Observing the fast does not mean that the family menu will become monotonous and uninteresting. If you like to pamper your family and friends with diverse, tasty, and most importantly healthy dishes, then our selection of the most successful lean dishes of modern Ukrainian cuisine will be appropriate. The collected recipes perfectly combine the principles of fasting, rational and healthy nutrition, ease of preparation and unique taste.
No matter how difficult it is to observe Great Lent, even during this period, Ukrainian cuisine allows you to diversify your menu and eat right and tasty.
So, let's begin our short excursion with recipes for lean dishes.
Lean borscht
For cooking you will need: pearl barley and oil - 1 tablespoon each, carrot - 1 pc., onion - 1 pc., potato - 1 pc., lemon - 1 pc., bell pepper - 1 pc., white cabbage - 300 g, garlic - 2 cloves, tomato - 1 pc., bay leaf, salt, pepper, sugar - to taste.
Put the groats in a saucepan, pour water over them, add a little oil – one spoonful is enough, an onion cut in half and a carrot cut into circles. Put the saucepan on the fire and cook the borscht base over moderate heat. While the contents of the saucepan are boiling, peel the beets and chop them, either on a grater or chop them into thin strips. Put the chopped beets in a frying pan, add a little oil, sunflower or olive, depending on personal preferences, a little water and season with lemon juice, you will need about 1 tablespoon of juice. Simmer the beets over low heat under the lid, not forgetting to stir occasionally.
While the beets are stewing, add chopped vegetables to the pan where the borscht base is being cooked: potatoes, cabbage, and sweet bell pepper. Leave to cook for another 10-12 minutes. Then add chopped tomatoes to the same pan (if there are no tomatoes on the farm, it can be easily replaced with tomato paste or regular tomato juice). Next, add the stewed beets to the pan to the vegetables and cereals and continue cooking the borscht over low heat for another 5-7 minutes. Almost before the end of cooking, add salt, bay leaf, your favorite spice, pepper, and if necessary, a little more lemon juice. Boil the borscht for another minute, turn off the heat, and add 2 cloves of garlic, which you have finely chopped before. The dish is ready, you can enjoy!
Lean borscht with prunes
Prunes will add unusual spicy notes of flavor to borscht. Allow yourself to enjoy a tasty and healthy dish. This dish is a great alternative to first courses with the addition of smoked meats, especially if you use smoked prunes instead of dried ones.
To prepare, you will need: white cabbage - 300 g, carrots - 100 g, beets - 200 g, prunes - 150-200 g, onion - 1 pc., sweet red pepper - 1 pc., fresh herbs, parsley or dill of your choice - a bunch, 2 liters of water, vegetable oil - a tablespoon, spices, salt and pepper - to taste.
Finely and carefully chop the cabbage, carrots and beets. Chop the onion, sweet pepper, wash, remove the seeds and stalks and carefully cut into small cubes. Heat the oil well directly in the pan where we will cook the dish, and put the previously chopped carrots and onions in it, sauté everything together for 5 minutes. For people who control the amount of fat consumed, instead of oil, to prepare the carrots and onions, you can use a small amount of another liquid: water or vegetable broth - and stew the vegetables in it with the same effect as in oil. Add chopped pepper, aromatic fresh herbs, prepared prunes to the vegetables and pour boiling water over the vegetable mixture. Bring the borscht to a boil, salt and season with spices, continue cooking until the vegetables are fully cooked. We recommend serving the finished dish with green onions.
Lean borscht with sauerkraut and mushrooms
Required ingredients : small table beets - 1 pc., sauerkraut - half a cup, dried mushrooms - 5-6 pcs., onion - 1 pc., medium-sized carrot - 1 pc., tablespoon of flour, 25 g of vegetable oil, 25 g of tomato or paste, bay leaf, pepper, salt, parsley - all to taste.
