Awhile back the Paleo Parents invited my family over for a cookout. My first thought was “YAY! We finally get to hang out and get to know each other better” and my second thought was “Oh crap! What do I bring to a 2 times Bestseller’s house?!?!” I needed something that would be tasty, that would be friendly for their restrictions, our restrictions, AND the guests attending.
My goal in making new recipes has always been to make them enjoyable for even those who eat a Standard American Diet, not just for those with dietary restrictions and sensitivities. My kids are my best judges and recipes will not get posted if I receive a unanimous “thumbs down” – the problem was, I didn’t have time to pass the kid test before the cookout. I had to take a leap of faith and just go for it.
I dug deep, what makes people happy? Bacon…check. Crispy fried dough…check. Sweet caramelized onions…check. Got it! Bacon, Caramelized Onion + Sweet Potato Perogies. The bad news? I spilled my sour cream dip in the car and sogged the perogies on the way to the cookout. The good news? They crisped right back up in the oven at the Paleo Parents‘ house and nothing was left to take home but an empty plate! Whew!
Ingredients:
- 3 cups mashed yuca (peeled, boiled for 20-25 minutes or until fork tender, drained, and mashed)
- 3 tablespoons avocado oil (or preferred cooking fat), 1 teaspoon avocado oil + more for frying (divided)
- 1 large sweet potato, mashed
- 1 package pasture raised bacon, baked until crispy and chopped
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic sea salt
- Coconut cream from one can of full fat coconut milk (made by refrigerating for 2 hours and letting the cream separate from the milk)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- Optional: 3-4 probiotic capsules
- Fresh chives to taste, minced
- If necessary: 2-3 tablespoons coconut flour
- Preheat oven to 350
- Combine your mashed yuca and 3 tablespoons avocado oil in a Vitamix or heavy duty blender, using the tamper
- Once a dough forms, empty it onto a piece of parchment paper to cool
- While dough is cooling, sauté the diced onion in the teaspoon of avocado oil over medium heat in a small skillet for 20-30 minutes or until deep golden brown
- Once onions are caramelized, add garlic sea salt and combined with chopped crispy bacon, and mashed sweet potato in a bowl
- Make sure ingredients are integrated well
- Once yuca dough has cooled, assess the texture – cooled it should be a workable dough – if it is still too sticky to work with by hand, add in the optional coconut flour, 1 tablespoon at a time until you can work with the dough more easily
- Now roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until it is about 1/4 inch thick
- Using a glass or biscuit cutter, cut out circles of the dough
- Take one dough circle and spoon up to 1 tablespoon of the sweet potato, onion, bacon mixture (being careful not to overfill) onto 1/2 of the circle
- Fold the other half the of the dough over, forming a half-moon shape
- Either using a fork or your hands, pinch off the edges so that they are sealed – this will prevent the filling from leaking out during the baking/frying process
- Repeat until all the filling and/or dough is used – if you have extra dough, you can refrigerate it for a few days or freeze for later. If you have extra filling, eat it with a fork and feel happy you did.
- Bake perogies for about 10 minutes or until the edges are sealed from the baking process
- While perogies are baking, start heating the reserved avocado oil in a skillet over medium/high heat
- Once the perogies are finished baking, fry them until nicely browned on each side – this should take about 2-3 minutes per side
- Remove from oil and place on a towel lined plate to absorb excess oil and allow them to cool slightly
- To make the dipping sauce, combine the coconut cream with the chives, apple cider vinegar, and salt and stir well
- Optional: open probiotic capsules into the sour cream dip and stir well
I have never worked with yuca, so this might just be the recipe that gets me to finally use it. I loved perogies growing up, and these look like such a fun replacement!
Yay! Enjoy them!
Just discovered yucca this week. Am very excited that I have all of these ingredients, so I can make this tomorrow!
Thanks for what you do!
