Traditional Polish Beet Soup - Easy Borscht Recipe - VegnFit (2024)

Last Saturday when I found a bunch of young beetroots on a farmers market I got so excited I couldn’t wait to get to my kitchen. I knew I’m gonna cook Polish Beet Soup. One of the tastes that every polish expat misses badly abroad.

Yes, we love our borscht soups in Poland. We have so many versions: cold beet soup, Christmas beet soup or white borscht…

This is the recipe for traditional springtime borscht. We will need young fresh beets with leaves and fresh dill.

Key Ingredients in Polish Beet Soup

YOUNG BEETROOTS WITH LEAVES

This simple soup requires young beetroots with beautiful green and purple leaves. We will use whole beets (zero waste!), even the crunchy stems. I get my beets on the local farmers market.

As you probably know beets are a super healthy vegetable, but young beets with beet greens are a true superfood. They are packed with vitamins (A, C and K) and antioxidants, and in my opinion they taste better than kale. Here’s more about benefits of eating beet greens.

POTATOES and CARROTS

Potatoes are a common addition to traditional polish borscht soup, making it a bit more hearty and filling. You can use any kind that is good for soup, like: Russet or round white potatoes. I used Cyprus potatoes in this recipe – because this is the only kind I can get here, in Cyprus 🙂 But they are delicious too.

Carrot adds a bit of sweetness, but we don’t want them to dominate the taste. We chop them in tiny slices or grate them with a vegetable shredder.

GARLIC

Garlic clove is a common ingredient in beet soups. It adds spicy, pungent accent to otherwise mild and delicate beetroot flavor. For this beet soup we want to chop it very thinly or even mash or grate it. We only want the taste without pieces of garlic floating in the soup.

Garlic combined with beetroots creates a super healthy duo. Did you know that the same compound that is responsible for strong smell in garlic is also super healthy? It improves our immunity and supports heart and brain.

DILL

Fresh dill is a must in this recipe. We not only use it for cooking borscht, we sprinkle some on top as a decoration too.

LEMON JUICE

Another ingredient that counterbalances sweetness of beets and carrots. Fresh Lemon juice adds freshness and additionally gives us a boost of vitamin C.

Is Polish Beet Soup vegan?

Traditionally vegetables for a borsch soup might be fried using butter. I used vegetable oil instead.

Another (optional) addition, that might not be vegan in traditional recipe, is cream. I used plant based soy cream (from Alpro) that works great in soups and other hot dishes.

My Polish Borscht version is 100% plant based and vegan.

Related Recipes

Homemade Tofu Sour Cream

Easy Vegan Sour Cream

Love beets like I do? Try also:

Creamy Beet Soup With A Sweet Twist

Vegan Beet Salad with Feta

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How to make traditional Borscht – Polish Beet Soup

We do have many versions of beet soups, some of them more complicated than others. This is quite easy fuss free recipe for a delicious springtime beet soup.

PEEL AND CHOP VEGETABLES

Peel carrots and potatoes. If the beets are super young and their skin isn’t too thick you don’t have to peel them. Just scrub and clean them under running water and cut the roots off.

You may want to use rubber gloves for that, as your hands will get purple. Or you can choose “I don’t care” approach, just like me, and clean your hands with baking soda later 🙂

Cut potatoes into a bite size chunks. They will provide a bit of a texture. Carrots need to be chopped finely, or even grated. We want them very soft, almost falling apart in the soup.

Beets need to be chopped finely, as they are the toughest vegetable and we want them cooked soft. You can get the idea about the proper size of every ingredient from the pictures.

FRY CARROTS AND POTATOES

Heat the oil up in the large pot and start frying potatoes and carrots. You need to be careful, especially with potatoes, as they like to get stuck to the bottom of the pan. Cover the pan, but stir vegetables frequently.

PREPARE VEGETABLE BROTH

Homemade vegetable broth is ideal, but good quality eco broth cubes are good too. I usually use 2 cubes per 1.5l hot water.

ADD REMAINING INGREDIENTS

Add chopped beets with stems and leaves as well as garlic and veggie broth. At this point you can also add 1/2 tsp pepper and 2 tbsp lemon juice.

Give it all a good stir and let cook in a covered pot for around 20 minutes.

ADJUST SEASONING

Check if the potatoes and beetroots are soft.

Try your borscht and add salt, freshly ground black pepper or lemon juice according to your liking. Polish Beet Soup should be lightly sweet with noticeable sour accent, without too dominant lemon taste.

Some people like this traditional beet soup with cream, others prefer it clear. I usually leave it clear and serve vegan cream separately. This way everyone can add as much cream as they like, or none.

Polish Beet Soup – questions you may have

What about borscht leftovers?

I usually cook Polish Beet Soup for 2 days. It’s equally, or even more delicious next day.

Keep it in the fridge. Next day heat it up slowly without boiling it.

How To Serve Polish Beet Soup?

This traditional soup has potatoes inside, so doesn’t need any special additions. It can be served as a light lunch on it’s own. Preferably with dollop of sour cream – for example this one.

If you want to make it even more hearty and add some proteins – serve with cooked white butter beans.

How healthy is borscht?

Borscht is super healthy and nutritious soup. It is indeed the bowl of superfoods starting with beets and finishing with additions like garlic or herbs. Beets are packed with vitamins and antioxidants, carrots are good for your eyes, garlic is very powerful antioxidant and has anti-inflammatory properties.

What does Polish borscht taste like?

This delicious soup is a little sweet with a hint of sour flavour.

There are various borscht types, but in most of them the combination of sweet and sour taste is dominant. Sweetness comes from boiled beets and carrot, sourness is obtained in various ways – in this spring polish beet soup it is the lemon juice, plus a bit of tang from garlic. Other borscht soups may be prepared using beet sour (beet kvass).

RECIPE

Polish Beet Soup

5.0 from 1 vote

Recipe by VegnFit Course: SoupsCuisine: PolishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cook time

30

minutes

Total time

40

minutes

Deep purple color, slightly earthy, but also sweet flavor of beetroots – Traditional Polish Beet Soup is something you need to try this spring.

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Ingredients

• 1 bunch of baby beetroots with leaves

• 2 medium potatoes

• 2 medium carrots

• 3 large garlic cloves

• 2 tbsp oil (olive, sunflower, colza)

• 3-4 tbsp lemon juice

• 1.5 l vegetable broth

• 1/2 cup fresh chopped dill

• salt and black pepper

• OPTIONAL / TOPPING

• 1/2 cup vegan cream

Directions

• Peel carrots and potatoes. If your beets are nice and young and don’t have thick skin, it’s enough to scrub and clean them well.
• Cut potatoes into bite size pieces. Carrots should be chopped finely, alternatively you can grate them.
• Heat oil up in a large pot. Fry carrots and potatoes covered for 5 minutes. Stir frequently so they do not stick to the bottom of your pan. Add 1 tsp salt.
• Chop beets together with stems and leaves finely. Chop garlic, dill and prepare vegetable broth.
• Add beets, garlic and vegetable broth to the pot. Add most of fresh dill leaving some for decoration. Stir, cover the pot and cook on medium heat for 20 minutes.
• Check if potatoes are soft. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper according to your liking.
• Serve sprinkled generously with fresh dill.

Notes

• You can add plant based cream to your cooking pot when your soup is ready. I, however, prefer to leave the borscht clear and serve the cream separately. This way everyone can decide if they want their beet soup clear or with cream.

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