Sort, clean if necessary, and rinse the mushrooms thoroughly under running water. Boil the prepared mushrooms in boiling, lightly salted water until soft. Remove the mushrooms from the boiling water, finely chop them in any convenient way, and fry in vegetable oil until an appetizing ruddy color. Remove the finished mushrooms from the pan and leave for a while. In the same oil, sauté the sauerkraut, previously chopped into strips and grated carrots, beets and diced onions. Add flour - a tablespoon to the slightly fried vegetables and mix well. Carefully place the vegetables in a saucepan and pour mushroom broth on top. Add tomatoes or tomato paste, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Lower the mushrooms into the borscht and cook for another 30 minutes. Season the ready borscht with chopped fresh parsley or dill. Serve this borscht with traditional Ukrainian pampushki.
Wheat dumplings with garlic
To prepare, you will need: wheat flour - 400 g, yeast - 25-30 g, a tablespoon of sugar, water - ¾ cup, sunflower oil - 2-3 tablespoons, salt.
For the sauce, prepare : 2-3 tablespoons of 3% vinegar, 1 head of garlic, vegetable oil - 2-3 tablespoons, salt to taste.
Take the entire volume of prepared warm water (the temperature of the liquid used to prepare any yeast dough should be 36-37 ° C), dissolve the yeast in it, add sugar and salt. Add 100 g of flour to this mixture and knead a fairly thick dough. Put the container with the dough in a warm place and leave it to infuse and rise. Add the remaining flour, water and sunflower oil to the dough. Knead the dough well and leave to rise again. Form balls from the resulting dough, about the size of a walnut, bake until cooked and golden brown in a hot oven at a temperature of 150 ° C.
Preparation of garlic sauce: peel the garlic, crush it, passing it through a garlic press, add vinegar and aromatic oil, season the dressing with salt to taste. Grind all the ingredients well, mix. Pour the prepared dressing sauce over the baked donuts before serving.
Lean mushroom soup with green beans and eggplant
For cooking you will need : potatoes - 1 pc., bell pepper - half a pepper, small onion - 1 pc., eggplant - half a vegetable, medium-sized carrot - 1 pc., white cabbage - 100 g, green beans - 150 g, mushrooms - 150 g, peeled tomatoes - half a jar, sunflower oil, sea salt, bay leaf, pepper - 1 pc., parsley and dill.
First of all, fry the finely chopped onion in vegetable oil in a well-heated frying pan until transparent. Grate the carrots, add it to the sautéed onions, fry everything together for one minute. Cut the pepper, add to the onions and carrots, mix well, fry the vegetables for another minute. Pour a liter of water into the pan and boil. Add the potatoes cut into small cubes, chopped mushrooms (it is most convenient to cut them into slices), lightly salt everything. Cut the eggplant into rings (you can also cut them into half rings) and fry in oil. When the eggplant pieces are well browned, add the tomatoes along with their juice. Peeled tomatoes in their own juice are a good alternative to the usual tomato paste, but you can successfully use either one or the other. Bring the eggplant-tomato mass to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Add the prepared frying of chopped onions, carrots and sweet peppers to the pan with the potatoes and mushrooms. Mix all the ingredients in the pan and bring to a boil again. Finely chop the cabbage, add to the pan where the dish is being prepared. Add the beans, prepared eggplants with tomatoes, mix again, bring to a boil and continue cooking the borscht for another 10 - 12 minutes. Salt the soup, pepper it, season with spices, add bay leaf and your favorite herbs. Cook everything together for 5 minutes. So, our soup is ready! Let the finished dish infuse for 15-20 minutes and you can safely treat your loved ones. Before serving, season each portion with chopped herbs.
Lean salad with potatoes and pickled cucumber
To prepare, you will need: boiled potatoes - 2 pcs., pickled cucumber - 1 pc., onion - half a head, canned green peas - 3 tablespoons, vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon, dill, salt to taste.
Preparing potato salad:
Chop and grind fresh dill with salt, add a little oil and mix everything thoroughly. Peel the still hot boiled potatoes and carefully cut them into small cubes or bars, add the dill and oil mixture to it, mix and let the potatoes soak in the aroma and taste of dill. While the potatoes are soaked in the dill dressing, dice the cucumber, peel the onion and also finely chop it. Mix all the chopped ingredients with the potatoes, add canned green peas. You can use freshly frozen peas for this salad, but you need to defrost them first and boil them for 3 minutes in salted water. The salad is ready!
