Fillings

There are lots of different types of fillings you can make. Here are the ones that we use in my family:

Potato and Sauerkraut

The original family recipe is:

Makes 400 pierogi

  • 5 large cans Sauerkraut
  • 10 lbs potatoes – peeled
  • 2 to 4 lbs onions
  • 3 to 4 sticks butter or oleo – enough to brown the onions
  • 6 to 10 slices American cheese – to bind together the mashed potatoes
  • salt, pepper

Okay, not everyone needs 400 pierogi in their life so a useful rule of thumb is 1 lb potates to 10 oz of sauerkraut. Use a good crisp sauerkraut (not Libby’s and not the one with caraway seeds in it).

Potatoes: Peel, cube, boil and mash the potatoes with salt and pepper only.

Sauerkraut: Bring to a boil then lower the temperature and simmer until tender, maybe 15-20 minutes. Pour the sauerkraut into a colander and allow to drain and cool. After it is cooled enough to handle, you want to squeeze as much moisture out of the sauerkraut as possible. One of the best ways to do this is pick up a handful at a time, make it into a ball and squeeze. Repeat until you don’t get any more water out of it.

Onions: Chop onion and brown in a frying pan. This actually takes quite a while over medium to medium-high heat. You really want them brown. For me, growing up making pierogi every year at Christmas-time, the smell of browning onions is redolent of holidays and family and everything wonderful.

Add the sauerkraut and onions to the potatoes. Use the cheese to bind the mix together. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. The onions make it sweeter and there is a balance between sauerkraut and potatoes. If you have ever had the really heavy potato and cheese pierogi at a local fair, these are not like those. The sauerkraut makes it much lighter.

Blueberry Filling

2 cups of blueberries is approx 16 pierogi. Frozen blueberries are perfect for this. Put the blueberries in a pan and flavor with lemon juice, honey or cinnamon. Cook down over low heat. When they start to break down, you can mash them in the pan to help the process along. It will take a while (as in an hour or so) to cook them down and get rid of some of most of the moisture. Some people like to add dried blueberries which absorb the moisture and helps the process. When most of the moisture is gone, remove from heat and thicken with fine breadcrumbs. Do this filling a day ahead so it has time to set in the fridge.

Others

I can add others or feel free to clone the repo and add your own!