Recipe updated: April 16th, 2024
This Polish potato dumplings recipe goes way back in time, probably more than a couple of hundred years ago! I say that because my mother-in-law, Alice, and her mother, Granny, made them all the time. I am sure Granny’s mother, and her mother made them too. They made them as a side dish that goes with fried pork chops and sauerkraut as we still do today, although, they could also be made as a main dish.
🏷️ Key Ingredients
The ingredients used in this recipe are simple and you may already have them in your kitchen. Also, this recipe makes a large batch of potato dumplings, so you can cut the recipe in half or have leftovers the next day as we do.
- 5-pound bag of potatoes
- 1 ½ teaspoons of table salt
- 7 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 pound of bacon
- 1 medium onion
- 1/8 teaspoon of table salt (for the boiling water)
✨ How to Make Polish Potato Dumplings
These step-by-step instructions are accompanied by detailed photos for enhanced clarity and guidance.
Step 1. Peel the Potatoes for the Dumplings
To begin with, let’s peel that 5-pound bag of spuds. Place the peeled potatoes in a large bowl of cold water so they won’t turn brown while you are still pealing the other potatoes.
Tip: When trying to figure out how many potatoes to make for your family, plan about 1 to 2 potatoes per person, and then add a couple more for good measure.
Step 2. Cut the Potatoes into Cubes
Then, after peeling all the potatoes, cut them into cubes with a sharp knife. The smaller you cut the potatoes, the easier it is for your blender to do its job.
Step 3. Put the Potatoes into the Blender
The next step is to put the cut-up potatoes in the blender. Add the potatoes a little at a time. Keep adding the potatoes and blending them into a purée. You won’t have enough room in the blender for all of them, so dump out the blended ones into a big bowl. Continue to blend the rest of the potatoes until done blending all of them.
Note: If you don’t have a blender, you can grate the potatoes with a cheese grater. That is how the ladies did it back in the old days when there was no such thing as a blender. And so the procedure was passed down from one generation to the next. But… it does take a long time to do it that way, not to mention how hard that is on the hands. Certainly, an electric cheese grater would be much easier on the hands.
Step 4. Transfer Puréed Potatoes to Large Bowl
Pour the puréed potatoes in the same bowl you used earlier. In the next step mentioned below, we will be adding the flour and salt.
Step 5. Add the Flour and Salt to the Puréed Potatoes
In a separate bowl, add 7 cups of flour together with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Mix well. Then, a little at a time, add the flour and salt mixture to the bowl of puréed potatoes, creating the dumpling dough. Mix thoroughly.
Step 6. Cook The Potato Dumplings
Add 1/8 teaspoon of salt to a big pot of water. We used a pot that was big enough to hold 20 cups of water about half way up the pot. Put the salted water on the stove and bring it to a boil.
When the water starts boiling, drop the uncooked dumplings by spoonful into the boiling water. Be sure not to make the spoonful too big. While the shape of the dumplings doesn’t matter, if they are too big, they won’t cook evenly with any smaller ones. Little pieces of dough may separate from the dumplings, and that is perfectly fine.
Hint: Wet the spoon first in the boiling water, then start putting the dumpling dough into the boiling water. The wet spoon makes the potato mixture not stick to the spoon. Also, if you don’t have a large pot, you can cook half of the batch of the dumpling dough at a time.
Cook the dumplings for about 15 minutes. Use a spoon to stir the potato dumplings while they are boiling in the water. If you don’t mix them every now and then, they may start to stick together or stick to the bottom of the pot. After cooking for 15 minutes, turn the burner off.
Step 7. Drain and Rinse in Cold Water
Use a slotted spoon – a spoon with holes in it – and remove the potato dumplings from the hot water, then put them into a colander in the sink. Run cold water over them. This step is a must-do step. The cold water will rinse off the starchy build-up formed around the potato dumplings.
Rinse the pot you were cooking the potato dumplings in and then put the cooked potato dumplings back into the same pot. Set them aside for now.
Step 8. Slice the Bacon and Onions
Slice one pound of raw bacon into pieces, and then dice one medium-sized onion.
Tip: Semi-frozen bacon is easier to cut.
Step 9. Fry the Bacon
Put the bacon pieces in the frying pan first, then cook on medium heat until about halfway done cooking.
Step 10. Add the Diced Onions
After the bacon is just about done, then add the diced onions.
Step 11. Fry the Bacon to Your Liking
Continue to fry the bacon and onions until they are to your liking. This may take about 15 minutes or so. I like my bacon completely done and the onions soft.
Step 12. Add the Bacon and Onions to the Potato Dumplings
Next, transfer the bacon, onions, plus the bacon grease, to the pot with the cooked dumplings. Mix thoroughly. Turn the burner on medium-low. Then reheat the potato dumplings and the bacon and onions to your liking, for about 7 to 10 minutes. Stir occasionally so they won’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
🌟 Recipe Variations
- If you don’t like onions, you can eliminate them from this recipe.
- Try pouring maple syrup on your serving.
- Sprinkle some red pepper flakes on your serving.
❓ FAQs
The best dish that goes with Polish potato dumplings is pork chops and sauerkraut. We have always had these two dishes together.
Potato Dumplings – Our potato dumplings are purée or grated potatoes, then mixed with flour and salt. Then boiled in water to make a dumpling. There are no mashed potatoes in our recipe. There is nothing added to the inside of the dumpling, and there is no melted butter on them. We add fried bacon and onions to our potato dumplings.