Salad with cabbage and cranberries
To prepare, you will need: white cabbage - half a head, dried cranberries - 1 handful, green onions - 2 stalks, almond leaves to taste.
To prepare the dressing : garlic (pass through a garlic press) - 2 cloves, fresh lemon juice - a third of a cup, olive or sunflower oil - a third of a cup, salt to taste.
Cooking method :
Mix all the ingredients needed for the dressing. Shred the cabbage, mash it slightly for softness, adding a little salt. Prepare the cranberries, rinse thoroughly and dry the almond leaves. Rinse the green onions well, chop finely. Prepare a salad bowl of the right size, carefully lay out the cabbage, sprinkle it with cranberries, almond leaves, and green onions on top. Pour the prepared dressing over the salad, let the salad infuse for 10-15 minutes and you can serve it.
Vinaigrette salad with pickled mushrooms
For cooking you will need: potatoes - 3 pcs., beets - 2 pcs., pickled honey mushrooms - 200 g, onion - 1 pc., vegetable oil - 4 tablespoons, wine or fruit vinegar - 1 tablespoon.
Wash the potatoes and beets thoroughly and boil them in advance until fully cooked. Let the vegetables cool completely, peel them and cut them into traditional, medium cubes. Then peel and finely chop the onion. Put the pickled mushrooms in a colander and rinse well to remove any remaining brine. Prepare the dressing sauce, for this in a small container, you can immediately use the dishes in which the salad will be served, mix: wine vinegar with oil (we recommend giving preference to unrefined oil, then the taste and aroma of the dressing will be richer and more multifaceted), salt and ground pepper. Mix the chopped vegetables and season the salad with the sauce. When serving, the salad can be sprinkled with fresh herbs.
Traditional vinaigrette with sauerkraut
Ingredients for cooking the dish : potatoes - 3 pcs., medium-sized beets - 3 pcs., carrots - 3 pcs., pickled cucumbers - 4 pcs., sauerkraut - 300 g, red onion - 1 pc., frozen green peas - 400 g, salt, pepper, vegetable oil.
When preparing this salad-vinaigrette, we will not use the traditional boiled beets, but baked ones. This method of cooking beets allows you to get a richer taste and preserve most of the nutrients in the root vegetable. So, take a heat-resistant baking dish, pour coarse salt into it in a layer about 2 cm thick and spread the well-washed, thoroughly dried and tightly wrapped beets in foil on it. Important! The foil must be pierced on all sides of the beets with a knife. Place the "wrapped" beets in a well-heated oven and cook for several hours. Boil the potatoes, carrots and frozen green peas in the traditional way until fully cooked. But remember, the peas should not be cooked for more than three minutes. Then squeeze the sauerkraut well from the brine and finely chop it. Cut the prepared root vegetables and cucumbers into cubes, and finely chop the onion. Mix everything thoroughly. Season with salt and a little freshly ground black pepper. The final touch is to season the vinaigrette with aromatic sunflower or olive oil.
Lean beetroot caviar
For cooking you will need: 1 medium-sized beet, 1 medium carrot, 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, salt, and ground black pepper to taste.
Peel and chop the onion and carrot, then fry them in vegetable oil for 3-4 minutes. Grate the beetroot and add it to the pan with the onion and carrot. Simmer the vegetable mixture until cooked. A few minutes before the end of cooking, add tomato paste to the vegetables, season with salt and pepper. Remove the finished caviar from the heat. When the dish has cooled, you can add garlic to it for spiciness.
