Authentic Lazanki - Polish Pasta with Savoury Cabbage & Sausage

Łazanki is my family recipe and one of my childhood favourites: square pasta with sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, smoked kielbasa and mushrooms. The sauerkraut cuts through the rich sausage, the fresh cabbage sweetens it back, and somehow it never feels heavy.

Can’t find łazanki pasta? Fresh lasagne sheets cut into small squares are the closest thing. And if all you have is a bag of farfalle or penne, use it: you lose the flat edges that catch the cabbage, but it still makes a very good dinner. My guide to Polish food places it among the rest of the Polish table.

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What is Lazanki?

Lazanki is a homely Polish dish of little square pasta tossed with cabbage or sauerkraut, and usually mushrooms, onion and smoked sausage. It goes back a long way, once a favourite of the Polish gentry, and over the centuries it settled into home kitchens as honest, filling comfort food. It turns up all year but especially around Christmas.

Like most Polish classics it changes from region to region and house to house: fried cabbage for a sweeter, caramelised note in the east, a little tomato paste for tang in the west. However you make it, it is the kind of simple, satisfying meal Polish cooking does so well.

Łazanki or Haluski? They Are Not Quite the Same Thing

Anyone with Polish or Slovak family in America will have met this dish under the name haluski, and the two get used interchangeably in a lot of kitchens. Worth untangling, because they started out as different things.

Łazanki are pasta: small squares of rolled dough, boiled like any other pasta, then tossed with cabbage, sauerkraut and sausage. The name comes from the same root as lasagne, which is exactly what the shape suggests. Halušky, properly speaking, are Slovak: little dumplings of potato and flour, dropped into boiling water, closer to spätzle or to Polish kluski than to pasta at all.

What happened is that Polish and Slovak communities settled side by side in Pennsylvania, Ohio and the American Midwest, and the cabbage-and-noodle dish they all cooked took whichever name the household used. So if you grew up calling this haluski, you are not wrong about the dish on the plate, only about where the word came from. One reader from Pittsburgh told me theirs was made with bacon and no sauerkraut, and if that is how you grew up, the bacon version is in the variations below. In Poland it is łazanki, and in some regions it goes by ślepe pierogi, blind pierogi, on the grounds that it has all the filling and none of the wrapper.

Polish Sausages Perfect for Lazanki

When preparing Lazanki, the type of Polish sausage you choose can greatly influence the flavour of the dish. Here are some traditional Polish sausages that work perfectly:

• Kiełbasa Toruńska: A milder, slightly spiced sausage, Toruńska is typically smoked and made from finely ground pork. It has a delicate flavour and a tender texture, so it sits behind the sauerkraut and the mushrooms rather than over them.
• Kiełbasa Krakowska: Known for its firm texture and smoky flavour, this sausage originates from Kraków and is made from high-quality pork seasoned with pepper, garlic, and nutmeg. It’s often served cold, but its rich, smoky profile makes it an excellent addition to Łazanki, providing a savoury, well-rounded flavour.
• Kiełbasa Podwawelska: A popular smoked sausage, Podwawelska is mildly seasoned and has a smooth texture. It’s versatile and works well in various dishes, adding a delicate smokiness and a slight sweetness to Łazanki.

Chef’s tip: the bay leaf and the allspice berries are doing more than they look like they are. They are quiet on their own and the dish tastes flat without them, which is why they go in whole and come out at the end. If you use dried mushrooms (a must for the Christmas Eve version), soak them overnight and save the soaking water: it is pure flavour, so cook the sauerkraut in it rather than plain water.

For a lighter, spring-fresh pasta instead, try my wild garlic and orange pesto pasta.

A Closer Look at the Ingredients

Nothing hard to find here, but a few of them earn their place:

• Lazanki pasta Little pasta squares are the whole point here - they catch the cabbage and sausage in a way long pasta never will.
• Polish smoked sausage A good smoked kiełbasa is doing most of the flavouring. Brown it properly, and if you pan fry it the fat it gives up takes the smokiness through the whole pan.
• Sauerkraut This is the tang that keeps the dish from being heavy. Squeeze it out first if yours is very sour, and taste as you go.
• White cabbage Fresh cabbage alongside the sauerkraut brings a gentle sweetness, so you get both sides rather than just sharpness.
• Brown mushrooms My first choice over white, for better flavour, and I use the whole 300 g pack. They soak up the oil and the onions and give the dish real depth.
• Onions Cooked slowly until soft and golden, they are the sweet base everything else sits on.
• Bay leaves and allspice The two aromatics you will find in half of Polish cooking. Quiet on their own, but the dish tastes flat without them.
• Vegeta or Kucharek A little at the end, with the salt and pepper. They are the all-purpose seasoning mixes most Polish kitchens keep, salty and savoury, so add a little and taste before you add any more salt. No Vegeta? A pinch of stock powder does the same job.

