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These Russian Potato Piroshki with Garlic Dip are dangerously good! You must exert some self-control. Potato pirojki are one thing, but paired with the garlic dip… Oooh baby!
I hope you do try these pirojki. They truly are one of my very favorite treats.
Ingredients for the Dough:
1 1/2 Tbsp oil
15 oz luke warm water
4 cups + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour (divided)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Active Dry Yeast
1/2 Tbsp sugar (omit sugar if doing meat or potato filling)
Ingredients for Filling:
7 to 8 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2″ thick chunks
3 Tbsp butter, melted for potatoes
1/2 medium onion
1 Tbsp butter for onions
Ingredients for Garlic Dip – “Vmochanka”
(this is for one serving, so increase it accordingly):
1/4 cup warm water
1 Tbsp olive oil (you can use any kind of oil really)
1 garlic clove, pressed
1/2 tsp salt
Mix all dip ingredients together; that’s all there is to it!
Other Ingredients:
Enough canola oil to go half-way up the side of the piroshky when frying.
Lots of extra flour to dust the cutting board (I probably use at least 1/2 cup extra flour)
How to make potato filling:
1. Fill a medium pot with sliced potatoes and add water until potatoes are almost covered. Add salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then cover and reduce heat to a light boil. Boil 18-20 minutes, or until a knife easily pierces potatoes.
2. Mash potatoes, then add melted butter.
3. Saute diced onion and 1 Tbsp butter until onion is browned.
4. Mix onions into potatoes and let the mix cool to room temp.
How to make the Dough:
1. The easiest way to do this is in a bread maker. If you have one, set it to the dough setting and add the ingredients in the following order: Oil, water, 2 cups flour, salt, sugar, 2 cups + 2 Tbsp flour*, yeast.
A bread maker will do the following: mix, let dough rise, mix again and let the dough rise (It takes about 1 to 1 1/2 hours) and once it’s done in the bread maker, its ready to go.
*to get an exact flour measurement, use a dry ingredients measuring cup and scrape off the top with the back of a butter knife.
You can also make this dough using a stand mixer with a dough hook on speed 2(mix all the ingredients together, let rise 3o min in a warm spot, mix again and then let it rise again in a warm place another 45 min (no warmer than 100˚F or you will kill your yeast). (It should be 2 to 2 1/2 times in volume.
2. Put the finished dough onto a well floured cutting board, dust the dough with flour and with well-floured hands, shape it into a large log.
It will rise more as you make the piroshki
3. Cut off pieces one at a time about 3/4″ thick.
4. Place the piece of dough over your well-floured hand (dough will be sticky) and shape it into a 3″ to 4″ circle using your hands. Do not put flour on the side where you are going to put the potatoes, otherwise the sides won’t seal.
5. Place 1 heaping Tbsp of potato filling in the center.Cover the potatoes with the sides of the dough and pinch the ends together with your fingers to seal the dough together. If necessary, flatten the pirojki slightly to make them a more uniform size.
6. Heat oil in a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pan. There should be enough oil to cover the pirojki half-way up the side.
7. Place them in the hot oil (about 330 ˚ F) and fry until deep golden brown on each side. Sometimes they puff up a lot on one side so you may end up with a third side that needs to be fried. Place on paper towels to cool and enjoy!
To make the garlic dipping sauce; just mix all the sauce ingredients together. Easy. 🙂
Notes:
It helps to wash your hands half-way through the process to keep the dough from really sticking to your hand. And keep those hands well-floured!
Russian Potato Piroshki with Garlic Dip - Пирожки

Ingredients
Ingredients for the Dough:
- 1 1/2 Tbsp oil
- 15 oz luke warm water
- 4 cups + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp Active Dry Yeast
- 1/2 Tbsp sugar, omit sugar if doing meat or potato filling
Ingredients for Filling:
- 7 to 8 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" thick chunks
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted for potatoes
- 1/2 medium onion
- 1 Tbsp butter for onions
Ingredients for Garlic Dip – “Vmochanka”:
Mix all dip ingredients together;
Other Ingredients:
- Enough canola oil to go half-way up the side of the piroshky when frying.