Beetroot caviar with mushrooms
For cooking you will need : medium-sized carrots - 1 pc., medium-sized beets - 1 pc., sunflower oil - 1 tablespoon, tomato paste - 1 tablespoon, onion - 1 pc., 2-3 cloves of garlic, boiled mushrooms - 150 g
Wash, peel and grate the carrots and beets raw, then stew them in a heated frying pan with sunflower oil. Separately, fry the onion in vegetable oil, adding salt, tomato, ground pepper and sugar. Combine the stewed carrots and beets with the onion and tomato. Prepare the mushrooms, they must first be boiled (if raw), fried in oil with onions and chopped in a blender or with a meat grinder, but you can also finely chop them. Add the prepared mushrooms to the ready-made beetroot caviar and mix well. This caviar can be used as an independent snack, and as a spread for sandwiches, bruschetta or croutons.
Stuffed cabbage rolls with mushrooms
Ingredients: white cabbage - 1-2 pcs., depending on the size of the head, mushrooms - 500 g, long-grain rice - 150 g, carrots - 2 pcs., vegetable oil - 4 tablespoons, dried white mushrooms - 5-6 pcs., tomatoes in their own juice - 500 ml, ground nutmeg - a quarter teaspoon, chopped dill - 3 tablespoons, salt, black pepper - to taste.
First of all, you need to prepare the filling for future cabbage rolls. To do this, peel the onion and carrots, chop them finely. Chop the mushrooms as well. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add some of the chopped onion, mushrooms and carrots. Fry for 7-8 minutes, stirring. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl, and leave the sauce that was released during the frying of the vegetables in the pan. Pour boiling water together, in one bowl, over the rice and dried mushrooms, cover the bowl with a plate, and let it brew. The rice should absorb the water and become half-cooked. Prick the cabbage with a fork, lower it into boiling, slightly salted water, and gradually separate the steamed leaves from the head. In this way, disassemble the entire head into separate leaves, cutting out the base of the head.
Add rice and steamed dried mushrooms to the fried mushrooms, add dill and nutmeg. Mix everything, season with salt and pepper. Put the filling on cabbage leaves, carefully wrap them and form cabbage rolls, put the resulting semi-finished products in a baking dish. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Take the pan where our mushrooms were fried. Heat the vegetable oil in it, put the rest of the onion and fry a little, until transparent. Add small pieces of tomatoes, canned in their own juice, without the skin, but with the liquid, to the onion. Bring to a boil, add salt, pepper. Pour the resulting mixture over the cabbage rolls. Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for an hour.
Stuffed cabbage rolls with vegetable filling
To prepare, you will need : white cabbage - 1 head, large carrot - 1 pc., onion - 2 pcs., tomatoes - 3 pcs., sweet pepper - 2 pcs., garlic - 2 cloves, a bunch of parsley, vegetable oil - half a cup, salt, pepper, sour cream.
Choose a plump head of cabbage, pour boiling water over it and separate it into individual leaves. Chop the smallest ones and fry them in vegetable oil together with finely chopped onion, carrot and pepper. At the end, add tomato slices, finely chopped garlic and herbs. Wait until the liquid evaporates and let the minced vegetables cool slightly. Season with salt, pepper and wrap in cabbage leaves. Place the remaining minced meat on the bottom of the roasting pan, place the cabbage rolls on top, season lightly with salt and add a little water. Cover the roasting pan with a lid and simmer until cooked.
Buckwheat porridge with wild mushrooms
To prepare, you will need: buckwheat groats - 200 g, medium-sized onion - 1 pc., celery (one large stalk), garlic - 1 clove, wild mushrooms (defrost frozen mushrooms, add this liquid to the water in which the buckwheat will be cooked) - 300 g, soy sauce - 3 tablespoons, salt and pepper - to taste.
Pour buckwheat with water - three times the volume of the cereal itself, add salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, cook until tender over the lowest heat. Cut the onion and celery into large pieces. Chop the garlic finely (or crush). Cut the thawed mushrooms into cubes if they are whole. Heat the oil in a frying pan, put the onion and celery on it, fry for 4-5 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly. Add the mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked. At the end, add salt, pepper, garlic. Add the finished buckwheat, soy sauce, mix and you can serve.
