Sharing my grandma’s authentic Borscht Recipe I grew up eating in Ukraine. This iconic beet soup is made with beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, garlic and dill. Then served with a dollop of sour cream and rye bread.
If you like borscht, be sure to try my green borscht, Instant Pot borscht or vegetarian borscht!
My Family’s Ukrainian Borscht Recipe
This is my grandma’s authentic borscht recipe I grew up with in Ukraine. She made it every week and I still have it in a regular rotation.
If you don’t know what is borscht, it’s vibrant red color soup with cabbage, beets, potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic. It has earthy taste of beets, is sweet and tangy. It can be vegan or vegetarian, as well as made with beef, pork or chicken. Then served with sour cream and dill.
“Borscht”, “bortsch”, “borsh” or “борщ” is a true classic soup every Ukrainian or Russian grew up eating almost weekly. It is pronounced without “t” at the end.
Fun fact – all women in our family – mom, grandma, sister, aunt and me had their own slightly different borscht recipe. We all cooked in the same kitchen we used to share and yet everyone’s version of borscht was unique. Even my sister-in-law and mother-in-law cook theirs differently.
Reader’s Review
I love this borscht! It tastes “just” like my Grandma’s recipe. I always do the version with beans and add extra dill and vinegar until it tastes like Grandma’s. Thank you so much, Olena!
Ann
Is Borscht Ukrainian or Russian?
According to Wikipedia, borscht is Ukrainian dish that has a history of centuries. It is cooked in every household of any former republic that belonged to USSR – Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belorussia etc. Not to mention all over Eastern Europe.
There are as many variations of traditional Ukrainian borscht recipe as there are regions and families.
Ingredients for Borscht Recipe
Borscht ingredients are very simple and vary on one’s fridge contents and region of Ukraine. Here are the main ingredients you could always find in my grandma’s recipe:
- Beef bones or beef broth: Most flavorful borscht starts with making broth with about 2 pounds of beef bones like oxtail, shanks, short ribs or even pork ribs. If your bones are not meaty, add some cubed stew beef. If in a rush, you can use beef broth. Please see below for more info about it.
- Beets: You want to use red beets because they add the most red deep color to soup. Young beets in fall and summer will also taste more tender and fresh, just a different flavor.
- Cabbage: Traditionally green cabbage is used but you can also use red cabbage because you won’t see its color in this soup and it tastes exactly the same.
- Potatoes: Red or yellow potatoes, Yukon golds, russet potatoes or baby potatoes work.
- Carrots and onion: For bulk and flavor. I use yellow onion but you can use white onion or red onion.
- Tomato paste: To add more flavor and color.
- White vinegar and sugar: You can also use any light color vinegar like white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Also any sugar or maple syrup works. It’s just to create that sweet and sour taste at the end of cooking.
- Garlic: Please use only fresh garlic cloves and grate them or press them. Garlic in borscht is a must!
- Dill: Just like with garlic you have to use only fresh dill and not dried dill weed. Fresh dill is an essential flavor profile in this soup!
- Bay leaves, salt and pepper
- Sour cream: For serving.
How to Make Borscht
Here is a quick rundown of how to make borscht. Full recipe card with a video is located below. It’s actually very easy to make and anyone can do it!
Prep veggies: You want to start with cabbage first because it takes the longest time to cook. While it is cooking, you can prep other vegetables.
Cook cabbage in broth with bay leaves and peppercorns for 20 minutes after bringing to a boil. Chop beets, potatoes, carrots and onion in the meanwhile.
Saute onion and carrots in a bit of olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. This makes onion flavorful making entire borscht recipe more delicious. Do not skip.
Then add beets and a bit more oil, cook for another 5 minutes. It’s called “zazharka”.
Transfer sauteed veggies to the pot along with potatoes, tomato paste and salt. Cook covered for 20 minutes. In the meantime, prep garlic, dill and other seasonings.
Season borscht with white vinegar, garlic, sugar and pepper.
Stir, turn off heat and let it stand for 10 minutes covered to allow flavors to “marry” each other. Add dill and your borscht is ready to serve.
How to Peel and Cut Vegetables for Borscht
- Beets: Peel beets with a regular vegetable peeler and cut into thick matchsticks. You can also grate beets on a box grater or in a food processor. If you have fresh beets, you can also chop some beet greens and add to the soup.