- Lots of extra flour to dust the cutting board, I probably use at least 1/2 cup extra flour
Instructions
- Fill a medium pot with sliced potatoes and add water until potatoes are almost covered. Add salt, bring to a boil over high heat, then cover and reduce heat to a light boil. Boil 18-20 minutes, or until a knife easily pierces potatoes.
- Mash potatoes, then add melted butter.
- Saute diced onion and 1 tbsp butter until onion is browned.
- Mix onions into potatoes and let the mix cool to room temp.
How to make the Dough:
Using bread maker method. Set it to the dough setting and add the ingredients in the following order: Oil, water, 2 cups flour, salt, sugar, 2 cups + 2 tbsp flour*, yeast.
*to get an exact flour measurement, use a dry ingredients measuring cup and scrape off the top with the back of a butter knife.
Stand Mixer Method: Using a dough hook on speed 2, mix all the ingredients together, let rise 30 min in a warm spot, mix again and then let it rise again in a warm place another 45 min (no warmer than 100˚F or you will kill your yeast) It should be 2 to 2 1/2 times in volume.
- Put the finished dough onto a well floured cutting board, dust the dough with flour and with well-floured hands, shape it into a large log. It will rise more as you make the piroshki
- Cut off pieces one at a time about 3/4″ thick. Place the piece of dough over your well-floured hand and shape it into a 3″ to 4″ circle using your hands. Do not put flour on the side where you are going to put the potatoes, otherwise the sides won’t seal.
- Place 1 heaping Tbsp of potato filling in the center.Cover the potatoes with the sides of the dough and pinch the ends together with your fingers to seal the dough together. If necessary, flatten the pirojki slightly to make them a more uniform size.
- Heat oil in a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pan. There should be enough oil to cover the pirojki half-way up the side.
- Place them in the hot oil (about 330 °F) and fry until deep golden brown on each side. Place on paper towels to cool and enjoy!
don’t need a milk or egg?
This recipe does not call for milk or egg. Pojaloosta 🙂
spasibo natasha, ya obezaltelno sdelayu etot pirojki, ocheni vkusno vidno
Dear Natasha,
Love you recipes + this exquisite Piroshki. Would you be having a recipe for Pelmeni – My dear mother used to make all sorts of piroshki and also pelmeni. Many thanks again.
Use the basic vareniky/pelmeni dough that I have posted and I haven’t posted the filling for pelmeni, but I do have a very good recipe, here’s the general idea: 1/2 lb pork & 1/2 lb turkey, 1 small onion (minced) & 1 garlic clove (crushed), 1/2 tspn salt and 1/4 tspn pepper, a couple dashes of tobasco sauce (or any hot sauce). Saute onion in a couple tbsp oil for a few minutes till soft, add garlic and saute another minute. Mix everything together and there you have it!
Natasha, thank you for this recipe, I made them yesterday and they were so delicious! I tried both frying them and baking. I have to say that they didn’ t turn out very well in the oven, I think the temp I set was too high. But, the fried ones were awesome. The dough was perfect! I love your site, thanks for the hard work that you put into it. God Bless You!
Thanks for this recipe! I’ve made them in the past and have always just bought store bought pizza dough due to lack of time. This weekend I was planning on making them from your dough and was wondering what you would suggest. I want to bake them instead of frying. What would be the ideal temp and for how long?
I’m not much help with that. I haven’t tried baking them so u will have to experiment. Let me know how it turns out.
Why dont they cook all the way when you fry them. They get golden brown but the inside is still doughy.
I’ve never had that problem before. The only thing I can think of is how much oil you are using? Does the oil at least go half-way up the sides of the piroshki while they are frying? Also, you might be on too high of heat. They shouldn’t turn golden instantly.
Hello Natasha!
Can you suggest another way I can make the bread? Because we only have here those manual mixers that are impossible to use, no electric ones!
You can probably mix everything with a spatula or by hand until all the ingredients are well combined – the dough will be very sticky and that’s ok. So follow this order: 1. mix all the ingredients together well, 2. cover with a towel and let rise in a warm oven (20-30 min), 3. mix well again and then 4. cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm place (like the oven). It should be 2 to 2 1/2 times in volume. The total process should take about 1 hr 15 minutes with rising time. You can let it rise a little more at the end if it didn’t rise enough; it won’t hurt it.
