Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Borscht
The famous beet soup, sweet-sour and garnet-red, ladled over beans and finished with dill and sour cream.
Ukrainian · medium · serves 6
prep 25 min · cook 60 min
~693 cal · 45g protein · 36g carbs · 40g fat · 8g fiber · 13g sugars · 17g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Borscht is so central to Ukrainian identity that in 2022 UNESCO added the culture of its cooking to its list of endangered heritage, and Poltava in central Ukraine is where many Ukrainians say it reaches its finest. At its base it is a beetroot soup, but that undersells a pot that can also hold cabbage, beans, potatoes, and a deep tomato-scented broth.
There is no single recipe: every region and nearly every family guards its own, argued over at kitchen tables for generations. What they agree on is balance, a clean sweet-and-sour note, and colour, because a good borscht should arrive at the table a vivid ruby red rather than a dull brown. Cooks protect that colour by adding the grated beets late and with a little acidity to set them.
It is almost always served with a spoon of smetana, sour cream, swirled in at the last moment, and with pampushky, soft garlic-rubbed rolls, alongside. Like much of the best home cooking it tastes better the next day, and in Ukraine a pot of borscht is less a recipe than an inheritance.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
3 medium beets, peeled and grated
3 cups green cabbage, shredded
3 potatoes, cubed
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, diced
2 lb bone-in beef (short rib, shank or oxtail), for the broth
2 tbsp tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
3 tbsp (or salo, rendered)
3 bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp salt
for 4 rye bread or pampushky and a raw garlic clove, to serve
3/4 cup sour cream, to serve
Instructions
1
Cover the beef with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer about an hour, skimming the foam, with the bay leaves and peppercorns. Lift out the meat, pull it off the bone and chop it, and keep the broth. (For the meat-free version, use vegetable stock and beans.)
2
Make the zazharka: saute the carrot and onion in oil or rendered salo, then add the beets, tomato paste, vinegar, and sugar with a splash of water and stew 10 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
The splash of vinegar is not just for flavour: the acid sets the beets’ deep red, keeping the borscht vivid instead of fading to brown. The separately fried onion-carrot-beet base has its own Ukrainian name, zazharka (or smazhennya), and skipping it costs the soup most of its depth.
3
Simmer the potatoes in the broth with the salt for 10 minutes.
4
Add the cabbage to the potatoes and simmer 5 minutes more.
5
Stir the zazharka and the chopped meat (or the beans) into the pot and simmer gently 15 minutes.
6
Add the garlic and half the dill, then take off the heat and rest 20 minutes to let the flavours settle.
7
Serve with sour cream, the rest of the dill, and rye bread or pampushky, with a raw clove of garlic on the side to bite between spoonfuls.
✎ Chef’s note
Borscht is better the next day, and Ukrainians really do eat it with a whole garlic clove alongside. Beans in place of meat is not a compromise: the bean version is the traditional build in the Poltava region and the standard one for fasting days.
Poltava-region meatless (pisniy) tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Poltava. This is chernozem country, the deep black soil belt, and the cooking follows what grows easily there. Varenyky are filled with cherries in summer and potato or curd cheese the rest of the year, salo is salted and kept for months, and garlic, dill and soured cream turn up so consistently that their absence would be noticed.
🗺️
Ukraine. The culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking was inscribed on UNESCO's list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding on 1 July 2022, a listing made under wartime conditions. UNESCO's own note is that inscription does not make a tradition exclusive, so the honest framing is a recognised Ukrainian practice rather than sole ownership of the soup.
🌍
Europe. European cooking is built on the land and the seasons, wheat, butter, and cured pork in the north; olive oil, tomatoes, and seafood around the Mediterranean; preserved vegetables and hearty stews through long winters. Centuries of peasant tradition, guild craft, and royal courts refined techniques from French mother sauces to Italian fresh pasta and Central European baking. Regional identity runs remarkably deep, with a single dish often changing from one valley to the next.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Ukraine
Varenyky (Potato Dumplings)Half-moon dumplings of tender dough filled with mashed potato and fried onion, boiled and tossed in butter, served with fried onions and sour cream.
Chicken KyivA breaded chicken cutlet rolled around herb-garlic butter that bursts out golden when you cut in.
SyrnikiLittle pan-fried cottage-cheese pancakes, golden outside and tender within, served with sour cream and jam.
Browse all Ukraine recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Soup keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well. Reheat gently and loosen with a little water or stock if needed.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Borscht?
The famous beet soup, sweet-sour and garnet-red, ladled over beans and finished with dill and sour cream.
Where does Borscht come from?
Borscht is a Ukrainian dish from Poltava, Ukraine.
Can Borscht be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Borscht recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Borscht safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Borscht take to make?
About 85 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 60 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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