- Cabbage: Thin uniformly shredded cabbage is a key to a borscht with right texture. Don’t shred it paper thin so it disintegrates during cooking, and don’t cut into large chunks so all you taste is cabbage. Cut it into reasonably thin strands. I am experienced enough to do it by hand with a chef’s knife, but you can also use a mandoline if you still need practice.
- Potatoes: Cube potatoes into small-medium pieces to soak up more of the soup flavor.
- Onion and carrots: Dice the onion like for frying, a mirepoix size. And carrots into small rounds and wider part into half moons.
What Type of Broth Should I Use?
- Beef bones with meat (my favorite): If you choose to add meat to borscht, first make the broth. Cover about 2 pounds of beef with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour, skimming foam occasionally. After soup is ready, remove meat, separate from bones and discard bones, chop and return meat to the pot.
- Bone broth (my other favorite): This time I was ready, stopped by my local beef farm, got soup bones and made Instant Pot beef bone broth. It came out so rich, I diluted half of it with water and used for borscht. And cooked the other half with more water and same bones for to create more broth. Ukrainian in me will never die.
- Store bought beef broth: You can use beef soup base diluted with water if you are in a rush. It adds decent enough flavor, in this case I would also add beef stew meat. Or use broth or stock from a carton. I highly recommend to buy organic and low sodium.
Serving
My favorite part of the whole entire borscht recipe cooking process is serving it. That’s when I go all out!
Ukrainians like to serve it hot, with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of fresh dill in bowl, slices of home cured pork belly (salo), pampushky or rye bread and fresh garlic on a side. But on a hot summer day, cold borscht is just as delicious!
Sour cream or yogurt: Sour cream is traditional choice. Often we use plain yogurt with more than 2% fat because it is lighter than sour cream. It really depends what’s in the fridge. I think you are getting that’s the vibe of entire Ukrainian cuisine by now. Some people also love mayo in their soup but it’s not for me.
Rye bread: Rye bread is dense dark color bread. I find mine in a bread section seal wrapped for freshness. It is often German.
Sourdough bread would be great for serving as well! I toast it to resemble freshly baked Ukrainian bread.
More garlic: Many Ukrainians eat borscht while biting on a clove of garlic in between the spoonfuls. The key is to eat garlic together with your partner and don’t leave the house that night.
More dill: I add dill to the pot and then to individual bowls. There is no such thing as too much garlic and dill, almost never. I’m such Ukrainian at heart.
This is how I enjoyed grandma’s Ukrainian borscht as a kid – rub garlic on a slice of rye bread, spread it with sour cream and sprinkle with salt. By the way, my Canadian born kids love it! Try on yours and see. Would love to hear how it goes!
How to Store and Reheat
The best borscht is like a good bottle of wine, it gets better with time. Therefore, I always make a very large pot and we eat it for days or freeze.
Store: Refrigerate leftovers in a large pot you cooked soup in for up to 5 days. Or transfer to an airtight container.
Reheat by simmering on low in a small pot only amount you are planning to consume. Or microwave in individual bowls for 2-3 minutes.
Freeze in an airtight glass container for up to 3 months. Then thaw in the fridge overnight and reheat.
More Eastern European Recipes to Try
- Cabbage rolls
- Unstuffed cabbage rolls
- Cabbage roll soup
- Russian cabbage soup
- Buckwheat soup
- Split pea soup
- Beef barley soup
Have you ever tried it? Would love to hear your experience. I promise traditional Ukrainian borscht recipe would be one of the most delicious and healthiest soups you have ever tried. Enjoy!
Ukrainian Borscht Recipe
Equipment
Video
Ingredients
- 12 cups low sodium beef broth, or beef bones + cold water (see notes)
- 5 cups green or red cabbage, thinly sliced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 3 medium carrots, chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 large beets, peeled and cut into matchsticks
- 4 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 6 ounces can tomato paste, low sodium
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- Pinch of sugar or maple syrup
- 3 large garlic cloves, grated
- Ground black pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup dill or parsley, finely chopped
- Yogurt, sour cream and rye bread, for serving
Instructions
- In a large pot (I use 6 quart Dutch oven), add beef broth, bay leaves and bring to a boil. Or you can make beef broth with bones and meat first, please see notes. Meanwhile, wash, peel and cut vegetables.
