This recipe for Kielbasa Kapusta is my family’s traditional Polish Kapusta recipe made in a slow cooker!
My dad is 100% Polish and he has been talking about his grandmother’s and mother’s Kielbasa Kapusta for decades! When my Polish grandmother passed away when I was 17, I inherited a couple of her cookbooks and her recipe tin. That recipe tin has produced fabulous gems over the years. To surprise my dad on a recent trip back home, I decided to make our family Kielbasa Kapusta recipe for him, but with my own twist!
MY LATEST VIDEOSI kept all of the ingredients and quantities the same, but decided to cook the Kielbasa Kapusta in the crock pot! It’s way more convenient for my lifestyle and I know so many of you will find this cooking method helpful, too!
Another change I made was to cut the kielbasa pieces smaller. This enhanced the flavor of the dish by releasing more of the kielbasa juices AND it allowed more surface area for the kielbasa to soak up the Kapusta juices! Is your mouth watering yet?!
While the Kielbasa Kapusta was cooking, my dad snuck into the kitchen more than once with a huge, nostalgic grin on his face saying, “This smells familiar,” and “Ooohhhh weeeee, is it dinner time yet?”
While I never tasted my grandmother’s version, my dad thought I pulled off a near match. I am SO glad I found and tried this recipe, which gave my dad and me another link to our family heritage, and produced a heartwarming treat we can pass forward to generations to come!
Cook’s Note – Kielbasa Kapusta:
- My dad distinctively remembers his mom using bacon drippings that she would keep in the refrigerator for this recipe. If you don’t have any on hand, then substitute 2 additional tablespoons of butter (for a total of 4 tablespoons) for the bacon drippings.
- I like to serve this dish with mashed potatoes (this recipe is SO good!). After all, potatoes, kielbasa, and cabbage are the holy trinity of Polish cuisine!
- The Kielbasa Kapusta is even MORE flavorful the next day! I know-hard to believe, right?!
- My family likes to eat leftovers between toasted Kaiser rolls with grainy mustard.
Cook’s Tools + Products – Kielbasa Kapusta:
- Large Skillet
- Slow Cooker (this is my 3rd slow cooker and the last one I’ll ever own, I love it so!)
- Bacon Drippings
Kapusta Sandwich!
Here’s my family’s traditional polish kapusta recipe:
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 2 Tablespoons bacon drippings
- 2 ½ cups sweet yellow onions finely chopped
- 2 32 ounce cans sauerkraut
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 3/4 cups water
- 2 pounds kielbasa cut into 2-inch slices
- In a large skillet over medium heat melt butter and bacon drippings until foaming subsides, about 2-3 minutes. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent and edges begin to brown, about 8-10 minutes.
- While onions cook rinse and drain sauerkraut at least twice. Make sure sauerkraut is well drained and add it to slow cooker along with onions, salt, pepper, brown sugar, water, and kielbasa. Give everything a good stir and cover. Cook on high for 1 hour, then reduce to low and cook for an additional 6 hours, stirring occasionally. Serve.
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With fresh kielbasa, do I cook it first before adding to crockpot?
Nope, fresh kielbasa will cook in the 7 hours it’s in the slow cooker.
how many servings is this recipe?
This serves 4-6.
FOR ALL YOU POLSKI’S . My full blooded polish wife and me being a genealogy researcher. If your name ends in SKI. That means your Surname is from the city of the suffix of you name. Ie: Jankowski is from the city of jankow. I also being the main chef of the house have made Kapusta many times always a hit. This recipe is dead on for how I make it except for a can of whole potatoes as a filler.
Thanks for the genealogy background info on my maiden name! Geneology travel is something I’ve started to get into, and I just made a trip to Ireland to do some family research and I hope to get to Poland very soon. I am 50% polish and I’ve been longing to go for quite some time now.
Yes, my Great Grandmother would add potatoes to her mixture from time to time, too.
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
I just came from a family gathering and my cousin just made kapusta. It’s awesome , yes! I agree with your original post it’s more awesome the next day I too cut up the kielbasa in smaller pieces I have a different recipe but it’s still so delicious
Do you sometimes put your Kielbasa Kapusta on grinder rolls, too? 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
I am not polish but I like good food and the polish recipes that I have are great
I did not have o kapusta recipe until now. however I have made it with out the potatoes
I have been eating and making kapusta for my whole life and I, too, adopted the crockpot method of cooking my kapusta when crockpots first came out over 40 years ago. Gramma made potatoes separate and Mother threw her potatoes on top the last hour or so in the oven. And I use little red potatoes in the crockpot! Whole! I make it all winter and guests always hope kapusta’s what’s for dinner!!
Yum, this would be so good with potatoes. I’m going to try it the next time I make this recipe!
Hi! The SKI ending in your name may suggest also the profession of your ancestors, (for example: Kowalski, very common polish name – kowal means blacksmith) Also about recipe – that’s a great, heartwarming dish and I think that here in Poland we will call it ‘bigos’ (every family has it’s own recipe). I highly recommend to add spoonful of caraway seeds, it deepens the taste and reduce bad influence of too much kapusta 😉 greetings from southern Poland!
Such awesome info, thank you so much! I will definitely try your recipe variations.
this is actually called ‘bigos’. and i would definitely add more spices and herbs. you can also freeze it. and – there is a christmas version – without meat – but with wild mushrooms and prunes. aaand – you can also add red wine…
Good to know, thanks for the info and recipe variations!
Is there a particular brand of sauerkraut that is best? This looks delicious.
I have not tested different brands, so I say just use what’s readily available in your grocery store.
We love kielbasa and usually grill it. I wanted to try something different. When I came across this recipe …it looked so good. I was just expecting the usual kraut and kielbasa flavor… I was so wrong. This was such a nice change from the old familiar flavors. The slight sweetness put this dish over the top. I have passed this recipe on to friends along with a nice heaping sample. My only question is how much liquid is there supposed to be and is there anything I can do with it? Thanks you so much…. We loved it…
Hi Sue, I’m so glad you liked the recipe!
I don’t usually have a ton of extra liquid in my crockpot when I make this recipe. Did you rinse and drain the kraut before placing it in the slow cooker? Maybe cut back on the water in the recipe to 3/4 cup.
Justyna’s comment about the prunes made me smile. When my grandma made a batch of pierogis, there were always potato ones, cottage cheese ones and ones filled with a fried sauerkraut with lots of pepper (yum!)…but she always saved enough dough to make a few filled with prunes – so good! Thank you for this relatively quick & easy recipe to bring back all the good tastes and good memories!
You’re so welcome, Maureen! Just this past summer I had pierogies with prunes and I LOVED them!