Zurek Recipe: A Delicious Polish Soup

You may enjoy eating zurek if you enjoy soups with meat as an ingredient. It is a Polish soup, and the zurek recipe uses rye flour, smoked sausage, potatoes, and flavouring ingredients to create a hearty and flavoursome dish.

Some say there is nothing more Polish than zurek, one of the most popular Polish soups. It is similar to another Polish soup called Barszcz bialy, although the latter uses a wheat starter instead of a rye starter.

The list of ingredients is typical of Polish dishes, and there are some that you might not find in regular supermarkets. However, if you read our list of additional tips at the end of the recipe, we have included some good alternatives that will give you similar results.

I looked up many zurek recipes online before trying the soup and creating my own recipe. Bizarrely, many Polish food websites tell you how to make the soup but do not list ingredients and quantities, so they are very hard to follow. I have simplified the process to make the zurek recipe easier to read and follow.

The most complicated part of the zurek recipe is the rye flour starter. It is not widely available in UK shops, so it is something you must make yourself if you cannot get hold of any. Although it is not difficult, it is time-consuming, and you must make it in advance. Therefore, zurek is not one of the Polish soups that you can decide to make last minute or when you are in a rush.

If you need to make the rye flour starter yourself, you can read our recipe for rye flour starter here. Otherwise, use a premade product if you can find one in your area. Here is our zurek recipe for you to try.

Useful Information

Ingredients for the Zurek Recipe

• 1lb/ 500g white Polish sausage (kielbasa)
• 2 litres of chicken stock
• 7 oz/ 200g smoked bacon
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
• 1 medium white onion, finely diced
• 500 ml zakwas (sour rye starter)
• 3 tbsp double cream
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp dried marjoram (oregano)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Eggs (1 per serving)

If you are using a homemade sour rye starter and you have not added flavourings, you should also use four bay leaves and five each of black peppercorns and all-spice berries. You do not need these additional ingredients if you have flavoured the sour rye starter or you use a shop-bought zakwas.

How to Make the Zurek Recipe

1. Put the stock in a large pan over medium heat on the hob.
2. At the same time, fry the bacon for a few minutes on each side until the fat is golden and rendered.
3. Remove the bacon from the pan and set aside on a plate, then chop when cool.
4. Add the diced onion to the same frying pan in which you cooked the bacon to cook the onion in the bacon fat. Cook for 3-5 minutes until the onions turn golden.
5. Transfer the onions and bacon to the stock, along with the bay leaves, all-spice berries, and black peppercorns if you use them.
6. Fry the white polish sausage in the frying pan until the outsides are golden.
7. Add the carrots and celery to the pan with the sausages.
8. Once the sausages are cooked through, cut them into chunks and transfer them to the stock, along with the carrots and celery.
9. Cook the soup for 20 minutes.
10. While the soup is cooking, hard boil the eggs, then remove them from the pan and put them in a bowl of cold water to cool.
11. If you have used bay leaves, peppercorns and all-spice berries, remove these from the soup.
12. Add the zakwas (sour rye starter), dried marjoram, and minced garlic to the soup.
13. Cook the soup for another five minutes.
14. Remove the pan from the heat, season with salt and pepper, and stir through the cream.
15. Serve the zurek recipe in either bowls or scooped-out loaves of crusty bread.
16. Slice the hard-boiled eggs into quarters to garnish your bowls of soup.

Additional Tips

• If you live near a Polish supermarket or butcher, do your best to get hold of some smoked white Polish sausage. If you cannot buy these sausages, there are some alternatives you can use in zurek.
• Making the fermented rye is the time-consuming part of the zurek recipe, as you must make it in advance. If you do not have time to do this, you can use a pre-prepared rye product in your soup.
• Horseradish adds a sharp flavour to the soup, but you can omit this ingredient if you are not a fan. #
• There are many ways that people serve zurek other than in a bowl. Traditionally, it is eaten from inside a scooped-out bread roll. The bread can then become part of the meal if the diner wants to eat it. For other ideas on serving the zurek recipe, read our article on creative ways to serve soup.
• How long can you store zurek? If you have leftovers or you do not want to eat the zurek straight away, you can store it for up to two days in the refrigerator. It is possible to store it in the refrigerator for three days if you omit the sour cream from the recipe.
• You might also like to try our recipes for other Polish soups, such as grochowka, borscht, zupa grzybowa, zupa pomidorowa, and zupa jarzynowa.