Hearty

There is no hiding behind tomato paste, vegetables or other flavours. This is a purists’ goulash where all of the rich colour and flavour come from beautifully seared beef, caramelized onions, plus Paprika, and that’s it. This classic recipe is incredibly simple and requires only a few ingredients. I’ll get into the secret to mastering the very dark, rich gravy below.

First, we begin with onions. LOTS of them! Don’t be shy, it looks like a lot but they really cook down and lend a deep, caramelized flavour to the stew. It is important to cook them in animal fat for the best caramelization (like lard) over medium – medium high heat for some time (usually about 25 minutes or so) to ensure they get dark enough and caramelize to the point of almost looking black. Golden simply won’t due if you want a rich, dark gravy. Be patient and wait for them to look like the image below:

Once the onions are done, you’ll need to brown the meat. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside; add about a tablespoon of oil. Add the beef in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the pot. Drop the meat in and don’t touch it for about 3–4 minutes. This will help get you the very deep, dark areas of searing as shown in the image below. If you start to flip the meat and it’s not brown yet, continue to leave it until it is. If too much water evaporates from the meat and you find it’s steaming instead of browning, turn up the heat until the water cooks off. Then the meat will be able to brown. Pressing your meat with a paper towel before browning can help if you find it is holding too much moisture. If the pan starts to look dry, add a bit more oil.

Once the meat is nicely browned, it’s time to add the spices. I use the Paprika shown below (LOTS!) About two tablespoons sweet (or more), and one tablespoon hot).

Hot and Sweet Paprika are the key to the flavours of this dish

You want to add the Paprika to the pot and stir it around with the meat to heat it up in the oil to bring out all of the smokey spice’s flavour.

Then place the reserved onions back in the pot and add water and salt, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer, covered, over medium-low heat for about two hours. You can pretty much ignore it, just checking occasionally to make sure it’s neither bubbling too profusely nor standing still with no bubbling at all. You want just a very slow, gentle bubble here and there to gently and slowly cook the meat to keep it tender.

Tender, meaty beef is lifted from the rich gravy

Once the meat is tender, add more water and bring to a simmer. Add a mixture of cornstarch and flour dissolved in cold water to thicken the sauce, simmer for a few more minutes, and it’s ready! Serve over spaetzle style noodles, potato dumplings, or potatoes.

Beef Goulash

A hearty, dark beef stew with onions and Paprika. No tomato paste, carrots or other stuff—this is a purists’ beef goulash that needs nothing extra added. Serve over noodles, dumplings or potatoes. Trying to resist a second helping is futile.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Hungarian

Keyword beef, comfort, goulash, gravy, hungarian, onions, paprika, sauce, stew, szeged

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 3 hours 20 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 35 minutes

Servings 8

Ingredients

1/4 cup lard Tenderflake works well
4-6 onions, roughly chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2.5 lbs stewing beef
2 tbsp Sweet Hungarian Paprika or more if desired
1 tbsp Hot Hungarian Paprika substitute 1/2 tsp cayenne if you can’t find hot Paprika
1 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups water, divided 3 ways possibly more
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
spaetzle noodles, dumplings or potatoes for serving

Instructions

In a large pot, heat lard on medium-high heat. Add onions. Cook, stirring until they just start to brown, and turn down the heat slightly to avoid burning. Continue cooking until very dark and caramelized—they should be almost but not quite black. Once they reach the right colour, remove the onions to a side plate and reserve.
Add 1 tbsp oil, turn up the heat to medium-high, and then add some of the beef, ensuring the pot isn’t overcrowded. Don’t touch the beef for about 3 minutes; check to see if dark brown areas have developed. If so, flip the meat until browned on all sides. If not, continue to heat until the right colour is there. Turn up heat if the meat isn’t browning enough. Brown the beef in batches, usually two batches does the trick in my pot. Once all of the meat is browned, add both Paprikas and stir over the sizzling heat for about one minute to bring out the flavour of the spices.
Add the onions back into the pot along with the salt and two cups of water (or enough to just cover the meat). Scrape up any bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer on low for about 1.5 – 2 hours, until meat is tender.
Combine flour and cornstarch with 1/2 cup cold water; stir well to dissolve, pressing out any lumps. Add to the pot with an additional two cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about five minutes until sauce is bubbling and thickened.
Serve over spaetzle style noodles, dumplings or potatoes.

Spicy, fermented goodness with simple, old-country heritage, this dish dates back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its actual name is Szégediner Gulasch, but growing up no one could pronounce the name properly, so it came to be known as “Sock-it-to-me Goulash.” This recipe was passed down to me from Grandma and it remains a family favourite. The stick-to-your-ribs stew is served over homemade German-style bread dumplings, also known as Semmelknoedel. A great dish to make ahead, it just gets better every time you heat it up!

Pork shoulder is best for this dish as it will be the most tender, however I can’t always get it at the grocery store. Pork loin roast is a good substitute, even though it is lean the sauerkraut is tenderizing and it still tastes great.

Let me share a tip it took me so many years to learn the hard way: DO NOT overcrowd the pot when you brown meat! If you do, you will find the meat steaming in its own liquid instead of turning crisp and golden brown. There are a few factors at play that cause this: first, all meat has some water content. If the pot is too crowded, all of the water releases and doesn’t come into contact with the hot surface of your pot, so it will remain and build until your meat is swimming in liquid for more of a steam/braise than a browning. The second issue I believe at play is that the temperature of the pot is more difficult to maintain at the high heat needed for a good sear when overcrowded, further compromising your ability to achieve a proper sear on just the outer edges of the meat. If you allow generous spaces between the pieces as shown below, you will achieve a lovely golden brown on the meat, and also build up a nice crust on the bottom of the pan that will deglaze when you add the onions, forming the base of a flavourful sauce. It’s totally worth the effort of splitting into batches to achieve the correct level of browning.

