Pierogies Recipe

(Last Updated On: September 20, 2022)

I learned how to make pierogies from my Polish mother-in-law umpteen years ago. But for some time now, the company stopped making the dry curd cheese my mother-in-law used in her pierogies recipe. For whatever their reasons, I don’t know.

So, for the love of pierogies, we had to improvise and come up with another pierogies recipe that would taste the same as my mother-in-law’s original recipe! And lo and behold, we did!

Everyone that I have given this recipe to makes it with large curd cottage cheese, which is the best thing that could have happened to pierogies and for us! These pierogies taste as good or even better than before, and I am going to show you how to do it.

Key Ingredients For Pierogies Recipe

Large Curd Cheese Mixture

• 2 containers of large curd cottage cheese (24 ounces each)
• 1 egg
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt

Pierogies Dough For The Dumplings

• 2 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/3 cup of water

Ingredients For The Last Step Of The Pierogies Recipe

• 1/2 cup of butter

Step-By-Step Pierogies Recipe Instructions With Photos

Preparing the Large Curd Cheese Mixture For Pierogies Recipe

To begin with, put two 24 ounce containers of large curd cottage cheese into a medium-sized bowl. Then, slowly add cold water from the tap into the bowl with the cottage cheese. Stir the cottage cheese around in the bowl very carefully because we do not want to break up the curd cheese. In other words, what we are doing is removing or “washing” the creamy dressing part of the cottage cheese away from the curd cheese.

Next, place a colander in the sink and drain the water from the curd cheese. Then, put the curd cheese back into the bowl, add more cold water, and wash it again. All of the creamy dressing must be rinsed off of the curd cheese. Also, remember to be extra careful not to break up the curd cheese. Drain the water again from the curd cheese.

In a medium-sized bowl beat 1 egg, then add 1/8 teaspoon of salt to the beaten egg.

Very carefully stir the beaten egg and salt together with the curd cheese. Then put it in the refrigerator for now.

Preparing The Pierogies Flour Dumplings

In a medium-sized bowl, beat 4 eggs, then add 1/3 cup of water and mix well. Then slowly add 2 and 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt (photo not shown) together with the beaten eggs.

Dust a cutting board or countertop with flour and put a dusting of flour over the dough. Form the dough into a ball shape. The pierogies dumpling dough should be very soft, not stiff.

Rolling The Dough For Pierogies Dumplings

With a rolling pin, flatten the dough by rolling it from the center out. Keep rolling out the dough until it is approximately an eighth of an inch thick. When rolling out the dough, try not to overwork it as this will make the dough tougher and stiffer.

Cutting The Pierogies Dough

Two Methods

This next step is to choose one of two methods of cutting the dough to prepare the dumplings. I have used both methods many times, but when I’m in a hurry, the easy way is so much quicker. Either method you choose, the pierogies will taste the same.

Original Way:

Cut the dough into circles with a round cookie cutter or a cup, then fill each circle with some curd cheese, then fold the circled dough in half and crimp the edges, sort of like how you would make cheese-filled ravioli. After that, go to the step “Cooking The Pierogies Dumplings.” Note: There should be leftover curd cheese, just add it to the cooked dumplings in the last step when the butter is added. Also, this method takes longer to do, and most of the time some of the dumplings will “spring a leak” so to speak, while they are boiling in the water, and the curd cheese will fall out of the dumplings anyway.

The Easy Way:

Cut the dough into little square shapes about one and a half inches in size. Do not fill the squares with the curd cheese. Each square shape does not have to be the exact same size. I will be doing the easy way for this recipe, then follow the next step below.

Keep just a little dusting of flour on the outside of the dough so the dough won’t stick to your hands.

Shake most of the flour off of the dumpling squares and place them on a plate, that way it is much easier to carry the plate to the stove when it’s time to add the dumpling squares to the boiling water, discussed in the next step.

Cooking The Pierogies Dumplings

Fill a big pot with water. Bring to a boil. When the water starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium-high and start putting the dough squares into the pot, stirring all the while. Cook the dumplings for about 13 minutes.

After the dumplings have cooked for 13 minutes, place a colander in the sink and drain the dumplings while running cold water over them. The cold water rinses off the starchy build-up that has formed around the dumplings. After rinsing, let the dumplings sit in the colander for a few minutes to make sure all of the water has drained off.

The Last Step For Pierogies

The last step is to add 1/2 cup of butter to the pot, let it melt a bit, then put the dumplings back into the pot. Then add the curd cheese together with the butter and the dumplings. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly, and until all ingredients are thoroughly heated through.

When we make this pierogies recipe for dinner, we have baked ham along with a side dish of buttered green beans sprinkled with black pepper. The combination tastes fantastic together. For dessert try these amazing homemade brownies.