Pierogi and ground beef skillet
Golden pan-fried frozen pierogies tossed with savory beef, onions and tender cabbage, a hearty one-pan dinner with Polish roots.
- 35 min total
- 30 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $2.43 a serving
- 460 calories
- Good the next day
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 lb frozen pierogies
- 12 oz 85/15 ground beef
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 2 cups green cabbage, thinly sliced
- ½ cup sour cream (optional)
- 2 stalks green onions, sliced (optional)
From your pantry
- 1 tsp paprika
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 460 calories, 23 g protein, 42 g carbs and 22 g fat, and costs about $2.43 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No butter? Ghee works.
- No 85/15 ground beef? 90/10 ground beef works.
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No green cabbage? Red cabbage or coleslaw mix works.
- No sour cream? Plain Greek yogurt works.
- No green onions? Chives work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the butter in a large nonstick with a lid over medium. Add the frozen pierogies in one layer, cover, and cook 5 minutes.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Dolly’s tip: They go in straight from the freezer. The lid steams the insides while the bottoms brown.Uncover, flip them, and cook 4 to 5 minutes more, until on both sides and hot through. Move them to a plate.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium heatTimer: 4 min 30 sec
Turn the heat to medium-high and cook the beef and onion in the same pan 7 to 8 minutes, breaking up the beef, until no pink is left. Spoon off the fat.
Medium-high heatTimer: 7 min 30 sec
Food safety: Ground beef, pork and lamb are done at 160°F. When it’s cooked through there’s no pink left anywhere in the pan.
Add the cabbage, paprika, salt and pepper and cook 5 minutes, stirring, until the cabbage is tender.
Medium-high heatTimer: 5 min
Return the pierogies and gently for 2 minutes to warm them.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min
Serve with dollops of sour cream and green onions.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