“Probiotic capsules”??? Please tell more! I have a difficult time w/ most probiotic food – so sour!
Probiotic capsules are not typically sour, more like a mild yogurt like flavor, depending on the brand 🙂
Wonderful! I love perogies fried with bacon & onions but traditional ones are tummy turning little packets of cheese, flour & potatoes. Haven’t had them for a long time, and now: yay! Thank you 😉
Enjoy Leslie!!
WOW. I just made these and while I was a bit intimidated working with yuca, your video made it seem so easy. I was so happy when I tried these and felt they were identical to the cheese and gluten loaded ones. I have been craving perogies for weeks now and sadly haven’t had them for ages and since going on AIP and Paleo and realizing that grains and cheese are my enemy, I thought I had to say goodbye to them but your cleverness in putting this together has made me very happy to know I don’t have to give them up. Thank you!!!!
Thank YOU for the feedback! I am so glad you enjoyed them!
looking forward to trying the yuca recipes..a bit hard to locate (and i am in boulder with a lot of natural stores) but whole foods offered to special order it…
Any ideas for a different dip? Made these tonight (with some ground beef and kale I had in the fridge since I didn’t have bacon) and they are awesome! I just don’t dig sauces made with coconut, I can’t get past the coconut flavor on the backend, just weirds me out a bit lol
You can try using another dairy free milk but it will not be as thick. The coconut flavor is pretty well concealed by the acv.
I found your website today and made these.. WOW, they were AMAZING! I froze half of them after baking. Thanks for the yuca dough!
Oh Awesome! So glad to hear you liked them!
Can the Yuca be replaced with anything else please?
Thank you
I do not have an exact sub, sorry.
really want to try these but we don’t get yuka in australia. Ive googled it and I see that tapioca is made from Yuka, so I’m going to try tapioca flour. should work, yeah?
Tapioca flour is a little bit different than yuca as tapioca is the starch. Think of it like potato starch vs potato flour. I have a few Australian readers who have found yuca in the frozen section – you could look there or ask your grocer to order it for you!
I’m in the process of changing my diet to lose weight and also help my son lose weight. I adore pierogies and came across this recipe.
My son is autistic and an extremely fussy eater. Ketchup is a food group in our house lol. I did not expect him to like these at all but he was willing to try a bite. When he asked for seconds and then thirds, I was thrilled!!
I loved them, too! FYI, I fried them up with bacon and onions. Sour cream on the side. My son ate them without sour cream. Everything is better with bacon LOL
Love your website and this recipe gets 5 stars for sure! Thanks so much!
I made my own filling but made this dough recipe today and loved it! Is the dough really not supposed to have any salt in it, though? Your calzone recipe (which I made last week!) has 1 teaspoon of garlic salt in the dough and I think it’ll do that in the future with these. 🙂 Adding salt post-frying fixed them right up! Any idea how many this recipe should yield? I just ask because I’m guessing mine are way too thick and wanted to compare yields.
For anyone else who wants to use pureed, frozen yuca – I think the trick is to drain it in a tea towel until it’s no longer super runny! I used 914 grams, wrung out the water until I had about 620 grams, and that was enough for 2/3 of the recipe (so 2 cups). I guess it was still too watery as I had to add 2 tablespoons of coconut flour and a little arrowroot starch.
Thanks so much for the recipe! I’m doing AIP and can’t tell you how happy I was when I found your yuca dough recipes. 🙂
What about using cassava flour instead of the yuca?
Be sure to read my “Cassava Flour Dough” post!
Just read your pierogi recipe & very excited to try as my husband is Polish. Just wondering why work with the yuca mash while it’s still warm? Why not wait until it’s coold then mix with the other ingredients and spread out?
When the dough is cold it can sometimes be less malleable and begin to crack. It’s up to you though if you have a preference how to work with it!
You were right & these were great! So happy to have sausage & pierogi night back on the menu!
Thanks Jenny! I’m so glad!