Last summer …
Okay wow, last summer seemed like just a little while ago but it’s been six months already! Anyway …
Last summer my fellow foodie friends Jacquelyn, Leanne and I got together to make perogies. Even though the perogies were neither gluten free nor vegan I was happy to spend the afternoon making horrible looking (on my part) stegosaurus perogies with some great girls and good wine.
Since that day I’ve been thinking about vegan and gluten free perogies a lot. I had set down to make them quite a few times but something would come up and distract me from it. I view perogy-making as an afternoon-long task that requires full attention.
Despite the weather in Saskatoon being above-seasonal yet again and the sun shining brightly, I was housebound making sure our doggy Sophie was recuperating nicely. No outings for me this weekend. Which worked out perfectly. I finally got some perogy making done!
I am confident that I will be revisiting perogy dough recipes for years to come. This recipe worked out fine but I think with more tweaking it can be even better.
We had an electrician doing some work in our basement and I gave him a sample of these perogies and he had a look of shock on his face when I told them they were vegan and gluten-free. He said they tasted like regular homemade perogies. And who doesn’t trust the unbiased opinion of a random electrician in your basement? That’s right, nobody!
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1 cup chana (chickpea) flour
- ½ cup tapioca starch
- ½ cup corn starch
- 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups vegan sour cream*
- 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
- ¼ cup unsweetened plain almond milk (or non-dairy milk of your choice)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 onions, diced finely
- ½ cup vegan margarine
- Sift all dry ingredients together.
- Add sour cream. Mix well.
- Knead on floured surface for 2-3 minutes. Place in a bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rest while preparing filling.
- Boil potatoes until tender. Mash.
- Meanwhile, heat margarine in a skillet over medium heat. Add diced onion. Saute until onion is softened.
- Add onions to the mashed potato. Add almond milk and salt.
- Stir well to combine. Let cool slightly so you can handle it.
- Place plastic wrap on your work surface.
- Lightly flour the plastic wrap with rice flour.
- Cut rested dough into six portions.
- Take one portion and dust lightly with flour.
- Flour a rolling pin and roll out dough to about ⅛". (You can leave the dough a bit thicker and roll out each individual circle a bit before filling.)
- Using a glass or cookie cutter, cut out circles from the dough.
- Place about a teaspoon of filling in the center of the circle.
- Fold over and pinch the edges together to seal. Use a little bit of water to help seal if needed.
- Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover with a damp towel to prevent them from drying out.
- Bring a pot of water to boil. Reduce heat to medium and just a boil (not a violent rolling boil or the perogies might break open).
- Gently place a few perogies at a time in the boiling water.
- Let them cook until they start to float, and then about 3 minutes after that (about 5-7 minutes total).
- You can eat them like this or fry them in a bit of vegan margarine and fried onions until they are brown on both sides.
Assembling the perogies:
* You can use store-bought vegan/gluten free sour cream. I used a double-batch of my Homemade Vegan Sour Cream which is made with cashews.
Some Important Notes:
I learned something about gluten-free dough that I should have known already. Even with xanthan gum it doesn’t ‘stretch’ like regular perogy dough does. So, if you’re used to making traditional perogies you’ll want to get out of the habit of putting a giant heaping amount of filling in the center and stretching the dough around it. It just won’t happen. The dough will tear and break apart.
For this reason, it’s also important to not roll the dough too thin at first. You can roll it out a tad thicker, cut your circles, then roll it a bit more if you need to.
Also, you’ll probably have perogy filling left over. I have tons because when I was testing this out I made double of what is given above. I was feeling ambitious perhaps. I am going to have to come up with some good ways to use it up. Some sort of vegetable croquettes perhaps.
Sweet! This was the next project I was going to take on. I’m so glad you made this so that I don’t have to develop from a good recipe scratch. Thanks!!!
LOL…I am a dysfunctional typist! That should read: *develop a good recipe from scratch*
LOL I must be a dysfunctional reader because I totally understood what you typed the first time. 🙂
Perogies are the one thing that our family really misses since we have gone gluten-free. I’d love to give these a try, although I’m not sure about the vegan sour cream – since it is soy based we usually don’t use it. We also can’t have cashews, though.
Since we are avoiding so many foods these days I’m more and more willing to experiment and try new things – I never thought I’d be there! So I’ll give this a try and poke around for some sour cream substitutes. If they turn out alright I’ll let you know.
Hey Lynn, I’m with you on the store-bought vegan sour cream products out there. I avoid them generally because of the soy. I also am not totally keen on the flavor.
