Grandma’s Polish Hamburgers
The Ultimate Cozy Comfort Food
Grandma’s Polish Hamburgers are a family staple. Tender burgers with unique flavors of mushroom, garlic, and dill simmered in a rich gravy creating a savory delight that is best served over your favorite starch like mashed potatoes, steamed bread dumplings, noodles, or rice.
This recipe is the ultimate fall or winter comfort food. This is also a recipe that freezes well.
What Are Polish Hamburgers?
Polish Hamburgers are called Klotlety or Klupskies in Polish. Every family makes them their own special way, but they all have certain similarities. Typically they are made with ground pork, onions, eggs, bread, and milk along with spices and seasonings.
The recipe for my family’s Polish Hamburgers is an easy one. I would describe them as a cross between a meatball and an actual hamburger. You do not eat these Polish Hamburgers on a bun, but on their own with a rich mushroom gravy.
What to Serve With Your Polish Hamburgers
I serve my Polish Hamburgers with homemade buttery mashed potatoes and a veggie. I think this is the way they are served best, but different families have their own approach. You can serve them over Steamed Bread Dumplings, rice or even some buttered egg noodles. If you are unfamiliar with bread dumplings, read about the history of Czech Bread Dumplings.
These are a Tipsy Housewife family favorite. In fact, we have even had these for a holiday meal because they are so good.
Unique Ingredients, Great Flavor
You may notice some unique ingredients in the ingredients list. Dill and nutmeg are two that may seem new to you.
Dill and nutmeg are ingredients that I grew up with in Polish food in Chicago. The nutmeg adds a great layer of flavor to the gravy and the dill adds a brightness.
If you are leery of these ingredients, you can start out with a small amount or omit them all together.
I would encourage you to give them a try. It is great to expand your tastes and I know that you will love these flavors in this recipe.
Mix It Up, But Do Not Over Mix
One of the main reasons recipes like meatloaf, burgers and meatballs are not good is due to people over mixing their meat mixture. When you make these Polish Hamburgers, you want to make sure to combine the ingredients but do not over mix them or your burgers will cook up too dense and will be like hockey pucks.
Do not do this unless you really love to eat hockey pucks!
Give It A Rest
Once your form your patties, you MUST make sure to let these burgers rest before starting the cooking process. I am not a scientist, but the reason for this without getting technical, is that this gives the recipe time to rest and come together so that the burgers do not fall apart when you cook them in the gravy.
This is the same method I use for my Best Ever Meatballs.
Cook In Batches
You may need to sear off the burgers in batches depending on the size of the skillet that you have. This is just fine.
When you simmer the seared off burgers in the gravy, just make sure you rearrange them once or twice so they all have a chance to simmer in the gravy. You can also split this recipe into two skillets and make DOUBLE the gravy.
I always think double gravy is a great idea.
Don’t Be Sour About Sour Cream
The sour cream in this recipe may seem odd to you, but I love it. If it REALLY bothers you, you can leave it out, but I think you will be missing out on some great flavor.
I add mine right to the skillet, but if you want to make it easier for yourself to whisk in, you can remove some of the gravy with a ladle into a bowl, add the sour cream, whisk it really well, and pour it back into the skillet.
I also use sour cream in my Chicken Paprika recipe.
Grandma's Polish Hamburgers
Grandma's Polish Hamburgers are a family staple. Tender burgers with unique flavors of mushroom, garlic and dill. Simmered in a rich gravy creating a savory delight that is best served over your favorite starch like mashed potatoes, steamed bread dumplings, noodles or rice. This recipe is the ultimate Fall or Winter comfort food. This is also a recipe that freezes well.
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs of Ground Pork
- 3/4 lb of Ground Beef
- 1 1/2 Sleeves of Saltine Crackers, crushed up fine. (Approximately 2 Cups)
- 3/4 C of Milk
- 2 Eggs, whisked
- 1 Medium Yellow Onion, minced very fine.
- 1 Green Pepper, minced very fine.
- Salt & Pepper to taste, I prefer a lot of pepper. I use 2 t of salt and 2 of pepper.
- 1 T of Dried Dill
- 1/2 T of Garlic Powder
- 2 T of Dried Parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon of Nutmeg
- 2 C of Sliced Mushrooms
- 1 Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup
- 1 1/2 C of Beef Stock
- 4 T of Butter
- 2 Cloves of Garlic, Crushed with the side of your knife.
- 2 T of Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Heaping Tablespoon of Sour Cream
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients except for the beef stock, butter, cream of mushroom soup, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms, and sour cream.
