Haluski: Egg Noodles With Caramelized Onions, Bacon, & Cabbage
Haluski is a delicious American-Slavic immigrant meal that is quick, easy, budget-friendly, and family-friendly. Caramelized bacon and onions are sauteed with fresh cabbage and then tossed with egg noodles, which are also allowed to get just a little crispy on the edges. This is so simple but incredibly tasty and comforting.
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This recipe for haluski is not, technically speaking, halušky. In Poland, it would be called kapusty z lazank.
Halušky are potato-egg-flour dumplings, a national dish of Slovakia, and something more like a cross between German spaetzle and Italian gnocchi.
I have two recipes straight from Slovakia you can try: the first is a cheese version bryndzové halušky, and the second is made with sauerkraut strapačky halušky.
Whether American or Slovak, Haluski calls for caramelized onions and bacon, and both versions can include sauerkraut or cabbage. The biggest departure is that the American version uses egg noodles. My recipe also includes optional kielbasa or other sausage.
This recipe is for American haluski — but that doesn’t make it any less delicious or “authentic” as this evolution of halušky has been eaten in America for generations and was brought to these shores by immigrant women from countries like Ukraine, Slovakia, Chezchia, and Poland.
These Slavic women made do with what they had in their new homeland, where traditional ingredients and tools were not necessarily available or easy to obtain.
And there is nothing wrong with that. The culinary history of America is one of immigrants adapting to their environment, so please take any snotty attitudes about that far away from me.
If you love recipes like this and are looking for similar ones, try making German spatzle or my cheesy käsespätzle variation.
Ingredient Notes, Variations, & Substitutions
Full quantities of each ingredient can be found in the printable recipe card at the end of this post.
Vegetarian: Omit the bacon and stick to caramelized onions and cabbage. I recommend you add more butter if this is what you’re making.
Sausage: The sausage is completely optional. I generally use kielbasa when making haluski, but as you can see from the photos, I used dried paprika-spiced sausage in this recipe. Use whatever you like or leave the sausage out!
Egg Noodles: Try making this with homemade egg noodles; it’s so easy to make your noodles!
Spicy: Add some red pepper flakes when you add your noodles.
Sauerkraut: Instead of fresh cabbage, add fermented sauerkraut instead.
Instructions (Photos)
Use these photos as a handy visual reference if you get stuck on how something should look when you’re prepping your ingredients and cooking them.
Hint: Let the edges of the egg noodles get slightly crispy before serving.
Ingredients
- 12 oz egg noodles About 340 grams or 1 standard package. You can also use homemade.
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¾ cup bacon Diced small
- 1 cup kielbasa sausage Optional. Sliced thinly into rounds and then cut in half like half-moons.
- 2 large yellow onions Diced small.
- 2 cloves garlic Optional. Minced.
- ½ head cabbage Slived very thinly.
- salt & pepper to taste.
Instructions
- Prep your ingredients: thinly slice the cabbage, dice the onion and bacon into small pieces, thinly slice the kielbasa (if using) into half-moons, mince the garlic (if using) and get a large pot of salted water boiling for the egg noodles.
- Cook pasta: As the other ingredients are being cooked in the following steps, cook your pasta according to package instructions. If it finishes too early‚ no worries — drain it, run it under cool water to prevent overcooking and add some butter to stop from sticking.
- Caramelize: begin by caramelizing your onions in half of the butter on medium heat, add the bacon after the onions turn translucent after about 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to low and let the onions become golden-brown in color (15 minutes or longer if you prefer a deep caramel color) and the bacon is nearly entirely crisped and cooked.
- Add sausage: if using sausage, like kielbasa, add it now and cook until it begins to brown around the edges.
- Add the cabbage and continue cooking and stirring until the cabbage is tender and starting to brown around the edges. You can cover the pot or pan to prevent too much evaporation and burning, but remove it and let any excess liquid cook off before adding the noodles.
- If you're using garlic, add it right before the cooked noodles and stir for 60 seconds until it becomes fragrant.
- Add the egg noodles and cook, stirring until the noodles are just slightly crispy at the edges.
- Season with salt to taste, if needed, and plently of freshly cracked black pepper if you like.
