Mennonite Girls Can Cook is a collection of recipes which were posted daily for a period of ten years from 2008 to 2018. We have over 3,000 delicious recipes that we invite you to try. The recipes can be accessed in our recipe file by category or you can use the search engine.

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Cabbage Borscht

The Ukrainians made borsch, and the Mennonites of the Ukraine borrowed the soup but substituted cabbage as the main ingredient rather than beets, and called it Borscht.

 
My Borscht is much like the soup my mom cooked, for which there was no written recipe. But it goes something like this...

Borscht
  • 2 lbs. soup bones, with lots of meat
  • 8-10 cups water
  • 2-4 carrots, sliced
  • 4 medium potatoes, cubed
  • 1 large (or 2 medium) onions, chopped
  • 1 medium head cabbage, chopped fine
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 whole red chili peppers (dried)
  • fresh dill (a handful or to taste)
  • 2 tins tomato soup
  • 2 cups diced tomatoes (optional)
  1. Cover soup bones with water and simmer until meat is tender (several hours).
  2. Remove the bone and shred the beef. Add more water to make 8-10 cups of stock before adding the vegetables.
  3. Add vegetables and seasonings (put chili peppers and dill into a spice cup or cheesecloth), and cook until vegetables are tender.
  4. Add tomato soup, diced tomatoes, and shredded beef...and bring to a boil.
  5. Serve with sour cream.
Add a wee bit more of this or less of that, and if you like it fiery hot, add more red chili peppers. I often cook up a large pot, leave the spice cup in the soup and refrigerate it for a week of quick lunches. As the week progresses, our bowl of soup gets zippier!

Fresh dill is the best but can also be harvested in season and frozen in ziplock bags to be used in soup.

36 comments:

  1. I like that at the best of times.
    It really warms up the house and the stomachs on a cold winter day.
    I could eat a bowl right this minute.

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  2. My husband is Russian and we were just talking the other day how we should make some, we always make tons and then freeze it. My family loves it with fresh homemade bread.
    Have a Blessed weekend,
    Mary

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  3. Oh Judy...this is just like the borscht I make, our family makes. Since I've had my own little family I more often than not end up making it vegetarian with no soup bones at all and it still tastes wonderful. For me the cincher is that FRESH dill as you note! Yum.....This soup gets made very other weekend for a frozen supply for quick dinners.

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  5. We always had rollkuchen with this great soup. The soup always was made the day before we would eat it so that the flavours would all come together. Rollkuchen is great with watermelon but also with borscht.

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  6. This is exactly how I make mine too .. .so yummy. . .pass the bread over. . .and I have a full meal.

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  7. This is going to be supper today... I have a head of cabbage that needs to be used up so I'm thinking this will be just the way to do it...

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  8. Would be perfect to come home for lunch to that today! This is very similar to how I make Borscht.
    Great pictures!

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  9. This is the same as my Grandma's, my Mom's my sister's and mine. As I read your recipe and saw the pot of suop I could smell and taste it....exactly! This is my all time favorite soup. I always freeze fresh dill from the garden to have on hand for this very soup. Kathy

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  10. I love to hate coming to your blog site, I am trying to eat healthier but love to see what is cooking at your blog. The mac and cheese below has me drooling. Everything looks devine.

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  11. Hi Judy,
    We were raised on cabbage borsch. Where my folks were born (between the Caspian and Black Sea) borsch is pronounced without the t at the end. Everyone from the villages my parents were raised in made the soup with cabbage. I remember when I first saw borsh made with beets I was a little confused :0)
    Your borsch looks wonderful...

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  12. Thanks for stopping by to see my chicken recipe...yours make me really hungry.
    Candy

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  13. I just found your blog...am going to have to link you to mine as you have some absolutely wonderful recipes.

    Thank you for sharing!

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  14. Thank you! My step-mom used to make this soup and I loved it. I have been looking for the recipe for 30 years!

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  15. I haven't made borscht for ages, but when a cousin of mine pined for it on Facebook yesterday (both of our moms have died recently), I decided to search the site to make sure I'm not forgetting anything. I do remember Mom saying "some people make it with dill, but I prefer it without..." so I guess I've never had it that way. I'll try it tonight because there is still lovely dill in my garden. Also, I will always remember choking on a bay leaf, so I think she used those too. And ketchup (the last of the bottle rinsing). And finally, sweet whipping cream. (Did they ever worry about cholesterol?)And, I LOVE the chile addition. Fire in the kitchen!

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  16. I have always loved my mom's borscht which is basically the same as yours minus the red chile's, but it is the red chile's that take it to a new height. The kids thought it was a bit spicy, but my husband and Gord and Esther LOVED it! Thanks again for another wonderful keeper of a recipe!