Kopytka recipe – are mashed potato dumplings. They are made with mashed potatoes or with leftover mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes can be put through a potato ricer to get all of the lumps out. Then the mashed potatoes are mixed with flour, egg, and salt to make a dough. They are cut into shapes that look like little hooves. They are then boiled in water. Kopytka is also topped with buttered breadcrumbs, which are melted butter and breadcrumbs that are fried together. Also known as one version of Polonaise sauce.
Pierogies – Made with flour, egg, salt, and water. The dough is rolled out on a floured surface, then cut into round shapes. Filled with dry curd cheese, boiled as dumplings, then served with melted butter poured on top.
📄 Final Thoughts
From one generation to the next, recipes can stay the same, or they can change quite a bit. Sometimes there are minor changes to a recipe, and then again, sometimes there are major changes to a recipe. This simple Polish potato dumplings recipe is the same as it was from many years ago from my husband’s side of the family who migrated to the United States from Poland. It is our family’s favorite Polish cuisine!
My husband eats potato dumplings just like they are, but the kids and I pour maple syrup over the top of ours. See the maple syrup in the photo? The taste reminds me of something my mom made many years ago. So delicious. I hope you enjoy these delicious Polish potato dumplings as much as we do!
🗂️ Recipe Card
Polish Potato Dumplings Recipe
🫕 Equipment
- Blender (or grater to prepare potatoes)
- Stockpot 7 quart (to boil water)
- Frying pan (to fry bacon and onions)
🧂 Ingredients
- 5 lb potatoes (raw)
- 1 ½ tsp table salt
- 7 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 lb bacon
- 1 onion (medium)
- 1/8 tsp table salt (for the boiling water)
👩🍳 Instructions
Making The Potato Dumplings
- Peel the potatoes. Cut potatoes into cubes.
- Liquefy the potatoes in a blender a little at a time, then put the potatoes into a big bowl. Add more potatoes to the blender until all are liquefied.
- Mix the flour and salt together.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the potatoes. Mix together.
- Add the salt to a big pot of water. Bring the water to a boil.
- Drop the potato dumpling dough by spoonful into the boiling water. Cook for about 15 minutes while stirring occasionally. Turn off the burner.
- Put the potato dumplings in a colander and rinse under cold water.
- Clean the pot, then put the potato dumplings back into the pot and set them aside for now.
Frying the Bacon and Onions
- Slice the bacon into pieces. It's easier to cut bacon when it is partially frozen.
- Fry the bacon in a frying pan on the stove.
- Dice one medium onion. When the bacon is just about done, add the diced onions to the frying pan.
- Fry until both bacon and onions are done.
- Add the fried bacon and onions to the pot of potato dumplings.
- Heat up on medium-low heat for 7 to 10 minutes, then eat, stirring quite often.
*️⃣ Recipe Notes
- Potato dumplings are a side dish we have with fried pork chops and sauerkraut.
- The kids and I like to pour maple syrup over the top of our potato dumplings.
- This recipe is a big batch of potato dumplings. You can half the recipe or have leftovers the next night.
- This recipe originated from my husband’s side of the family who migrated to the USA from Poland.
💙 More Recipes You Will Love
If you love Polish recipes and Polish dumplings, or any kind of dumplings for that matter, we have a few similar dumpling recipes that are quite tasty.
- Milk Soup with Dumplings – Tiny little cooked flour dumplings added to milk and sugar for breakfast or lunch.
- Fried Dumplings with Syrup – Shaped like a rolled noodle, fried in cooking oil and maple syrup poured on top. For breakfast, lunch, or brunch.
- Chicken Soup Dumplings – a delicious chicken soup made with rotisserie chicken and lots of dumplings.
A wife, a mother to a son and a daughter, and a grandmother to three granddaughters. Flo loves sharing recipes passed down from her own mother, her mother-in-law, and her grandmother as well as new recipes created with her daughter, Tamara Ray.
More by Flo ➜
Cathy
19 Feb 2023My paternal grandmother came here from Slovakia and potato dumplings was a staple growing up. We make them the same along with the bacon and onions with the addition of drained sauerkraut mixed in. We just referred to it as Haluski, (which is the Slovak name for the dumpling.)
I wonder if CarolAnne is recalling kapusta which is pork, onions and sauerkraut in a gravy. I don’t recall my father putting bacon in it. Kapusta is the Slovak name for cabbage.
Another way we ate the dumplings was with browned butter and cottage cheese. ( It was the closest type of cheese here in USA that they used in the old country but I don’t recall that name.) I hope I have remembered the names correctly.
Flo
20 Feb 2023Hi Cathy, I enjoyed reading your comment. It’s nice to hear the stories and history of the way folks did things back then, very interesting. Thank you.
CarolAnne Karlin
19 Oct 2022I’ve been searching for this recipe forever! My grandmother made gravy with the bacon and onions. I can’t remember what it’s seasoned with if anything. Any ideas?? 😊
Flo
19 Oct 2022Hi CarolAnne,
Thank you for your comment and question. We have never made bacon and onions gravy, but that does sound very interesting. We use all of the bacon drippings when we mix the bacon and onions together with the potato dumplings. To make bacon and onion gravy, I would think that the flavor of the bacon and onion is enough that no other seasonings would be needed.