Near the top of my list of reasons why I could never move away from Texas, right under “free grandparent babysitting,” is kolache.
That list also includes other things like the Texans, quick access to beautiful grapefruit from the Rio valley, homemade tortillas from any number of nearby Mexican markets, Hill Country barbecue, a nearly year-long vegetable garden season, real Tex-Mex, and picking strawberries in February.
And not having to constantly answer “Oh, wow! Are you from Dallas?” when I pronounce a word with a long i. Like riiiice. And liiiight.
A Kolache, in its more traditional form, is a soft, sweet Czech breakfast pastry topped with fruit or cream cheese. During the summer, there is almost nothing better than having a tray full of peach kolache taking up the entire top shelf of your fridge!
“Sausage kolache” have become a Texas breakfast staple and were super popular at my parents’ bakery. It’s the same soft, sweet dough wrapped around a link of sausage. Bakeries typically use breakfast link sausages in their “small” kolaches but I prefer to start my day with a “big” kolache – stuffed with a smoked sausage link (the kind you’d normally find on a grill during the summer), fresh jalapeno slices, and cheddar. The sweet dough and the smokey meat make for a delicious breakfast.
And not surprisingly, you don’t find yourself thinking about lunch until it’s almost time for dinner.
This recipe for kolache dough is the closest I’ve ever found to both what my parents used and what the little shops further west sell. Use your favorite sausage – we used a Smoked Jalapeno-Cheddar Venison sausage in our latest batch. We usually freeze half a batch in a large ziptop bag and keep the other half in the fridge. The frozen kolache can thaw overnight on the top shelf of the fridge and be ready to reheated in the microwave the next day.
Sausage Kolache
Texas-style homemade sausage kolache are a savory twist on the classic Czech breakfast pastry.
Ingredients
- For the dough:
- 1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup water, warmed to 110-115F
- 1 cup milk, warmed to 110-115F
- 4 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled to warm
- 2 large eggs
- 5/8 cup sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 1/4 cups flour
- For the filling:
- Grated cheddar, optional
- Fresh jalapeno slices, optional
- Smoked sausage, cut into 3-4 inch pieces and halved lengthwise if very thick
Instructions
- Sprinkle the yeast over warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let proof for 5 minutes, until foamy/creamy.
- Turn the mixer to low and add the milk, melted butter, 2 eggs, sugar, and salt until mixed thoroughly.
- Add the flour in two batches and mix only until just combined. The dough will be wet and sticky.
- Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 1-2 hours, until dough has doubled.
- Punch down and refrigerate covered overnight or for at least 4 hours.
- Divide dough into ~2.5 inch balls (I weighed mine at 2.5 oz each) and set on a lined baking sheet.
- Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.
- Flatten each dough ball and top with a couple slices of jalapeno and pinch of grated cheddar (if using) and place the sausage on top.
- Wrap the dough around the fillings, pinching the edges together and placing seam-side down on the baking sheet.
- Cover and let rest for 20 minutes, while preheating oven to 375.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, until browned.
- Let the kolache cool for 20 minutes and serve.
- Leftovers will keep tightly wrapped in the fridge for 3-4 days and can also be frozen.
Notes
Yields: ~15 large kolache
Estimated time: 7 hours
{ 76 comments… read them below or add one }
I think my husband will propose again if I serve him this for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner)…
I’ve never heard of kolaches before!! They look amazing!
I think kolaches are third on my parents’ list of reasons for moving to Texas, behind grandaughter and daughter. They love them and so do I, they totally trump doughnuts.
How many does this recipe make?
My husband and I moved to Austin last summer and ever since I have been in love with the great foodie culture around here, and all over Texas. It’s a fabulous place to get a taste of everything, and it’s always fun to find new Texas specialities like these kolaches that I wasn’t aware of! Thanks for sharing, Shawnda. I’ll have to try these for myself!