Unusual pearl barley stew with leeks, mushrooms and fresh herbs
For cooking you will need: olive or sunflower oil - 1 tablespoon, fresh champignon mushrooms - 230 g, leek - 2 stalks, tomatoes in their own juice - 400 g, garlic - 2 cloves, fresh rosemary - 2.25 teaspoons, pearl barley - a glass, vegetable broth - 4 cups, kale - 230 g, black pepper (ground) - to taste.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped leeks, season with salt and pepper and sauté until soft (this will take about 5 minutes). Add the finely chopped mushrooms, chopped garlic, and rosemary. Increase the heat slightly and fry for about 7 more minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are soft and have a nice brown color. Add the tomatoes, stir, and cook for another minute. Then add the pearl barley to the saucepan, pour in the broth. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat slightly, cover, and cook until the barley is soft, about 20 minutes. Add the finely chopped cabbage, cook for another minute. If necessary, add more broth, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Done!
Lean potato zrazy
This version of the recipe is specifically designed for those who are fasting. If you add eggs to the dough, the dish will no longer be lean and will acquire a new taste. The filling can be completely varied, at the discretion of the hostess.
For cooking you will need: potatoes - 800-1000 g, flour - 2-2.5 cups, a pinch of salt, a medium-sized onion.
For the filling you will need : mushrooms - 600 g, sweet red pepper - 1 pc., large carrot - 1 pc., onion - 1 pc., salt, pepper - to taste, dried basil, oil - a couple of tablespoons.
First of all, let's prepare the mushroom filling for potato zrazy. To do this, pour boiling water over the mushrooms and leave them to blanch for a couple of minutes in water. Then, drain the water, rinse the steamed mushrooms and cut them into small cubes. Finely chop the pepper and onion, grate the carrots. Simmer the vegetables over low heat, covering the pan with a lid, simmer the vegetables until the liquid from the mushrooms has completely evaporated. Remove the lid, add salt, pepper, add other spices that you like, fry the vegetables until golden brown, not forgetting to stir constantly. Cool everything, chop, passing it through a blender. Store in a tightly closed container until further use.
Preparing the dough for the zrazy
Peel and wash the potatoes, cut each tuber into 4-6 pieces, the number of pieces depends on the size of the tubers. Put the sliced potatoes in a saucepan, pour boiling water over them, add the peeled and halved onion to the potatoes, and salt them. Cook the potatoes over medium heat until fully cooked. Remove the cooked potatoes from the heat, drain the water, and cool the potatoes. Then pass the cooled potatoes through a meat grinder. Add 2 tablespoons of flour to the resulting potato mass and knead the dough with your hands. Please note that you should not add more flour to the dough - the potatoes should make up the majority of the dough, and the dough will still be sticky, no matter how much flour you add to it. It will be much better if you dust your hands with flour.
Take about one and a half tablespoons of the resulting potato dough and roll it in flour, form a flat cake, in the center of which put a teaspoon of filling. As for the filling - it does not have to be the one we offer, you can take your favorite ingredients, for example, stewed cabbage, etc. So, connect the edges of the flat cake, pinch them, like on a dumpling. Flatten the resulting seam so that it sinks into the pie and is on the bottom. Fry the zrazy in a hot frying pan with oil, over medium heat until golden brown.
Buckwheat cutlets with mushrooms
To prepare buckwheat cutlets you will need : buckwheat groats - a glass, mushrooms are better than champignons, but you can use any others, but they must be boiled before cooking cutlets - 800 g, water - 400 ml, salt, pepper - to taste, fresh herbs (parsley, dill) - to taste, breadcrumbs and any vegetable oil - for frying.
Preparation:
Pre-boil the buckwheat in salted water until it is fully cooked. To prevent the buckwheat from steaming, wrap the pan in a blanket or coverlet and leave it, 10 minutes will be enough. After the specified time, take it out, salt it and mix the porridge. Rinse the mushrooms well under running water. Dry them thoroughly with a paper towel and cut into small pieces in a way convenient for you. Peel and chop the onion and fresh herbs. In a deep frying pan, fry the previously prepared vegetables in vegetable oil one by one. Cook the onion in the frying pan for 3-5 minutes, then cook the mushrooms for about 10 minutes.
