

You can enjoy these as-is: Fresh out of the pot, tossed with a bit of melted butter... or you can keep going.

These are also great pan fried in a bit of butter or bacon fat.

Sauteeing chopped onions in the bacon fat before adding the perogies to the pan is *chef kiss*.

Alternatively...

Deep Fried Perogies

Deep fried, crispy pierogi are huge back home, especially as a snack at sporting events. (I used to get them at my home arena, as a kid!).

To deep fry, heat your deep frying oil to 375 F.

Carefully add your perogies - after boiling / draining / being tossed in butter - to the hot oil. Fry until golden brown and blistery.

Air Fried Perogies

A while back, we did a big experiment to come up with the best way to cook airfryer perogies.

Click that link to read alllll about it!

What to Serve with Perogies

Wondering what to eat with perogies? Well, it’s best to keep things pretty simple.

Adding some sliced Kielbasa sausage or crispy bacon is pretty standard back home.

Serve it all with a generous dollop of sour cream (or Greek yogurt), maybe a side of sauerkraut and/or some caramelized onions.

I usually toss some sliced green onions on it - after plating - for a bit of colour and a punch of bright flavour, but that’s totally optional.

If you want to feel a bit more responsible, you can add any of a number of delicious sides of vegetables to balance out all of those carbs.

Brussels sprouts are a great option - I’ll usually cut them in half, toss with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast them at 400F for 15 minutes or so.

It’s one of our favourite savory side dishes in general, and definitely makes a plate of perogies feel a little healthier!

We’ll do the same with fresh broccoli florets, too.

Using Gadgets to Make Perogies

Waaaaay back when I was a kid, we had this perogy press thing.

It was a plastic circle with little ... not half circles, maybe more like half hexagons? Cut out of it.

The idea was that you’d roll you dough, place it over this thing, and put your filling in each of the indents.

Then you’d roll another piece of dough, place it over the whole thing, and use a rolling pin to seal it.

Rolling would also press the mass of perogies down over the edges, which would separate them into individual perogies, which would them pop out.

That sort of thing is still available, if that’s more your speed.

Freezing Homemade Perogies

Theoretically, you can freeze these.. but unless you make several batches (or don’t really like perogies!), they’ll likely never make it to the freezer!