Sweet baby Jesus, I think I love you Shawnda
I LOVE kolaches (I’m a Texas girl, too)…add some jalapenos in there, and I can eat way more than my weight in them!! Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this recipe! I LOVE Kolaches and I’ve been searching for the perfect recipe that included a sweeter dough to offset the spicy sausage I prefer to use. These sound amazing and I will be making them this week!
This Texas girl has been wanting to attempt homemade kolaches for a while – thank you for this recipe – I can’t wait to try them!
Thanks for the post! Having just moved to Austin, I kept thinking, “What the heck are Kolaches?!” These sound yummy!
Same here, Jessie! I just moved to Austin last week. I’ve already discovered this yummy goodness!!
I would definitely miss kolaches if I left Texas! These look fantastic. I’m definitely going to need to try this homemade version!
Oh, I agree. I love sausage kolaches.
Wow! I’ve never even heard of these! I love to have things like this around for breakfast – especially the leftover ones for the week ahead. The combo of sausage, jalepeno, and cheddar sounds amazing too….
I sometimes think about leaving NYC after med school…but then I remember that when I have kids, my mom is going to be my totally free-of-charge day care center. So…can’t do that.
These sound awesome! I have some really good veggie sausage in my fridge that is begging to be stuffed into a bread exterior!
I loved the other varieties as well, namely ham and cheese and bacon and egg. I think I could adapt safely, don’t you?
I have family in Texas and I’ve never heard of these before! Something tells me I’ll be my husband’s hero if these show up on our breakfast table
.
My family heritage is Czech, so I’ve had the traditional fruit kolache. Never had a sausage one – YUM!
I have been craving a sausage and cheese kolache for weeks. What’s a pregnant Texan uprooted to Hawaii to do?!
OMG! Can’t wait to try this recipe, I love kolaches, especially the ones with the boudin sausage! I wish there was a kolache bakery here in Arizona.
Thanks for the recipe!
I just discovered your blog and everything looks amazing! I’m from Texas but live in Nashville now, and none of my friends know what a kolache is! I’m definitely going to test out this recipe soon so that they can all can experience the amazing-ness they are missing!
I just discovered your blog and I cant stop reading your recipes!!! I will definitely try this one this weekend
I have one question… I live in Spain and I just find dry yeast in big packages… about 500grams… can you please tell me the quantity you used for this recipe? Thanks!!!
Hi Trini! A package of yeast here contains 2 1/4 tsp = .25 ounce = or right at 7 grams. Good luck!
Thanks!!! I will try it… I’m sure my husband will love it!
When you let it proof for 1 to 2 hours. Do you place it in a warm place or will it rise anywhere? Thanks
Yes, you’ll want to stick the bowl some place warm.
I really want to make these today! Does the recipe work without refrigerating the dough? Thanks!
It can work, but you get a lot of flavor development in the dough if you let it slow-rise in the fridge overnight.
Thanks for the recipe. I’m a native Texan transplanted to Arizona and kolaches are one of the things I miss most about home! I never dreamed that I wouldn’t be able to find them ANYWHERE here!
My famy and i are from corpus currently stationed in kansas and there are NO DONUT shops any where near us. So everytime we go on vacation we have kolaches practicly every morning lol but now thanks to this recipe we will get to have them every saturday or sunday morning.
I just moved from Texas to Colorado. I had no idea that sausage kolaches were a Texas thing. Thank you for sharing this recipe! I’m hoping I can keep a little Texas tradition going and make these for our weekend breakfasts. We were spoiled in Texas because all of the mom & pop donut shops had a variety of kolache flavors and sizes.
I have a question… I made these this morning and I let it develop in the fridge over night covered with wax paper and foil and the top of the bread was a little dry.. well I should say dryer than the bread was last night… is this the way it is supposed to be or do you cover in oil to keep this from happening. Other than that my family really liked it they just wanted more meat and cheese inside. And do you think I could add a tad more sugar to make it just a touch sweeter?
