Name: Coke Kielbasa Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 pound package Kielbasa; 12 ounce can cola (not diet); ¼ cup brown sugar; Hot cooked rice

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Last Updated on December 5, 2019

Kielbasa is a traditional Polish food, sometimes also called Polish sausage. While the modern American version of this dish is different from its Polish origins, it’s still a much-beloved food. This savory sausage is delicious, whether served with a weeknight dinner or on a special holiday.

Sure, you could just buy a package of kielbasa, heat it, and serve. But that’s so much less than you can do with this versatile meat. With a variety of ways to prepare it, you’ll have many combinations that will keep your family happy. Fortunately for you, it’s also pretty easy to cook.

This Coke kielbasa takes two of our favorite things to make one great dish. Coca-Cola is one of our nation’s favorite soft drinks, so chances are good that you might already have some in your house already. It tastes best with Coke, but you can really use any kind of cola.

The acidity of the Coke and the added brown sugar makes a delicious spicy-sweet sauce for this savory sausage. Serving it over rice allows the sweet sauce to flavor the rice but also keeps it from becoming too cloyingly sugary. It’s a unique flavor that will mix up your regular dinner rotation a bit and keep your family from becoming too bored.

Even better, it’s really only a two-pan dish for cooking the kielbasa and rice. Not only will this cut your prep time down, but it will also minimize the amount of time you have to spend cleaning up, too.

How to Cook Easter Kielbasa

Kielbasa is traditionally served by Eastern Europeans as the main dish on Easter. This is most especially common in communities in the United States with a large number of Polish people. To make a proper Easter kielbasa, you need to start out with the right kind of sausage.

You can buy traditionally prepared Easter kielbasa at specialty food stores if you’re lucky enough to be in a town with such offerings. But if you’re wanting a traditional Easter kielbasa and don’t live near a store that prepares them for you, don’t worry. It’s not too difficult to figure out how to make it yourself.

As a holiday meal, you can expect that it will take a little more time and prep work than an average weeknight dish. But the flavorful results will be worth it and you may just create a new (or recreated) family tradition.

To make Easter kielbasa, you need to first get a few ingredients. You’ll want five sausages for a standard recipe, though you can always double all ingredients for larger portions. You’ll also want some onions, garlic, olive oil, red wine, and cabbage.

Simmer the sausages in a frying pan of water for 15 minutes. Make sure to pierce the sausages a couple of times to allow the fat to come out. Drain the water, then set aside the sausages on a plate. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil back to the pan and saute two cloves of garlic and a half of a diced onion until they’re translucent and fragrant.

Add two cups of red wine or beef broth and allow the whole thing to simmer, until it reduces slightly to a smaller volume. Return the sausages back to the mixture and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. To make it more traditionally Polish, serve with boiled cabbage.

Kielbasa Recipe for Dinner

Kielbasa always makes a good choice for a weeknight dinner. An alternative to the usual burgers and pasta, kielbasa is a tasty alternative. There are so many ways to prepare this flavorful meat that are sure to be a hit with your family.

One tasty and budget-friendly way to prepare kielbasa is to serve it with beans and rice. You can choose to use red beans, kidney beans, or black beans—whichever you have on hand and that your family likes. Saute chopped onion, diced green pepper, and a couple sliced ribs of celery with a couple of cloves of garlic in olive oil. Then add some Cajun seasoning and serve over white rice. Garnish with chopped green onions if you prefer.

Kielbasa also works well in hearty stews, too. Add some diced cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and simmer in beef broth. Serve with crusty bread or fresh rolls. Kielbasa for dinner is always hearty and will be a welcome addition to your family table.

If you enjoyed this recipe, make sure to check out our Maple Pecan Pork Chops and our Pork Chops Devine.