Lenten Borscht with Mushrooms and Sauerkraut
Lenten borscht on mushroom broth is a fasting-day dish from the Ukrainian table, where dried mushrooms and sauerkraut supply the depth that meat usually would. The pair covers both gaps left by skipping a bone broth: the mushrooms bring umami and body, the kraut brings acidity — which is why no vinegar goes in at all.
Order matters more than anything here. The sauerkraut, carrot, onion, and beet are sautéed together and the spoonful of flour goes in only at the end, where it picks up the fat and binds the mixture so it will not separate in the broth. The mushrooms enter the pot twice: first as their cooking liquid, then as themselves, fried in oil. That second frying is what gives texture — boiled mushrooms go limp in soup, fried ones keep some bite.
Small things that decide it
- Soak the dried mushrooms for a few hours and strain that water straight into the broth; most of the aroma is in it.
- If your sauerkraut is aggressively sour, rinse and squeeze it, or the borscht tips into vinegar territory.
- Grated boiled beet stirred in a minute before serving restores the color that long cooking bleaches away.
Dried porcini usually come in small 28 g (1 oz) packets, and one packet flavors a whole pot — the Italian dried porcini in the pasta aisle are the same mushroom. Serve with rye bread and, if you like, pampushky: soft garlic-rubbed dinner rolls, made without butter so they stay lenten.
Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 464 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Boil the well-rinsed dried mushrooms until tender; save the broth.
Sauté the sauerkraut, the carrot cut into thin strips, the onion, and the beet, then add the flour.
Pour the mushroom broth over the cooked vegetables and add the tomato paste, peppercorns, and bay leaf.
Cut the mushrooms, fry them in oil, add them to the borscht, and cook everything together for 30 minutes.
Before serving, tint the borscht with grated boiled beet and bring to a boil. Sprinkle with fresh parsley in the bowls.
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