- In your bowl you should have: meat, crackers, milk, onion, green pepper, all your seasonings, and herbs.
- Combine the meat, crackers, eggs, onions, green peppers, milk and seasonings until they are WELL combined.
- Next, you want to form large patties. These patties will be more wet than your usual meatballs or hamburgers. Prepare a cookie sheet with foil and make about 10 patties that are about the size of your hand and about 2 inches thick. (there is a picture at the end of how they should look)
- This step is KEY. You must allow the patties to rest at room temp for about 30 minutes. This is so they have time to bind. As I said, they will be more wet than your typical meatball or ground meat recipe.
- When your patties have rested for about 30 minutes you want to heat 2 to 3 T of butter in a deep skillet. When the butter is warm, add your garlic cloves and give it a swirl in the butter.
- Prepare a plate with some paper towels to keep near the stove where you will be frying your patties.
- Carefully remove 2 or 3 patties and place them in your skillet. Allow the patties to cook for about 5 to 7 minutes on the first side before carefully flipping. You want to get a nice sear on each side.
- When they are well seared on both sides, remove them from the skillet and place on the prepared paper towel dish. Fry the rest of your burgers until they all have a good sear.
- When you are done frying all the burgers, add the rest of the butter and then add the mushrooms to the hot skillet. Allow the mushrooms to brown and add the Worcestershire sauce. Use a spatula to scrape up the meaty bits from the bottom of the pan as the Worcestershire sauce loosens them.
- Give your mushrooms about five minutes to simmer in the Worcestershire sauce.
- Next add the beef broth and cream of mushroom soup and whisk until smooth.
- This is the step where you add your burgers BACK to the pan of gravy you just made. They should have shrunk while cooking so you should have room for them all. Make sure they are submerged in the gravy and bring the pan to a simmer.
- Reduce heat, cover with a lid and allow to simmer for 30 minutes. You may want to rearrange the burgers halfway through simmering to make sure they all get a chance to be submerged in the gravy.
- At the thirty minute mark, make room in the center of the pan, and add your heaping spoon of sour cream and whisk until combined into all of the gravy.
- Serve your hamburgers on top of mashed potatoes or a steamed bread dumpling and top with gravy and a sprinkle of dill.
15 Comments
Paul Lewis
December 16, 2018 at 2:02 pm
Any chance of having the ingredients with metric conversion
Aleks
April 17, 2019 at 12:48 am
I am orginally from Poland so I love any Polish recipes. My entire family loved this recipe and weére so happy to know that I froze the other half of the patties!! Thank you for sharing!!!!
thetipsyhousewife
April 17, 2019 at 1:15 am
I am so happy to hear this !!! I have to tell my grandma !
Michael Kozaczek
June 8, 2019 at 6:11 pm
There is much room for personal taste and improvisation here. I would go with ground veal, and ground turkey. Chick pea flour works well as a binding agent, for gluten allergic people. Smacznego! You can get away with fat free sour cream too.
thetipsyhousewife
June 8, 2019 at 6:13 pm
However it works best for you friend
Anonymous
June 23, 2019 at 8:25 pm
Correct spelling. Kotlety
Anonymous
June 29, 2019 at 5:56 pm
I was wondering if you drained any of the grease after frying the burgers?
thetipsyhousewife
June 29, 2019 at 5:58 pm
I drained the patties on a paper towel but I didnét have a ton of grease as the pork should be lean and you need a little for flavor .
Kristy Cushion
September 24, 2019 at 12:21 am
I have couple of family members you are allergic to mushrooms. Is there anything you could recommend to substitute for the mushrooms in this recipe
thetipsyhousewife
September 24, 2019 at 12:22 am
You can just leave them out completely! Ités just another layer of flavor! But they are delicious without
Lynn
October 11, 2019 at 12:18 am
What a great recipe, I made it exactly as it’s written and it was delicious, my granddaughter loved it so much and so did my husband, we froze half like you suggested and will look forward to making it again .The gravy was very good, it all reminded me of a very good meatloaf, and was also similar to Swedish meatballs! A winner and will be a new favorite!
thetipsyhousewife
October 11, 2019 at 5:32 pm
Thank you so much!! I am so glad!!
thetipsyhousewife
December 26, 2019 at 12:30 pm
What is the matter with you?
Polish Hamburgers – simpelrecipes
February 10, 2020 at 6:35 am
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pjtrudel73
March 24, 2024 at 2:59 pm
What can I use instead of beef, we do not eat beef.