Hi,
I made the potato piroshki and they turned out great. I liked your tip on using the bread machine to mix the dough. Do you have a meat-filling recipe for piroshki? When we were in Ukraine, we thought they used a pork filling, but most of the recipes I find on-line use beef. Thanks!
I’m so glad you enjoyed them. Thanks for letting me know! I do have a meat filling recipe. I will post it next time I make them. I love the meat filling!! I believe mine is pork and turkey.
I used to fry them very often when my kids were young. Now they married and moved out…
There are mentioned two wrong ingredients: apples and sugar, that probably got there from different recipe.
It may confuse some beginners…
Thanks Natasha for letting me know. I’ll fix that. That’s what I get for using copy/paste.
These turned out amazing! Thank you!!!
what is the temp?
I believe the temp was about 330 degrees F. They should sizzle when you put them in. I added the temp to the recipe. Thanks Margie!
When I saw the photo of your piroshki it automatically reminded me of my grandmothers, except she makes a peas and garlic filling. I never tried with potatoes but they look so good.
OOps….and about 4 TBS yeast in that bread dough. I shouldn’t be talking to someone about one thing and trying to type about another.
Ah! That is why the dough was so wet. I read the recipe for Apple Piroshki as five 1/4 cups of flour for a 1 1/4 cup total. Seemed really, really, REALLY wet. So I just added flour until it felt right. Piroshki dough always feels light and wet to me with the roughly 2:1 flour to liquid ratio. I’m more used to the standard bread ratio of roughly 3:1. Shura at church once asked me to get her dough out of the mixer and knead it for her – she was aghast at how I started to manhandle it – “No! No! Gently! Is delicate, Joseph! You are not making bricks! GENTLY!”
About half an hour later I had her feel some bread dough I made – 10 cups water, about 2 TBS salt, 1 TBS sugar, and 28 – 30 cups bread flour. She poked at it, looked at me, poked at it…”Oh….is very dense. You don’t touch my piroshki dough again.” Bless her…pushing 90 then and still making piroshki by the hundreds and borscht by the ten gallon batch.
Oh yes, 1 1/4 cups of flour would probably make it the consistency of cake batter 🙂 Your dough stories gave me a good laugh.
Yeah…but it made for a really nice sponge and the yeast was really happy.
Glad you got a chuckle out of the story. I was a bit of a shock to some of the older ladies – a man helping out in the kitchen. Or (gasp) even doing the Sunday lunch! Unheard of!
Natasha, would this dough work for baked pirozhki or does it only work if you fry them? I can’t eat anything deep-fried, so I always bake my pirozhki. I’ve been looking for a quick pirozhki dough recipe for a while now. The only recipe I know is my mom’s and it involves a long rise. Also, the garlic dip is a great idea! Is it Ukrainian? I’ve never heard of a dip for pirozhki in Russia.
I’m not sure if the dip is Ukrainian; might be. I’ve never tried baking these. You might want to add 1/4 cup more flour if you are going to try it because they might be a little sticky for baking.
Yum! You must have self-control made of steel or something!
Hello Natasha- I have enjoyed your recipes so much! Some i am familiar with, others I have looked for recipes for in the past and am happy to find them here, and many are new- a super combination for me! I appreciate all the time you are spending on this blog… you are an inspiration!
Hi Margo – thank you soo much! I sent you an email 🙂
Emmmm…my grandmother used to make these for me as a child in ukraine! I couldn’t ever find a good recipe of them, but I can’t WAIT to try these and share them with my friends here in Italy! Thank you!
Hi Anna, I hope these taste just like your grandmothers. I love them and my mom and aunt make them the same way. I also have apple piroshki posted, the filling is just bits of apple with 1/4 tsp sugar; those make for nice dessert piroshki with tea. Enjoy!
Hi Natasha,
This is a scrumptious recipe that we will try in St Petersburg!
My next post is about sharlotka and has my recommended list of Russian Food Bloggers… you too!
Please look it over when published, and let me know if I missed any good Russian cooking sites.
Keep on cooking!
Rob
Thank you Rob, I appreciate that. I will definitely check it out!
This looks like fun! Maybe when I’m done with my Indian food extravaganza, I will move on to Russian food…
Thanks for sharing your recipe!