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  17. Thank you so much for posting this recipe! My grandma would make a huge pot of this recipe at least once a week and invite the family over lunch. Her sister would bring over this wonderful brown bread, with potato flakes in it, and we would all enjoy the food and company. I made your recipe just the other day and my husband and son loved it! Thanks again.
    ~Jackie

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  18. Hello

    I made soup every week when I had to clean out the fridge, as one of my Saturday morning chores. This kind of Borscht was one of my favourites, but I didn't ever use tomato soup, just canned tomatoes. A couple times lately (I'm still making soup a couple times a week--55 years later) I have used some of my leftover tomato sauce that is heavy with garlic and basil. Then I don't use dill or cabbage, but spinach, usually.

    I started to cook meals and parts of meals when I was eight.

    Soup is my favourite thing to eat. Yesterday, a simple but so delicious fish chowder, with Haddock.

    Thank you for this blog. I love it.

    S.
    Northern Canada

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  19. Hi! I am loving my husbands family recipes! We Penners are making Varenikje tonight and waiting up for Santa.

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  20. I have just made your cabbage borscht! It is a HUGE hit!!! My husband is now getting a second bowl. I served the soup with homemade biscuits. GREAT RECIPE!!! Thank you so much!

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  21. I've never made cabbage borscht until today, with this recipe and a few tweaks of my own, and it is divine! Thank you so so much. This website is great!

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  22. Am simmering my ham hock now for this borscht! I usually don't have time to chop cabbage/onions etc... so I use a package of onion soup mix and a bag of coleslaw. But I still peel & chop my potatoes... no getting around that! And my mom never put carrots in so I don't add any...although there are some mixed in with the coleslaw. Love your blog. Made the farmer sausage bubbat today when my folks came for lunch. They were very surprised!
    Thanks for all the recipes!

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  23. My grandmother-who is Mennonite-makes hers with pickling spice in a tea ball, boiling with the rest of the ingredients. Also, grating a draining a beet and adding it to the soup makes it delicious without dyeing it red. I absolutely love that you've posted such wonderful recipes that remind me so much of my childhood! Thank you!

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  24. I was searching quickly for a borscht recipe yesterday and enjoyed using yours. Such a nostalgic soup, reminding me of meals at home when I was a kid, or at grandma's. house.
    Yesterday I bought the soup to our small group potluck. We all brought an ethnic dish. The diversity was so delicious!

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  25. I grew up in a Mennonite home, then married an "Englisher" so didn't make the Mennonite dishes much, except for peppernuts, rull kuchen on the 4th of July after the picnic, and occasionally borcht. Our church had a crockpot soup supper and I took some borcht thinking that if no one ate it, I'd have something for tomorrow's supper. But it was pretty much eaten up and I was stopped by a man holding a bowl of it, wanting the recipe. His wife was at his side and she confirmed that he was the family cook and he really did want the recipe. That posed a problem since I don't have one. Fortunately, he could understand the "some of this and some of that" recipe.

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  26. Mennos did not substitute the cabbage, it was always that way.

    I am 100% Ukrainian Catholic and the family has been eating cabbage borscht forever. Mennos didn't create cabbage soup, it's been around forever.

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    1. You are absolutely right......100% Catholic....Mennos didn't create cabbage borscht, Ukrainians did. That is also a part of our heritage. My parents were born in Ukraine and we celebrate all the wonderful flavors they grew up with and cherish and we are passing along the tradition. So glad you are sharing that with us.








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    2. Beet borsh is Russian

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  27. My mom claims she put other meats in sometimes then farmer sausage but I don't remember that. I always remember it with farmer sausage. To me that makes the borscht. But it's all what your use to.

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  28. Could I make this in a slow cooker?

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    1. Personally I have made it in the slow cooker, using either beef/chicken/sausage and beef/chicken broth instead of making the stock from bones. It worked out just fine.

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  29. I've been wanting a good cabbage borscht recipe since my parents moved to Steinbach. They love going our for lunch and that's usually what they both order. Thanks for the recipe.

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  30. I came away sightly unsatisfied from my parents' church's annual all-you-can-eat borscht lunch last weekend, only having 4 bowls. I bought a mason jar of borscht to take home, but of course had to share with my moochie kids ;). It was all delicious, but just not enough. So I'm doing it myself. Thanks for this recipe, seems to be very similar to what my Oma used to make. Maybe next up I'll try zwiebach (although I doubt I'll be able to get the little ball to stay on top of the bigger one).

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  31. how many people would this one recipe feed?

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    1. I would say it serves eight. But the thing with soup it to add a little more of everything to to serve more.

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  32. I always get a kick out of the debate about what should be added to borscht. I was in the hospital this year and one of the aids was Ukrainian, we had several discussions about what I called Mennonite food and she called Ukrainian food. When comparing Borscht and what goes in it she said that there are some 1100 recipes for Borscht but that it was all Borscht. Been one of my favorite foods forever!

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