Zupa Ogórkowa (Polish Cucumber Soup)
Serves 4 Time 60 minutes Difficulty 3/5 Ingredients 14 Steps 8
Zupa ogórkowa is a traditional Polish soup made out of sour, salted cucumbers.
Ingredients
- 4 chicken wings
- 1 small leek (or 1 small onion)
- 2 carrots
- ½ celery root (optional)
- 1 parsnip root
- 3 medium potatoes
- 3 big sour-salted (pickled) cucumbers
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon flour
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 pimentos
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1–2 tablespoons of cream or half and half (optional; yoghurt is also acceptable but not traditional)
Steps
- Put chicken wings, salt, pepper, bay leaves and pimentos in saucepan or stock pot with 1.5 L (1½ quarts) cold water. Bring to a boil. Simmer on low heat 25 min.
- Add peeled carrots, celery root, parsnip root and leek. Boil 10 more min.
- Meanwhile, peel potatoes. Dice into 6 mm x 6 mm/quarter inch cubes (0.25 x 0.25 inches).
- Remove leek. Add potatoes. Boil 10–12 min until cooked through.
- Grate pickled cucumbers. Sauté in melted butter in a sauté pan, 2 min. Add flour. Stir constantly over low heat.
- Add ½–⅓ cups (120-80 ml) water to sauté pan. Keep stirring.
- When potatoes are cooked, add cucumber mixture to stock pot. Mix well. Boil 3–5 min. Season to taste.
- Mix some soup with cream or sour cream in a small cup. Add to pot, or a smaller amount to each serving, if desired.
Notes from the original
- It is very important to add the potatoes first, and then the sour cucumbers. If you add them in reverse order, the potatoes will not be cooked through.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Zupa Ogórkowa (Polish Cucumber Soup)” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2026-04-20, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Cucumber soup.jpg by No machine-readable author provided. Mohylek assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.