Polish cuisine — characteristics and dishes

🕗 6 minutes | 11 March 2025 | Editorial Klara Krysiak

Contemporary Polish cuisine is considered by foreign tourists to be one of the tastiest in Europe. It is diverse and so “rich,” and this is due to Polish hospitality and a sentiment for feasting. Polish flavors come from various culinary traditions, which are related to the country's turbulent history, including the period of partitions and deportations of the population after border changes.

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What do Poles eat? What traditional Polish dishes are worth recommending to foreigners? In this part of the article, we introduce Polish culinary traditions and describe the most popular dishes, snacks, and desserts.  

Poles eat a lot of meat meals, both for dinner and as snacks. Pork and poultry dominate the tables. The base of dry victuals is bread of various kinds and cold meats — baked, boiled or smoked. In rural areas, many homes still make cured meats according to old recipes handed down from previous generations. Many housewives can bake delicious sourdough bread, made from various types of flour, often with herbs and seeds.

Polish culinary traditions also include classic Polish soups — nutritious and healthy, based on poultry and vegetable broths. The most popular are: broth, Polish tomato soup, pickled cucumber soup, pea soup, red borscht and sour soup with white sausage.

Many Polish families grow their gardens with vegetables, and have small orchards with fruit next to the house. What's more, city dwellers often lease allotment gardens with vegetable beds, or bring vegetables and fruits from family in the countryside.

Polish flavors also include homemade preserves, including pickled cucumbers, pickled cabbage, pickled vegetables in sweet and sour marinade, as well as jams and fruit compotes. They are typically made from what one has managed to grow in one's own garden, on an allotment or buy at a market from a farmer.

While we celebrate the holidays lavishly, daily we like to simplify our meal preparation, while limiting grocery shopping to essentials. We use the leftover potatoes after dinner to make potato dumplings or Silesian noodles, and cook tomato soup using the leftover broth. We grind the meat from the broth and stuff it into dumplings or make croquettes. Leftover pasta after dinner and leftover cold cuts from the refrigerator make a great base for a casserole.

It is worth noting that the meals of a Polish family look and taste differently on holidays, compared to the rest of the week. A typical Sunday dinner for a Polish family consists of two courses and dessert. With chicken broth often being served for the first course, and pork chops with potatoes and vegetable salad for the second. Then there is an obligatory cake of some kind for dessert, such as cheesecake, apple pie or sponge cake with cream and fruit.

The issue of meals during the week is slightly different. Busy housewives typically use semifinished products bought in stores. These include, for example, frozen vegetables for the skillet and frozen dumplings. Meals that can be prepared quickly when returning from work include spaghetti with sauce or poultry meat stew with vegetables and buckwheat, pearl barley or couscous. We are also increasingly using catering and ordering take-out pizzas. This is a sign that Polish cuisine is constantly evolving and drawing on Western traditions.

Tradition in Polish cuisine can be seen mainly during major religious holidays. Tables then yield to food, and Christmas Eve dishes are a specialty of our grandmothers. At Easter and Christmas, meats and pates are baked, tripe is cooked, and vegetable salad is prepared. Classic Polish soups, duck with apples, roast romaine or pork loin in chanterelle sauce are served as main dishes. Several cakes are also obligatory prepared.

We are increasingly paying attention to eating healthy and nutritious food. Every year, more and more Poles are opting for vegetarian and vegan meals. Beliefs, awareness, but also respect for the environment and animals are changing. In addition, many foreigners are settling in our country and introducing their culinary habits. In every city, in addition to the delicacies of Polish cuisine, there are Italian, Balkan and Asian restaurants.

Traditional dishes that we count as Polish cuisine are:

• broth from a country hen with beef and a large portion of Italian vegetables, served with handmade pasta or pasta from the store,
• tripe, which is a fat Polish soup made from pork intestines with beef and poultry stock,
• mashed pork chops, breaded in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, served with toasted potatoes and vegetable salad,
• ground meat cutlets with bread crumbs soaked in milk, eggs and spices, served with potatoes from water and fresh cucumber mishmash,
• traditional Polish bigos made from sauerkraut, with roasted meats,
• young cabbage sautéed in butter with carrots and dill,
• gołąbki, which is Polish minced meat wrapped in a cabbage leaf, served with tomato sauce,
• black pudding.