- Once beef broth is boiling, add cabbage, cover and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat large skillet on medium heat and swirl 1 tablespoon of oil to coat. Add onion, carrots and saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add beets, remaining 1 tablespoon of oil and cook for another 3-4 minutes.
- Transfer sauteed veggies to a pot along with potatoes, tomato paste and salt. Cover, bring to a boil and cook on low heat for 20 minutes.
- Turn off heat. Add vinegar, sugar, garlic and pepper. Stir and let borscht sit for 10 minutes to allow flavours to marry each other. Add dill, stir and adjust any seasonings to taste.
- Serve hot with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream, bread and garlic clove on the side (this is not for everyone).
Notes
- Store: Refrigerate borscht in a large pot you cooked it in for up to 5 days. Reheat by simmering on low in small pot only amount you are planning to consume.
- Freeze: Freeze in an airtight glass container for up to 3 months. Then thaw on a counter overnight and reheat.
- Beef bones+cold water: This would be the most authentic borscht but I know many are short on time. You make the beef broth first with 2 pounds of beef ribs, oxtail, soup bones or any meat cut with a bit of fat. Cover with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour, skimming foam occasionally. After borscht is ready, remove meat, separate from bones and discard bones, finely chop and return meat to the pot.
- Store bought stock: Good if you are in a rush. You can use regular beef broth from a carton. Preferably organic and low sodium, if you can. In this case, I would recommend to add some beef stew meat or a few cans of kidney or white beans as a protein boost.
- Sauerkraut: If you replace 2 cups of cabbage with 2 cups of sauerkraut, borscht will have even more umph.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi there! I plan on making this and want to use store bought beef broth low sodium and also add some chuck roast. Admittedly it is my first time making anything with Chuck roast. At what point do I put the meat in? Thank you!!
Make roth with meat first. Full recipe card is located at the bottom of the post or you can use Jump to Recipe button at the top to get to it. Look at step 1 and notes, it should explain the process. You want to cook meat with water for a bit first.
Hi. This is delightful. Could you please give me a rough idea of many cups of beets to use?
Full recipe card is located at the bottom of the post or you can use Jump to Recipe button at the top to get to it.
Love love love. A very forgiving recipe, I usually add a bit of whatever veggies I have – this time I added celeriac. Usually I make it without meat. And I agree, there is NO SUCH THING as to much garlic 😉
So glad you love it! Love the veggie flexibility — and totally agree, you can never have too much garlic!
Hello,
I was wondering if I make my own broth with short ribs, or any other meaty bones, how many pounds of meat should I put?
Thanks.
Hi there. About 2 pounds would be great! Enjoy!
I really enjoyed this one! I lived in Ukraine for 18 months many years ago, and I fell in love with the beet soup among other cultural foods. I’ve been looking for a good vegan option and this one was easy to modify to be plant based and delicious. I used a little sugar in addition to maple syrup and a little extra on the veggies. Even better on day 2. Highly recommend. Thanks!
So happy you loved it! Glad the vegan tweaks worked well. And yes, it’s always even better the next day. Thanks for sharing!
I made this for my family tonight! I have autistic boys and they are usually quite picky- but they loved it! I could not find Ukrainian brown bread- nor could I made it – so I had to settle for brown German rye. But it was really good!! It was my first time! I have family from Czech Republic and Lithuania- I cannot claim Ukraine, however, I always say that Ukraine is the country of my heart. Love from Texas.
That’s wonderful to hear and I’m so glad your boys loved it! German rye was a perfect substitute.
Where are the white or red beans?? Fresh to.atoes are more flavorful than tomatoes paste.
Beans are optional. Nobody added fresh tomatoes to borscht in Ukraine as nobody had them 10 months out of the year.
I grew up hating beets and the mass produced store-bought borscht sold in jars. I fell in love with a wonderful Ukrainian man and decided to give the idea of borscht another chance. I love this recipe, it’s positively addictive, and my sweetheart now thinks I’m a star! Next step, learning to make authentic Ukrainian black bread to go with it. Thank you! You’re better than Cupid!
I love that borscht won you (and your sweetheart) over. And homemade Ukrainian black bread will make it even more special! It was my favorite bread growing up – dark rye, never found a comparable here.