If you are looking to branch out from a traditional British Christmas dinner this year, then why not join the one million Poles and people of Polish descent in the UK and make a Polish Christmas dinner, featuring recipes and traditions for a showstopping feast from Poland.
Poles tend to celebrate Christmas over three days, but the highlight is the Polish Christmas Eve feast, called Wigilia, or the vigil meal, filled with symbolism and centuries-old customs.
Although the dishes served will vary regionally and from family to family, here are some of the most popular festive Polish traditions and menu ideas. Polish Christmas food is a celebration of family, togetherness and joy, and you’ll find dishes such as crimson beetroot soup (barszcz) or borscht, vegan-friendly sauerkraut, mushroom puff pastry rolls and pierogi dumplings filled with potato and cheese.
Christmas is celebrated in so many ways around the world, and Christmas tables all over the UK are filled with plenty of alternative dishes. You might want to lay on a buffet from all around the world, incorporating some Italian Christmas dishes, as well as Polish dishes and some British classics. Don’t forget to help younger ones make some traditional Christmas biscuits to hang on the tree.
Polish Christmas feasting
Polish Christmas feasting begins on Christmas Eve with a meal called Wigilia. During the day you should usually fast, and traditionally, no meat or alcohol is consumed. The evening begins when you see the first star in the sky, as a nod to the star of Bethlehem and to the wise men who found their way to the stable. A small bundle of hay is placed under the tablecloth to represent the manger, and a spare place is left at the table for the unexpected guest. Everyone around the table shares opłatek, which is a thin wafer, along with good wishes for the whole year ahead. This is followed by sharing 12 dishes, representing the 12 apostles.
Christmas Eve vigil meal – Wigilia
A traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner includes dishes that are made from the land, field, forest and sea. There is beetroot soup, which is a clear soup made with a vegetable stock base, with dumplings called ‘uszka’, or ‘little ears’, filled with mushrooms. As an alternative, you could serve a forest mushroom soup, with a swirl of soured cream. If you are serving vegan guests, then this vegan mushroom pâté topped with walnuts is a lovely treat.
You’ll also see fish dishes, such as salads made with marinated herring, and hot fish dishes, traditionally carp, but more often in modern times, any white fish, such as cod in tomato sauce. The focal point is very often pierogi, which are dumplings filled with either potato and cheese (Ruthenian pierogi) or pierogi filled with mushrooms and sauerkraut. For dessert, try this vanilla & poppy seed swirl cake, or a traditional cheesecake – or try a lighter version, such as this white chocolate & ricotta cheesecake. For extra authenticity, you could use a Polish farmer’s cheese, called twaróg, instead of ricotta. After your Polish Christmas dinner, you could embrace the tradition of early gift-giving, or sing some carols together by the tree before attending midnight mass, or ‘Pasterka’.
A Polish Christmas Day
On Christmas Day, or Boże Narodzenie (literally ‘God’s birth’), the mood is more celebratory than reverent, and Polish food tends to be less formal than on Christmas Eve. There will almost certainly be a few leftovers to eat, and it is quite traditional to find savoury dishes alongside sweet dishes on the Polish table. Think slow roast duck served with braised red cabbage, honey-glazed spiced roast goose with confit potatoes, or perhaps roast pork with apples, plenty of vegetables and potatoes, alongside a simple honey cake or a more decadent layered Piernik, a Polish gingerbread cake.
The second day of Christmas
In Poland, Boxing Day is known as ‘Drugi Dzień Świąt’, which is, somewhat confusingly, the second day of Christmas. The focus is still on food and family, and you can expect to find more pierogi, leftover roast meats and salads, such as a vegetable salad – or try this next-level potato salad for the table. You might find a big pan of bigos on the stove, a Polish hunter’s stew made with sauerkraut and smoked meats, and it can include all of your leftover Christmas meats.
For a sweet treat, try your hand at making this traditional Polish apple cake, called szarlotka, and serve it with whipped cream and a shot of ice-cold fruit vodka, such as damson vodka or cherry vodka.
Which of these Polish dishes will you try first? Let us know what you’ll be making over the festive period to impress your guests in the comments…
Discover more traditional recipes and some of our Christmas guides here:
Polish recipes
Polish baking recipes
Homemade rye bread recipe
What can you freeze at Christmas?
European baking recipes
