An Eastern European delight, a pierogi is a dumpling stuffed with sweet or savory fillings, boiled, and/or pan fried until crispy. I grew up eating pierogi, but never learned how to make them until a couple years ago. This dough recipe makes 100 pierogi. You can fill the pierogi with sweet or savory fillings. Traditional pierogi include Kraut, Potato, and Potato & Cheese. I like to go the traditional route, as well as try creative fillings like sun dried tomato and feta or roasted butternut squash. I also included the recipe for a few of my favorite fillings to get you started. Enjoy!
Pierogi dough
Ingredients
- 7 1/2 Cups flour
- 1/3 Cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 TBSP Kosher salt
- 2 1/2-3 Cups room temp water
Instructions
- This is best done on a clean countertop or table. Start out by portioning out your flour in the middle of your work surface and mix in salt.
- Make a well in the middle of the flour and add in your egg and sour cream.
- Slowly add in your water and mix in the rest of the ingredients, drawing the flour from inside the well.
- Continue doing this until all the ingredients are mixed, kneading until a dough forms. If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour. You don't want your dough to be so dry that it crumbles or so wet that it sticks to your hands.
- Divide up the dough into 4 pieces. Work with one piece of dough at a time (cover the reserved dough and set aside). Roll out dough until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Dough should be slightly thinner than pie crust.
- I use a pierogi mold (makes 14) instead of making individual pierogi by hand. Sprinkle flour on the mold so the pierogi doesn't stick. Lay one side of your rolled out dough over the mold, making sure you allow enough dough to fold on top of the pierogi once you fill them.
- Fill each pierogi with your desired filling, forming pockets by pressing filling down slightly.
- Be careful not to overstuff the pierogi, once filled, fold the other half of dough over top of the mold and using the rolling pin to seal and separate the pierogi.
- Remove excess dough around the edge of the mold, flip the mold over, and pop the pierogi out of the pockets.
- Repeat process 1-2 times with excess dough
Once you are done making the pierogi, boil them for a few minutes until they float (don’t crowd your pot) and pan fry them in butter until crispy. If you want to freeze them for later, boil them first, then freeze to prevent from cracking. Add a little oil to the pierogi before packaging and freezing so they don’t stick together. If you plan on making a lot of pierogi, it helps to have a few people, each with different tasks, like making and rolling dough, stuffing pierogi, boiling, then packaging and freezing.
Tip: Using a food saver or vacuum sealer keeps your pierogi fresh!
We tried making little portioned out balls of filling to see if this saved us any time. I don’t think it made a big difference, but they’re cute and look nice in the picture!
Potato & Cheese Filling, makes 40 pierogi:
- 1 lb mashed potato
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup sauteed onion
- 1/2 Tbsp salt
- Pepper (to taste)
- 1 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
- 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese
Farmer’s Cheese (sweet) Filling, makes 40 pierogi:
- 1 lb Farmer’s Cheese
- 1 egg (beaten, room temp)
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- 1/2 Tbsp vanilla
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
Sun dried Tomato & Feta:
- 1 lb Feta Cheese
- 1 egg (beaten, room temp)
- 1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomato
- 1-2 Tablespoons of sun dried tomato oil (to taste)
Be careful not to overfill the pierogi or they won’t seal
Once you pop the pierogi out of the mold, they look like this
It took hours, but we had a blast! Big thanks to everyone who helped and Marcia for hosting. We ended up making approx. 400 pierogi and that calls for a celebratory drink. Na Zdrowie! <3
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