Add the fried onions to the fried mushrooms, mix, salt, season with other favorite spices, mix again and leave the ingredients to simmer together for a few minutes, then remove the pan from the heat. Wait until the mass has completely cooled, then transfer it to a blender and grind until smooth. Add fresh herbs to the mushroom mass and grind again.
Take buckwheat porridge and mushroom mass and prepare minced meat for cutlets from them, mix the porridge and mushroom mass thoroughly so that the finished cutlets are homogeneous in structure. Form cutlets from the resulting minced meat. For convenience and accuracy of shaping, we recommend wetting your hands in cold water. The minced meat will not stick to wet hands and the process of molding cutlets will be quick and easy. Bread each cutlet in breadcrumbs. Fry the buckwheat cutlets until they have an appetizing golden crust. Put the finished cutlets in a deep frying pan or a small saucepan, add a little water and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.
Lean dumplings with cabbage
These dumplings are incredibly tasty, tender and aromatic. It is nice that dumplings according to this recipe can be prepared for storage, for this you just need to freeze the molded dumplings, frozen dumplings can be stored for up to 3 months.
To make dumplings, prepare: wheat flour of the highest grade - 350 g, 1/2 teaspoon of table salt, onions - 2 pcs., olive or sunflower oil 50 ml, carrots 150 g, white cabbage - 500 g, vegetable oil, sunflower or olive - 30 ml.
Add the prepared salt to 250 g of flour and mix everything well. Add 150 ml of warm water to the mixture and knead an elastic dough. The dough should be kneaded carefully, but not too long and intensively, so as not to let the dough become too tight. A good dough for dumplings should be: moderately dense, elastic, soft and tender, but not sticky to your hands, it is precisely by the time the dough stops sticking to your hands that the degree of its readiness is determined. Cover the finished dough with cling film, a kitchen towel or a napkin and leave for half an hour to an hour, to stand.
While the dough is resting, it's time to start preparing the cabbage filling for future dumplings. For the filling, peel and chop the carrots and onions. Then we will fry the prepared vegetables in a frying pan with oil for 2-5 minutes. Finely chop the fresh white cabbage. Divide the fried onions and carrots into two parts, one of which, the smaller one, will be used to serve the finished dumplings, and combine the remaining part with the chopped cabbage and put to stew over low heat, stirring occasionally. Stew the cabbage with vegetables until it is completely cooked, salt the finished filling and season with pepper to taste. The resulting cabbage filling should be ruddy and fragrant. We leave the cabbage filling to cool.
Meanwhile, roll out the “rested” ready dough on a floured work surface; the thickness of the rolled layer should be no more than 2-3 mm. Cut out circles from the dough, put a teaspoon of cabbage filling into each blank, fold the dough in half. Press the cabbage with your thumb, glue the edges together - you can leave the edge just flat, or you can form cloves, waves or braids - this will add beauty, openwork and festivity to them. Place the ready dumplings on a table or board sprinkled with flour, at some distance from each other - so that they do not stick together. Now you can cook the dumplings, to do this, place the dumplings in boiling, slightly salted water, cook for about 5-7 minutes. Remove the ready dumplings with a slotted spoon, season the dish with oil and decorate with the remains of fried onions. Serve hot, sprinkled with herbs.
Dried fruit compote
To prepare, you will need: dried fruits - 500 g, about 300 g of sugar, half a cup of honey, hot water - 1 liter.
Sort the dried fruits, cut the largest ones into pieces, rinse 2-3 times with warm water. Pour hot water over the dried fruits, cover the pan with a lid, cook until cooked. Season the finished decoction with sugar, add honey for taste and usefulness. Bring the decoction to a boil again, remove from the stove, put in a cold place for 2-3 hours to infuse.
So, now you can eat deliciously, and think not only about food, but also about purifying your mind and spirit - after all, this is what the spring days on the eve of Easter are aimed at.
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