Ukrainian recipes

Ukrainian cooking belongs to the black-earth belt, some of the most fertile farmland in Europe, and it shows: this is a cuisine of vegetables, grain and pork rather than of scarcity. Borsch — spelled and made a dozen ways, and inscribed by UNESCO as Ukrainian intangible heritage in 2022 — is the dish everyone knows, and it is a family of soups rather than one recipe. Beyond it are the dumplings, the fermented vegetables, the breads and the very serious tradition of preserving a summer's produce for a winter. The recipes here give the regional variations where they matter and say where a dish is claimed by more than one country, which for this part of the world is often.

3 recipes

3 photos

Vareniki

Larger Ukrainian dumplings filled with potato and fried onion or with sweetened curd, boiled and dressed in butter.

1 hr 55 minServes 4

Main coursesPotatoesRussian

4 photos

Chicken Kiev

Crumbed chicken breast sealed around garlic-and-herb butter, chilled hard so the filling stays in until cutting.

2 hr 25 minServes 4

ChickenMain coursesRussian

4 photos

Borscht

Beetroot and cabbage soup built on beef broth, with the grated beetroot added late and with acid so it stays red.

3 hr 35 minServes 6

Leafy greensPotatoesRussian