Would you like to know how to cook pierogi like an authentic Polish grandmother? Well, you’re in luck. Not only have I eaten pierogi prepared by dozens of Polish grandmothers – right here in the second largest Polish city in the world – I’ve also spent a good deal of time cooking them with my own babcia. If preparing and assembling pierogi is arduous, cooking them is fortunately quite easy.

This post is about cooking pierogi. If you want recipes and advice for making doughs and fillings, assembling them, and stuff like that, check out these posts:

• An Introduction to Pierogi
• How to Make Pierogi
• Pierogi Dough
• How to Make Sour Cream Pierogi Dough in a Stand Mixer
• Fruit-Filled Pierogi
• Potato-Cheese Pierogi
• Sauerkraut Pierogi
• How to Assemble Pierogi

And if you’re looking for something amazing and unusual to go with those pierogi, check this out: Polish Meatballs.

Boiling

Pierogi have to be boiled soon after the filling has been sealed in the dough. Once boiled, if they’re not going to be eaten right away, they can be kept at room temperature for a while, refrigerated for a week-ish, or frozen for a good long time – practically forever if vacuum sealed. You can consider any boiled pierog (that’s the singular form of the word … “pierogi” is plural and “pierogis” is not actually a word) to be “cooked,” but many people would feel that the pierog needs more cooking in order to be ready to eat. Given that, here are the possibilities:

Some people eat them right after they’ve been boiled. I always eat the first one to come out of the boiling water, after I’ve sloshed it around in butter, as a tradition.

After They’ve Been Boiled

After the pierogi have been boiled, they can be served as-is. In restaurants, this is how they’re most often served. You might garnish boiled pierogi with a sprinkling of bread crumbs, optionally.

Fried

Most people who make pierogi at home fry them after they’ve been boiled. It they’re warm or at room temperature, all you need to do is brown them on both sides, in butter, over medium heat. If they’re been refrigerated, brown them over low heat so that they’re heated through by the time they’re browned. It’s that simple.

Some people like to fry their pierogi along with sliced onions, or serve fried pierogi topped with caramelized onion.  There are also those who like to brush the pierogi with an egg wash and coat them in fine cracker crumbs before frying them.

Reheating Boiled Pierogi

If the pierogi have been allowed to cool or if they’ve been refrigerated, and you don’t intend to fry them, they will need to be briefly re-boiled in order to serve them. Eating room-temperature pierogi should be done only if you can’t help yourself. Eating them straight from the fridge is downright barbaric. Pierogi are best served hot. Although the microwave seems like the obvious choice, it’s not. Reheat them by baptizing them in simmering water and retrieving them after about five minutes – without allowing the water to return to a boil. This will produce a far better result than the microwave, and in fact, it is for this very reason that even the best microwaves do not have a “pierogi” setting.

Reheating Fried Pierogi

There’s no good way to do this. Use the microwave. They’ll be OK, but I wouldn’t serve them to guests.

Freezing

Boiled pierogi freeze beautifully. They have to be thawed before you can reheat them. A full day in the fridge ought to do it.

Pasta-tized: treat them like a component of a larger idea

People do all sorts of interesting and crazy things with pierogi. I make a mean pierogi casserole.

Serving:

Pierogi are always served with sour cream, or a sour cream stand-in. They can be eaten as a appetizer, (part of) a main course, or as a dessert. I generally serve them as a main course, with fresh or smoked kielbasa. Smoked kielbasa needs only to be warmed and browned, just like pierogi, so I usually fry them up together.

How to Cook Pierogi: follow your tastes

Whether to eat them boiled, fried, bread them, cook them with onions, or turn them into kung pao … some make these decisions based on the type of filling. Many people claim that there are rules, such as “sweet fillings should be breaded and savory should not.” It seems to me, though, that there’s no authoritative consensus. I know people who bread all their pierogi, and I know others who never bread any of them. I know people who would never dream of pairing pierogi with fried onions, and I know others who think onions are essential. Follow your tastes.

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise indicated. Clicking on images will enlarge them if they’re mine, or take you to the source if they’re not. This content was not solicited, nor written in exchange for anything. It definitely was not sponsored by St. Stanislaus Kostka church. They tried to have me excommunicated after I tweeted that their communion wine tastes like it came from St. Stanislaus Costco.

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