A word on using lard. No one seems to speak of using it and I rarely see any recipes calling for this type of fat. Most people avoid cooking with it like the plague, thinking it to be extremely unhealthy. However, according to this article by the Huffington Post, it has “less saturated fat than butter, it’s higher in monounsaturated fats which are said to lower LDL cholesterol; and it has none of the trans fat that shortening does”. But really, the real reason I use lard is because Grandma told me under no circumstances to ever even think of substituting it with anything else. She knew instinctively that it can handle high heat without smoking, and using true rendered fat allows the onions to caramelize in a way they could not with olive oil. It gives just the right silky body to the final dish without imparting any unwanted flavours.

Paprika is an essential ingredient in Hungarian kitchens. Not to be confused with Spanish Paprika which has a totally different flavour, you must use true Szeged Hungarian-style Paprika for this recipe. If I were to describe the difference, I would say Hungarian Paprika is smokey, deep and almost more chili-like, while Spanish Paprika I have had is more sweet with essence of fresh peppers. Once I tried mixing a bit of Spanish Paprika into the Goulash, thinking it would add an additional flavour dimension, but it was completely out of place and didn’t work at all. For this recipe, I like to make it a bit spicy and love to mix half sweet with half hot Hungarian Paprika. It gives the dish a some edge that compliments the sauerkraut for the best possible mash-up. However, you can adjust the mix to as much or as little heat as you like. Just don’t substitute with Spanish-style Paprika, please!

When cooking with Hungarian Paprika, it is always recommended to cook it at medium-high heat in some fat to maximize the flavour, so I recommend adding it to the onions just before returning the meat to the pot, stirring for a minute or so to bring out the spice. Then you can add the meat back in and top it off with water for a long, gentle simmer to tenderize the pork. Finally, the sauerkraut is added near the end and cooked a bit longer to further tenderize the meat. When you use good quality imported sauerkraut there is no need to drain the liquid, I put the whole can, juices and all, into the pot.

While the goulash is cooking, you can make the bread dumplings. These dumplings have always fascinated me—how do regular kaiser buns turn into these awesome morsels, with a firm texture that perfectly compliments the goulash? Keep reading to find out!

To begin, tear up the kaisers and spread onto a baking sheet. Toast in a preheated oven for under 10 minutes until they are just a bit dry and lightly toasted. Transfer them into a large bowl where you’ll mix in egg and milk and allow it to absorb (think: french toast-ish). But don’t wait too long, you need to add the flour (along with any seasonings) before the liquid fully absorbs and then mash up the whole thing until you get a sticky, dough-like consistency (see lower right pic).

Then you just shape them into balls, before dropping them into simmering water to boil until they are cooked through, firm but fluffy. After having these, I just can’t go back to potatoes with this goulash, only bread dumplings will do!

Kimchi might be the cool, trendy cabbage the kids are into these days, but trust me, Grandma always knew best. This goulash is savoury, spicy, fermented goodness with simple, old-country heritage that truly satisfies.

5 from 2 votes

Sock-it-to-me Sauerkraut Goulash

Grandma's hearty and spicy recipe for pork goulash with sauerkraut, served with bread dumplings.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine Austrian, German, Hungarian

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 50 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Servings 8

Ingredients

Goulash

2 medium onions, chopped
1 796 ml can imported mild wine German sauerkraut
1/4 cup Tenderflake or other brand of lard
2 1/2 lbs pork stew meat, cubed
1 tbsp sweet Hungarian Paprika
1 tbsp hot Hungarian Paprika
1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp flour

Bread Dumplings

3 large kaiser rolls, torn into pieces
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups flour

Instructions

Goulash

In a large dutch oven or heavy pot, melt lard on high heat. Add 1/3 - 1/2 of the meat, ensuring the pot is not overcrowded and there are spaces between the meat pieces to ensure effective browning. Brown meat evenly on all sides until deep golden brown in places, about 5 minutes. Transfer meat to a bowl to rest and continue with the rest of the pork until all of the meat has been well-browned and transferred into the bowl. Add onions to the pot, reduce heat to medium-high and cook until light golden, stirring to avoid burning. Scrape up the bottom of the pot to release any browned bits of meat as you stir the onions. Add Paprika and Cayenne and stir into the onions; cook about 1 minute to bring out the flavours in the spices.
Add water to cover meat. Bring to a boil and add salt. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the meat is tender, about 45 minutes. Add sauerkraut and cook an additional 30 minutes.
In a small bowl combine about 1/2 cup water with cornstarch and flour and stir well to dissolve. Add to pot and stir until thickened, about 5 minutes. Serve with bread dumplings.

Bread dumplings

Preheat oven to 325°. Spread torn Kaiser roll pieces out on a baking sheet. Add to preheated oven and toast for 7 minutes, until bread is just lightly toasted. Remove from oven and place in a large bowl with salt.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs with milk and add to bread mixture, stirring to allow the bread to soak up the liquid. Sprinkle with the flour and use a fork to shred the mixture into a dough-like consistency. The mixture will be sticky, so keep some extra flour aside that you can dip your hands into, to reduce the dough sticking to your hands. Form dough into 1.5" balls and place on a plate. Bring a large pot of water to a gentle simmer. When all of the balls are ready add them to the water to a maximum of a single layer at the bottom of the pot. Simmer for about 20 minutes—the balls will rise up to the top when they are cooked through. Remove from the water with a slotted spoon and reserve until ready to serve with the goulash.