Definitely could add a couple more Tbsp of sugar if you want a sweeter dough. I cover the mixer bowl with foil. Straight out of the freezer, the dough feels a little stiff/dry but after it warms up, it feels fresh & pliable.
Thank you sooo much! Love these. Great instructions. Follow them and you will really be proud! Very good recipe, plus I’m doing lots f different filings. Love these. Thank you again. Just make the dairy and water warm. I used a candy thermometer. You cannot go wrong! Yummy!
My husband and I live in Texas and we love kolaches.
Thank you for posting this recipe. They tasted great.
My dough was extremely sticky and I had a hard time forming the balls. Is there a trick to handle sticky dough?
It shouldn’t be overly sticky, might need an extra 2-4Tbsp in the dough next time. Otherwise, I just keep the flour container next to me when I’m working to keep my hands & work surface dusted.
Hi! I found this recipe yesterday and jumped right on it! I’m a homesick Texan and have been searching high and low for the perfect kolache recipe. These came out deliciously but I had a slight problem stuffing the sticky dough… When you say extra 2-4 Tbsp, are you referring to flour when making the dough? Just want to try a few different options.
Yes – if the dough is too sticky, it just needs an extra spoonful or two of flour to firm up. It has been crazy humid here lately – I had to add nearly an extra half cup this weekend!
I have never much cared for Texas. Never liked the ultra-conservative politics (in the area I lived at), didn’t much care for the flatness of the landscape, and I despised the sticky heat in the summer. I don’t mind the loss of Texas Barbecue because the Santa Maria style barbecue I get here in California (20 miles from Santa Maria) is just as good. Neither my wife nor I have close family there any longer, so that isn’t an issue. But there are three things that I miss from Texas that make me almost weep because I can’t find them anywhere close to me now (strangely, they are all food related). Double Dave’s pepperoni rolls, BlueBell Ice Cream… and Sausage and cheese Kolaches. The first one I have learned to make a close approximation myself. The second has some adequate substitutes in other brands. But the last one – if you talk about kolaches with people outside of Texas, they look at you like you are speaking a foreign language. If this recipe can actually approximate the consistency and sweetness of the dough used in the kolaches I remember, I will be a happy camper once again.
Missing Texas food items here too. Ah , yes Double Dave’s pepperoni rolls, I liked those too. This dough is spot on to the sausage rolls I would buy at the donut shops and Kolache Bakery.
Oh YES ! These are it ! Having recently moved back to Alaska after living in Texas for 26 years this is
one thing I miss on Sunday mornings. There are no Kolache bakeries or donut shops here making these
little bundles of Heaven ! Your recipe recreates them exactly and I have modified you dough recipe to make in my bread machine, couldn’t be easier. Thank you.
Kim, I’m interested in using my bread machine in making this kolache dough. Would you mind sharing with me your modified dough recipe for the bread machine. Thank you so much.
John, just follow your bread machines directions. I use this recipe and add wet ingredients with the salt to the pan first. Then I add 3/4 of the flour with the yeast on top, program for the dough cycle and hit start. I add the rest of the flour, a few tablespoons at a time after the initial flour is incorporated. After the first rise, I place the dough in the fridge and follow the rest of the directions exactly.
Kim, could you share those modifications for the bread machine??
My husband and I are from Texas originally but have been living in North Carolina for the last 3 years. The one food I have missed more than anything is Texas Kolaches! There’s nothing like them around here and most people I talk to don’t even know what they are. Can’t wait to make these. I’m going to surprise my husband and he is going to freak out! Thanks so much!
My wife & I moved to Richmond, Tx from UK, and thanks to a friendly neighbo(u)r, soon discovered a local bakery which sold Jalapeno & Cheese Sausage Kolaches.
These became something of a Sunday morning ritual…, even for our family & friends visiting from UK.
