Why Is Borscht So Different Across Ukraine's Regions?

Borscht from Poltava and borscht from Galicia are two distinct culinary traditions, shaped by different ethnographic and geographic regions — and even different national borders — each with its own set of available ingredients. One is thick, meaty, served with dumplings; the other is clear, tangy from beet kvass, and often meatless. The fact that both dishes share the name borscht only highlights just how variable a borscht recipe can be.

If you're searching for a borscht recipe for the first time, the sheer number and variety of recipes can be overwhelming. Lviv borscht looks nothing like Odesa borscht, Poltava nothing like Volyn, Chernihiv nothing like Kyiv, and Zakarpattia nothing like Kharkiv. That's no exaggeration. This enormous diversity of recipes is driven in part by differences in climate and ingredient availability across Ukraine's regions. From the 17th century onward, borscht appears in various Ukrainian written records and foreign accounts of Ukraine as a staple dish shared by monks, Cossacks, peasants, and townspeople of all means alike. Over four centuries, each region developed its own logic — not more or less "correct," simply its own.

Central Ukraine, and the Poltava region in particular, gave the world a borscht conceived as a complete, satisfying meal. The classic Poltava version is made on a chicken or duck broth. It traditionally includes halushky — small dumplings made from buckwheat or wheat flour, boiled separately and added to the finished soup just before serving. It is the halushky that give Poltava borscht its signature thickness.

The Poltava borscht recipe: cook a chicken or duck (about 1 kg) until done, then strain the broth. Add two medium beets, tomato paste, vinegar, an onion, a carrot, 3–4 potatoes, 500 g of cabbage, a bay leaf, and black pepper. Return the meat to the pot, crush garlic and stir it in 10 minutes before the end of cooking. For the halushky, combine 2 tablespoons of buckwheat flour, 1 tablespoon of hot water, salt, pepper, and an egg; drop spoonfuls of the dough into boiling water. Serve the borscht with sour cream and chopped parsley.

In western Ukraine — in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions — borscht is made differently. Gone is the hearty thickness prized in Poltava. In its place is a distinctive tanginess — and not from vinegar, but from beet kvass. For centuries, beet kvass was widely used to make borscht across many regions of Ukraine, and today it remains the traditional base of Christmas borscht in Galicia and one of the key souring agents in everyday borscht there.

Beet kvass is the product of fermenting beets; it has a vivid ruby color and a rich flavor that lends dishes a characteristic sour note. According to a recipe by the celebrated cook Olha Franko, borscht kvass is prepared as follows: fill two-thirds of a jar with washed, peeled, and sliced red beets, cover with boiled water, and leave in a warm place to ferment. Souring borscht with vinegar is, in the view of Galician cooks, a crime against humanity. That said, beet kvass takes about a week to prepare, which is why modern recipes often use vinegar as a quicker substitute.

Galician borscht is often meatless: on Christmas Eve it is prepared without meat, using a mushroom broth instead. This meatless Christmas borscht is cooked on a porcini mushroom stock, while the beets are prepared the same way as for regular Lviv borscht — boiled separately and then sliced. Carrots, parsley root, and onion are sautéed separately. Finely chopped or grated cooked and braised beets and beet kvass are added to the finished, strained broth. It is served with vushka — tiny dumplings filled with mushrooms, a nod to the Polish influence on Galician cuisine. They say you can recognize Galician borscht wherever it's made — in Lviv, Chicago, or Ottawa: it may be made with millet, potatoes, or vushka, but never with cabbage. 

In southern Ukraine, borscht found itself in an entirely different culinary context — one shaped by the steppe, the port, and a multi-ethnic population. 

In the Odesa region, fish borscht is no exotic curiosity. In areas bordering rivers and the sea, fresh, dried, or salted fish was a natural addition to the pot. The Odesa version may also include tomatoes and apples: when the borscht is nearly done, fresh or pickled tomatoes and tart apple slices are stirred in. This gives the dish a lightness and a fruity tang you won't find in either Poltava or Lviv.

There is no shortage of borscht recipes — nearly every cook has their own. But that "personal" recipe doesn't emerge from nowhere: it grows from the place where a person was born, the ingredients that grew there, and the memory of how the kitchen smelled in childhood. Regional differences in borscht are not an argument about who does it right. They are a geography of flavor, written down in recipes. So cook different borschts, try different recipes, and adapt them to local ingredients and your own taste!