Not being able to have cashews presents a problem. I wonder if blanched almonds would serve well as a replacement. I imagine adjustment for flavor may be necessary since almonds are distinctive in flavor.
Let me know what you end up trying, I’m very curious.
Also, I am working on a different perogy dough based on an old one that uses eggs. But, that’ll be a ways off. I just don’t have enough time in a week to cook and try every thing I wish I could.
I’m new to eating like this but I’m wondering why are some of you avoiding soy?
Perogies are often sauted in onion and butter sometimes with added tomato. I like them like that better than with sour cream. Maybe you can use some olive oil instead. I can’t help but think a Spanish sofrito would taste good with them. It’s just peppers, onion and garlic cooked together with a little tomato sauce and it can sometimes have annato or cummin. Maybe a chimichurri sauce? So many things go with dough and potato.
Hey Diana – Great question! Many people have intolerances or allergies to soy. Another reason people prefer to eliminate soy from their diets is due to lots of soy-based products using genetically modified soybeans and they would rather not consume GMO foods.
I love sauteed onion and perogies. In fact, that’s exactly how I cook these. Your suggestion about using a sofrito sounds amazing too. I just made chimichurri and I think it’s a brilliant idea to slather some of that stuff on top of these perogies!
Thanks so much for the ideas!
oh wow these look delicious!!!! i’m not a non-gluten person or a vegan, so i would maybe sub in some of the more traditional ingredients (just so i don’t have to go out and buy things like vegan sour cream or chickpea flour etc) – but these look delicioussss!!! i was thinking i’d like to try to make pierogies and your recipe looks phenom. great stuff!
Do you think you can make these in advance and then freeze before (or even after boiling) to use at a later date? I can’t imagine trying to do this on a weeknight but being able to pull some pre-made ones out of the freezer to saute would be awesome.
Definitely. These freeze beautifully. I would suggest freezing them without boiling them first though. It won’t take that long to cook them up for a weeknight meal this way. You can boil them up from frozen (it’ll take longer obviously) and then saute them up with onions. So good!
Hey love your recipes and appreciate your cite but just want to throw this out there…pierogi is actually the plural of the word and pierog is the singular
Hahaha I had no idea! Thanks for letting me know. Though, because it’s my nature and I had to Google this, I feel somewhat less sheepish when I found this on Wikipedia: The Polish word pierogi is plural; the singular form pieróg is rarely used, as a typical serving consists of several pierogi.
I could never just stop at one pierog anyway. 😛
I figure you’re well versed in pierogi varieties so I wonder do you have any suggested fillings that are traditional that we could experiment with?
Hi Megan, I’m Polish and my very favourite pierogi filling is sauerkraut and mushroom (preferably wild). It’s pretty much vegan by default, except for a little bit of butter which I’m sure can very easily be replaced with coconut oil for example.
Traditionally, you’d use soaked and finely chopped wild mushrooms and cook them with sauerkraut and a little butter (you can use the mushroom soaking water for the cooking) for about 30 min. Than you’d saute some onions, add the sauerkraut and mushrooms as well as salt and pepper. You can also add some prunes, if the sauerkraut is too sauer 😉
I love the idea of mushroom and sauerkraut! Thanks for sharing this awesome filling idea. I will give it a try next batch.
Hi Megan, any idea how many perogies these make? 3 of us are going to make a bunch up but want to make sure we have extra to freeze?
Sorry for the late reply Lee. I would estimate this recipe makes about 1.5 to 2 dozen perogies, depending on the size you choose to make.
Hi Megan! Imagine me stumbling across this recipe and finding out you’re from Saskatoon too! I was wondering, since I can’t eat corn based items, if I could substitute the corn starch for additional tapioca starch or arrowroot, and if I could use guar gum instead of the xanthan? Unless you have other suggestions? Thanks!
Hi Dawn! Sorry for the late reply. Yes you can definitely sub out tapioca or arrowroot for the cornstarch. For this recipe I would also say yes you can use guar gum instead of xanthan gum. If you make this recipe with your changes, I’d love to hear how it turned out! Thanks.
Please help. I’m having so much trouble with the dough. Is there anything I can do to make it less sticky and easier to work with?
Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve made this recipe. (And a long time to reply to your comment – Sorry!)
Honestly, from my memory, it was a sticky dough. I’d have to remake these and test any additions or adjustments before I could recommend anything. I’ll add it to my to-do list.