Regrettably, we had to return to UK 18 months ago, as my job went ‘west’ with the downturn…
We miss many things, but have often wished for a Sausage Kolache on a Sunday morning…
Now, with the help of this recipe we can soften the blow…
Thank You.
If I want to make these whole wheat kolaches, what would the flour substitution be?
I’d substitute no more than 50% of the flour with whole wheat. Will take longer to rise, too.
I substituted white whole wheat flour cup for cup, and they turned out fantastic! I’m going to have to make these constantly; they’re my boyfriend’s new favorite breakfast. Thanks so much!
I am so excited to try this recipe. My mother is Czech, and kolaches are from that country. My very large extended Czech family in Iowa requires! kolache’s for our annual family reunion. I have never seen them in Texas, where my dad’s very large extended family is (he was 5th generation Texan). A friend at work here in Washington State told me about the fantastic sausage Kolaches they found in Temple, TX. We are going on a ski vacation in Glacier National Park and he and his wife asked me to make sausage kolaches for out trip. Wow! My Czech and Texas heritage mix again with this recipe!
Thank you for posting this recipe! I had never heard of kolaches until I went to Houston this last February with a friend to see her new home. My first discovery was Buccees and looking at all the really neat food they have there….turkey jerky, fudge, breakfast burittos…and then lo and behold….the kolaches. My friend told me I had to try one because she just loved them. I was skeptical. I like dough covered food (or just dough – friend and glazed please). At first bite I heard angels sing…or I think it was angels…maybe it was the piped in music in the store. I don’t know and at that point, didn’t care. I do know that I could have been alone in that store for all the attention I paid to anyone else after that first bite. I ended up having another one and swearing that I would find a recipe for them that would bring me back that little roll of heaven I had that day. I swore that was the best thing I had eaten in years and then I had Beaver Nuggets….cue the angel singing again because those little crispy chunks of sweetness are a religious experience all of their own! But that’s a story for a different day.
I have a question about the sausage in the sausage kolache. The smoked sausage does not need to be pre-heated or re-cooked prior to being placed into the dough covering, correct? But if using raw, uncooked breakfast sausage links, then they would need to be cooked before going into the dough covering, right?
Yeah. I always use the “smoked”-type varieties. They have small, breakfast-link-sized pieces that work perfectly without needing to cut them.
Amazing recipe!!! Living in louisiana n it taste just like the bakery!! Hubby n kids r in love
Ty soo much for sharing!!
I moved to Colorado 6 years ago and I am a native Texan. Never knew kolaches weren’t everywhere!!! So glad to find your recipe- these are one of my all time favorite things that I miss. You start talking to people and yes, they look at you like you are crazy when you mention kolaches. Miss these and Antone’s poboys the most! Thank you for putting this recipe out there!!!!
CANNOT wait to try these! I’m from Idaho and we lived in Houston for 2 years where I fell madly in love with kolaches. No one outside of Texas even knows what they are. Thanks for sharing!!
I had to throw a batch of your dough out yesterday because it wouldn’t rise. You didn’t mention the TSP of sugar that needs to be sprinkled on top of the yeast for proofing. I found that note on another recipe. It’s rising now. WooHoo
I don’t add sugar to the yeast when it proofs for this recipe.
Wow doesn’t it need to rise? One more thing I’m glad I peeked in about half way through because mine were ready in about 15 minutes. Does the time change with the size if the kolache? It was delicious though. I made breakfast suasage, ham and swiss, and once I ran out of everything then I had 3 with swiss only. It was delicious!
Thank you for sharing
These came out very good! I only had to bake them for about 16-18 minutes in my oven (it’s gas and wall mounted, not very big) I didn’t have to add sugar to the yeast as Mary Ann mentioned above. It rose just fine using Fleischmann’s ActiveDry Yeast. Here is a photo of the results https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8396628/kolcaches.jpg
Notice that a piece of sausage came out of the kolache. Next time i’ll pinch them a little better. Thanks again for the recipe!