Equipment You’ll Need

A one-pan supper, so the kit list is short:

Making Your Own Łazanki Pasta

Outside Poland the pasta is the one thing that can stop you making this, and it is the most common complaint I hear from readers in Germany, Sweden, Australia and most of the United States. Fresh lasagne sheets cut into squares are the quick answer and they work well. But the dough is genuinely easy, and it is what łazanki were before anyone sold them in packets.

1. Make the dough. 250g plain flour, 1 large egg, about 100ml of warm water and half a teaspoon of salt. Bring it together in the bowl, then knead on the worktop for a good five minutes until it is smooth and springy. It should feel firmer than a bread dough.
2. Let it rest. Wrap it and leave it 30 minutes at room temperature. Skipping this is why dough fights back when you roll it.
3. Roll it thin. Two millimetres or so, on a well floured surface. Thinner than feels sensible, because it swells in the water.
4. Cut the squares. Strips two or three centimetres wide, then across into squares. They do not need to match. Uneven ones are the sign of a homemade batch and nobody has ever complained.
5. Boil. Salted water, three to four minutes from fresh, until they float and taste done. Drain and go straight into the pan with everything else.

That quantity is a little under the 500 g of pasta in the recipe card, so scale the dough up by a fifth if you want the full amount. For the older, more rustic version, swap 50g of the plain flour for buckwheat, which is how łazanki were made long before white flour was cheap.

Ingredient Substitutions

• No łazanki pasta Fresh lasagne sheets cut into squares are the closest and the easiest. Failing that, farfalle, small square-cut pappardelle or even penne will carry the dish, though you lose the flat surfaces that catch the cabbage. Or make your own, above.
• No Polish smoked sausage Any coarse smoked sausage with a bit of fat to render. German Bratwurst of the smoked kind, Czech klobása or a good smoked pork sausage all work. Avoid the very fine-textured supermarket ones, which go rubbery.
• Meat free Leave the sausage out and add extra mushrooms, then add a spoon of smoked paprika or a little smoked salt with the onions to put back the smokiness. Fried strips of smoked tofu also do the job better than you would expect.
• All sauerkraut, or all fresh Mine is an even split, which is the most balanced of any version I have come across. All sauerkraut gives you the sharp, wintry łazanki that many Polish families make; all fresh cabbage gives you something much milder and sweeter. Both are legitimate.
• Dried mushrooms A handful of dried forest mushrooms, soaked and chopped, in place of some of the fresh, turns this into the version Polish families make at Christmas. Save the soaking liquid and add a little with the cabbage.

How to Make Łazanki, Step by Step

Full quantities are in the recipe card below. Everything is cooked in stages and brought together at the end, which is what keeps the sausage from drying out and the pasta from going soft.

1. Boil the sauerkraut with the bay and allspice. Sauerkraut, bay leaves and allspice into a medium pot with enough water to cover, or the brine from the jar, and twenty minutes on the hob. Drain it and set it aside to cool. This takes the raw edge off and puts the spices into the kraut rather than losing them in the pan. Do not rinse it afterwards: boiling has already softened the sharpness, and rinsing on top of that removes the character you are cooking with.
2. Brown the sausage, then take it out. I air fry the sliced sausage at 190°C for 12 minutes, because in a frying pan it tends to stick instead of browning, and the air fryer browns it evenly. While it cooks, heat the vegetable oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. No air fryer? Brown the sliced sausage in the oil in the pan for about five minutes, lift it onto a plate and keep the oil and the fat it gave up, which will do the work on the onions. Either way the sausage comes out before the vegetables go in: leaving it in for the whole cook is the commonest mistake here, because it dries out and over-fries.
3. Onions, then mushrooms. Heat down to medium and the diced onions into the oil (and the sausage fat, if you pan fried it) for about five minutes until translucent, then the whole 300 g pack of brown mushrooms with the heat back up for another five.
4. Cabbage in for ten minutes. Diced white cabbage into the pan for ten minutes, then bring the heat back down to medium. Plenty of Polish cooks add half a teaspoon of caraway at this point and mine does not: my cabbage is half fresh, which is already sweeter and gentler, and caraway pushes it towards a heavier winter dish. Add it if that is the version you grew up with.
5. Sauerkraut and sausage back in. Chop the cooled sauerkraut and add it to the pan along with the sausage, then combine everything through. Taste the cabbage: if it is still a bit tough, cover the pan with a lid, add a little water and cook it a little longer.
6. Pasta last, and slightly under. Cook the łazanki to just under al dente and fold them through, because they carry on softening in the pan with the cabbage and hold their shape far better through the tossing. Season with salt, black pepper and a little Vegeta or Kucharek, tasting as you go. No soured cream: a lot of English-language recipes finish this with a spoonful and it is not how it is eaten in Poland. Smacznego!

Recipe Card for Lazanki

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Variations

• With bacon or boczek Diced smoked bacon rendered before the sausage gives a deeper, fattier base. Common in home kitchens and very good.
• With minced meat Brown 250g of minced pork with the onions for a heartier, more substantial plateful. It moves the dish from side to main.
• Christmas łazanki Dried forest mushrooms in place of fresh, no meat at all, and a little of the mushroom soaking liquid. Meat free versions belong to Wigilia, Polish Christmas Eve.
• Baked Tip the finished pan into a dish, scatter grated cheese over and give it fifteen minutes in a hot oven. Not traditional in the slightest, and children eat it twice as fast.
• With marjoram A generous pinch stirred in near the end is a very Polish move and works beautifully with cabbage and pork.

