Can pierogi ever be healthy? A recipe for wholewheat pierogi with dandelion and young beet

"Pierogi will make you strong and healthy"

While many a Polish grandma has no doubt uttered these words, no-one eats pierogi to be healthy. Apart from me, that is. I've always been a huge pierogi fan and sang their praises for many reasons. They can be a brilliant zero waste food, fantastic for using up leftovers. They are inexpensive to make, as you can feed many people with basic ingredients. Most importantly, pierogi are always a source of comfort and joy. Yet to describe them as objectively "healthy", in their usual form, would be a stretch, even for me. Nevertheless, I enjoy pierogi so much that I decided to make it into my challenge.

This week, I developed this wholewheat pierogi recipe with seasonal dandelion and young beet greens, which the whole family enjoyed for dinner. Inside, is the typical "ruskie" filling of twarog, caramelised onion and potato. This is the most popular pierogi filling the world over, impossible to resist. Many pierogi places in Poland now call it "Ukrainian" in solidarity with their neighbour. However, they were called "polskie" in the past too, when that part of Ukraine was still Poland, long ago. The history of food is never straight-forward or simple. It's impossible to pinpoint where a dish truly originated (maybe many places at once?). No matter, I just enjoy the titbits and speculation, it's not something I would argue about.

wholewheat pierogi with dandelion and young beets

The backstory

Polish families usually have their own, preferred pierogi dough that they will stick to one generation after another. Our family pierogi recipe contained plenty of butter (see Polska), yet as I penned my Pierogi book, I experimented with many different doughs. Now, I tend to use the most ancient pierogi dough recipe of them all, which is basically just flour with a pinch of salt mixed with warm water with a bit of oil in it (the eggs in dough came from Italy). I physically enjoy this dough, because it's soft and flexible. So far, this the recipe that I find the most suitable for different flours. While white flour is usually used these days for pierogi, I believe that various flours would have been used in the past.

About a year ago (maybe longer, but I ignored it for a while), I was diagnosed with endometriosis. Thanks to this, I have become more health conscious. While doctors only suggest things like the pill to help regulate hormones, on further research, it turns out that diet can be significantly useful in the control of endometriosis. Studies suggest that reducing dairy products and eating wholegrain foods can make a difference. I am motivated to change my eating habits not only by my own wellbeing, but also by the fact that I have two girls, who I want to shield from having the same issues later in life, if at all possible. Eating wholegrains is the standard advice for all healthy guts, and I am using them in sweet baking (more on that later), so why not in pierogi?

A recipe for wholewheat pierogi with dandelion and beet greens

As we need to retain flexibility in the dough, I decided on the mixed flour approach. I always recommend this approach when messing about with a good thing, especially if you want people to eat you experiment. You can always try 50-50 at first too. For the pierogi filling, I used the traditional twarog, but another fresh cheese would work, or even feta (if you use that, be cautious with seasoning and use less salt). Dandelions greens are my favourite addition to most things at the moment, as my garden is full of them! The young beet leaves and stalks are pleasantly tart and make the filling ever so slightly pink.

You will still find some butter in this pierogi recipe, so perhaps it isn't for the die-hard health fanatics, but taste is important to me, so butter is still a part of my diet. I am open to experimenting with different fats too though. I plan to develop some more healthy pierogi recipes in the future, so do watch this space, and I will be making my gluten-free, buckwheat pierogi video for the Cultures Group/Alt grains on Substack soon.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 150g wholewheat flour

• 100g plain flour plus more for dusting

• 150g warm water with 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil mixed in

• Salt

  Filling

• Bunch of dandelion and young beet greens

• 250g twaróg or farm cheese

• 1 small egg

• 1 onion

• 1 potato, cooked and diced

• Aprox. 20g butter

• Salt and white pepper

• Soured cream to serve

Directions

• Thinly slice and caramelise the onion in about 10g of butter. Pour boiling water of the greens to wilt and dice them finely.

• Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, then start pouring in the oily water with one hand, while bringing the dough together with the other.

• Knead the dough together in the bowl at first, then once it's a ball, on a lightly floured surface for about 6-7min. Put it back in the bowl, and cover it with a damp tea towel whilst you make the filling.

• Place the twarog in a bowl, crack the egg in, season and mash together with a fork. Add half of the caramelised onion, the potato and the greens. Mix thoroughly to combine and taste. Adjust seasoning - should be quite salty.

• Roll the dough out thinly on a lightly floured surface. Using a glass cut circle shapes out of the dough, place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the middle and seal the edges. Using a fork, press the edges down again. Place each one on a floured surface.

• Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, and plop the pierogi in 6-8 at a time. Stir the water once and leave for them to float to the surface. Give them 1-2 extra minutes at the top and remove with a slotted spoon. You can eat them like this, with butter, caramelised onion and soured cream or use the rest of the butter to fry them before serving.