Great job!
I was born and raised in Texas, so when I moved to Alaska a month ago I had no idea people wouldn’t even now what kolaches are! I have my dough in the refrigerator now and can’t wait to get them in the oven!!! Thanks for the recipe!
Welcome to the Big state ! Hope you are settling in . This website has been invaluable help for recreating some of my favorites that I used to be able to enjoy in local restraunts.
I made these as well. It was my first time to work with yeast. My dough was very sticky as well. The finished product also seemed to be a bit thick. Any suggestions? I also cut my cooking time to 18 minutes. My first batch was cooked for 25 minutes and the product was a bit over cooked. The flavor was great.
I live in texas.My boyfriend and I love Kolaches.I am so glad I came across your website.I will be trying your receipe soon.Thank you sooooo much.Now we can have them anytime we want.
I am a homesick Texas away for school in Cali and i have been dying for a kolache! this recipe is going to save me! i could cry i am so happy!
I am from Va but growing up we went to Texas Allll the time..nanny and the rest of the fam lives there…we ALWAYS stopped at Busy Bees in fort worth and took several dozen home. They have THE best kolaches. I wish they shipped!!
tried to make them and its just not Busys…
They just came out of the oven and they are AWESOME. Thanks for a great recipe. As a misplaced Texan I can’t help but miss the Czech Stop in West. You have saved the day!
Love the Czech shop!!
I am a Texan, transplanted in ohio!
Kolaches, the beach, and really all the food and all the people are what I miss most!
In fact today I explained yo my 12 yr old don that all good food, especially his favorites are from Texas!
My kids both love BBQ and Mexican and their ultimate favorite is papadeaux!
Crazy, in the blood. Now they can appreciate kolachis if I can get the dough right. Thank you for the recipe.we usually only get these once a yr when we visit tx!
Why did you have to mention BBQ, Mexican (Tex-Mex is the best!) and Pappadeaux? You have made me hungry for all of them! We have been in the Chicago area for 3 months now and I miss Texas food like crazy!!!
THANK YOU…THANK YOU…THANK YOU for sharing this recipe! As a displaced Texan living in a suburban Chicago area where not only no bakery sell kolaches, most of them have no idea what one is!! For almost 3 months now I have been craving a sausage kolache so I turned to the internet and just yesterday I found your recipe and made the dough. This morning our family enjoyed hot, fresh kolaches for breakfast…this recipe was a hit!!
I love these kolaches!! They taste just like the bakery variety. I was so pleased that I made another batch today to freeze. I used my bread machine dough setting to make the dough – just added the liquids first then the flour and yeast on top – the dough was perfect! Thanks for sharing this recipe – they really turn out great. Now that I can make my own I think we will be having kolaches a lot more often now.
What’s the longest you (or another follower) have frozen these? Anything special to it? And, btw, I find that I can get 24 kolaches out of this recipe, easily. I also only bake these 16 – 18 min., but at 425 degrees. Yesterday for the first time I skipped the overnight rise and, well, I preferred them! Also, btw, if you end up with a bit extra – make minis with pumpkin butter. The dough and the filling match in an obscenely good way!
We live in Texas and would like to take kolaches to NM for our daughters wedding. I do not want to make them there but would like to freeze them and take in a cooler. We will have to spend the night on the way and maybe they will thaw out): Maybe this is not a good idea but if you have any recommendation much appreciated(;
I would bake, cool completely, and then bag them up in freezer bags and go straight from the freezer to a cooler with a bag of ice on the bottom. Just keep them as cold as possible – I have kolaches in the fridge for several days and they’re fine. Reheat them in an oven on baking pans covered tightly with foil to keep them from drying out. Good luck!
These turned out great! They were very easy to make and look just like the picture. They have a wonderful yeast flavor. I will definitely use this recipe again since it makes the perfect amount and tastes just like they would at a bakery. Thank you for sharing this recipe!