Storing, Freezing and Reheating

Łazanki keeps in the fridge for three or four days in a covered container, and plenty of Polish households think it is better on the second day, once the pasta has taken on the sauerkraut properly.

Reheat it in a frying pan with a small splash of oil rather than in the microwave. The pan gives you back a little of the crisp edge the pasta and cabbage had when it was first made, which the microwave will not. Medium heat, stirring now and then, until it is hot right through.

It freezes well for up to three months, which is worth knowing given the recipe makes five generous servings. Cool it completely, portion it, and defrost overnight in the fridge before reheating in the pan. The pasta softens slightly on freezing, so it is worth undercooking it in the first place if you know a batch is heading for the freezer.

Worth knowing that it is also good cold. Straight from the fridge as a lunchbox pasta salad on day two, it holds together perfectly well and needs nothing doing to it at all.

What to Serve With Lazanki

🍽 Lazanki is a hearty one-pan meal, so it needs little more than a crisp side - a fresh surówka (celeriac salad) or a bowl of tangy ogórki kiszone. For a bigger spread, start with a bowl of żurek. Any sharp raw slaw does the same job, and you can build one round whatever is in the vegetable drawer.

FAQ for Lazanki

What pasta do I use for lazanki?

Traditional łazanki are small squares or diamonds of egg pasta. You can buy dried łazanki, or use farfalle (bow-tie) pasta, or simply cut fresh lasagne sheets into little squares.

What sausage is best for lazanki?

Polish smoked kiełbasa is traditional and gives the best flavour, but you have options: smoked bacon (boczek), a little minced meat, or even chorizo all work beautifully. Brown the meat until the edges catch, in the air fryer or the pan. If you pan fry it, cook the onion and mushrooms in the rendered fat for real depth.

Can I make lazanki vegetarian?

Absolutely - leave out the sausage and lean on dried mushrooms instead. In fact the meat-free version, made with soaked dried mushrooms, is the traditional dish for Polish Christmas Eve (Wigilia). The sauerkraut, onion and mushrooms carry plenty of savoury depth on their own.

Do I need to rinse the sauerkraut?

Taste it first. If your sauerkraut is very sour, give it a quick rinse and squeeze for a milder dish; if you love the tang, just squeeze out the excess liquid and keep it as it is. You can even add a splash of the brine back in for extra sharpness.

How do I get the deepest, most traditional flavour?

A few small steps make all the difference. Brown the sausage properly first. If you pan fry it, cook the cabbage in the fat it leaves behind rather than in clean oil, because that is where a lot of the depth comes from; air fried sausage browns just as well and does not stick, which is how I do it now. Use brown mushrooms rather than white, or dried or wild forest ones if you can get them, soaked and chopped, which turns it into the version Polish families make at Christmas. And if your family seasons theirs with caraway or a pinch of marjoram, add it with the salt and pepper at the end - it is not in my version, but plenty of good Polish kitchens do it.

Should I use fresh cabbage or sauerkraut?

Both are traditional and it comes down to taste. Fresh (sweet) cabbage gives milder, softer łazanki; sauerkraut (kapusta kiszona) makes it pleasantly tangy. Half and half gives you the best of both, and it is why the two get different treatment in the method: fermentation has already mellowed sauerkraut’s sharper edges, so it can take the twenty-minute boil without turning unpleasant, while fresh cabbage gets stronger the longer it cooks, which is why it only gets ten minutes in the pan rather than joining the kraut in the pot. Whichever you pick, fry the cabbage in a little fat first, then braise it - it deepens the flavour a lot.

Can I add meat to łazanki?

Yes. Alongside or instead of the sausage, browned minced meat or diced smoked bacon (boczek) both work beautifully. A few pieces of crisp pork crackling (skwarki) in place of the oil is a lovely old-school touch.

More Polish Comfort Classics

If łazanki hits the spot, you will love more of my Polish home cooking. Try my Polish braised cabbage or roll it up in Gołąbki (stuffed cabbage rolls), tuck into flaky Kapuśniaczki, or make a batch of pierogi ruskie. It is also lovely next to crispy kotlety schabowe. And if you like the smoked kiełbasa here, it goes into my fasolka po bretońsku too, Polish baked beans with bacon.

If it is the smoked sausage and cabbage you are after, my Bigos Królewski and my Leczo work the same magic. If you want the bigos built to your own taste, my bigos builder sets the ratios and scales it to the number you are feeding. And if you fancy more pasta, take a look at my Marry Me Pasta or my Hearty Tuscan Sausage Pasta.

A Few Words from the Chef

This is one of my favourite things to cook. I still make it often. Every household does it a little differently, some pile in more, others keep it to just pasta, cabbage and sausage, so take this as a starting point and make it your own. Smacznego!