Modern Polish cuisine varies from region to region. These differences are due to the movement of the population and to traditions inherited from ancestors as far back as the Partitions. In addition, some regions have their own culinary customs and regional products.

• Silesian cuisine: popular in Silesia is meat roulade, served with Silesian noodles and red cabbage salad.
• Podhale cuisine: in Podhale, kwaśnica, or Polish soup made of sauerkraut with smoked ribs, is king, as well as lamb or mutton stew, and oscypek with cranberry as a snack.
• Lublin cuisine: the Lublin region is known forszmak — a one-pot dish of smoked meats, peppers, tomatoes, pickled cucumbers with dried mushrooms and tomato paste.
• Traditional Mazovian cuisine: the cuisine of Mazovia is dominated by the gifts of the forest, i.e., game, mushrooms, berries, and blueberries.
• Greater Poland cuisine: in Greater Poland, you'll eat pyry z gzikiem, which are boiled or baked potatoes in uniforms with spiced cottage cheese.
• Pomeranian cuisine: in Żuławy, crayfish soup, baked sturgeon and meatball soup with capers are popular.
• Subcarpathian cuisine: the traditional dishes of the Subcarpathian region are poliwka, or white sour soup made from rye broth, and szpykaczka with haluszki — gray noodles made from grated potatoes with pork stew.
• Borderland cuisine: is associated with the regions of the former Republic of Poland and is based on fresh vegetables, meat, and herbs. Typical delicacies of Polish borderland cuisine include pierogi, potato babka and potato pancakes.
• The cuisine of Warmia and Mazury: is distinguished by its simplicity and use of local ingredients, such as fish, mushrooms and wild fruits. Well-known dishes of Warmian-Masurian cuisine are fish soups, pickled cucumbers and dumplings.
• Highland cuisine: is associated with mountainous regions and is renowned for its filling dishes, often using cheese and meat. Specialties of Polish highland cuisine include oscypek, kwaśnica and cabbage pancakes.

Almost every home bakes (or buys) a cake before the weekend. A portion of cake is an indispensable accompaniment to coffee and dessert after dinner. Cake is also used to treat unexpected guests. The most popular Polish cakes are various cheesecakes made of cottage cheese, apple pie on short crust pastry, sponge cakes with mash and pies with fruit.

Alcohol on the Polish table is mainly vodka and liqueurs. In many homes, fruit or herbal tinctures are made with spirits. It was a Polish tradition to make moonshine from potatoes or yeast. To this day, this custom has survived in many regions. People also drink a lot of beer, especially at outdoor parties or watching sports games on TV together.

Although for many representatives of the now-living, older generations, dinner is not without a portion of meat, traditionally Polish cuisine was a vegan cuisine, later a vegetarian cuisine. In the past, meat was eaten only at royal courts, and the rest of society, had the chance to eat it mainly on the occasion of holidays and important events. Thus, over the years, many recipes have been created that do not contain meat, and they taste excellent! After all — necessity is the mother of invention!

Pierogi (dumplings) arrived in Polish cuisine around the 13th century, and their concept originated in China. In Poland, they took a different form and became a classic of local cuisine. Pierogi are stuffed with various fillings. The most popular vegetarian dumplings, are with cabbage and mushrooms (traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve) and with potatoes and white cheese (called pierogi ruskie — the name comes from the area from which they originated, i.e., Red Ruthenia). Vegetarian dumplings are also made sweet with fruit. The most popular are those with strawberries, which are grown in Poland.

There are dishes that traditionally come in meat and meatless forms. An example is Gołąbki, which became widespread in eastern and Central Europe, where cabbage was often grown. Gołąbki are nothing more than various types of stuffing wrapped in cabbage leaves, served with tomato sauce. Similar to dumplings, stuffed cabbage can be found in different variations. The jarred gołąbki have mainly groats and mushrooms in them, the rest of the ingredients depend on the region you are in.

Another very popular dish of Polish vegetarian cuisine, are croquettes, usually served with red borscht. Croquettes are breaded and fried pancakes with stuffing — typically with cabbage and mushrooms.

If you're looking for vegetarian Polish dishes, also try the most popular potato dishes, such as noodles, kopytka or potato pancakes. These dishes can be eaten either sweet with sugar or dry with mushroom sauce.