Semmelknödel Recipe (Bread Dumplings)

Ingredients

The ingredients for the homemade authentic bread dumplings are straightforward.

For the dumplings mass:

• Butter or Lard
• Onion — white or yellow is traditionally used, but you can try using purple or red onions because they give a nice color to the dumplings (which I think looks great).
• Stale Bread — cut into diced sized pieces. The dryer, the better!
• Milk
• Egg — the smaller, the better.
• All-purpose Flour
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Nutmeg
• Parsley — freshly chopped, Italian or curly parsley. We predominantly use curly parsley.

For the boiling:

• Water
• Salt

Stale Bread

Either purchase stale diced bread or make your own and go all zero-waste.

For homemade stale “Knödel” bread, as we call it, get white bread rolls and leave them out to get hard. After 2 days they should be dry and hard. Cut them into dices.

"Wet" bread or fresh bread will make your dumplings soggy, and they won't hold. You really need stone hard dry white bread rolls to succeed! Dry bread takes in flavors.

Binding ingredients

So that the dumplings hold together, you will need an egg, milk and some white flour.

Eggs keep the dumplings together, and so does the white flour. A small quantity of milk activates the binding ingredients and allows for flavors to disperse evenly.

Seasoning & flavor giving ingredients

Onions are an important ingredient in the Semmeknoedel.

The onion slices are first sautéed in some butter to bring out the sharp flavors.

The dumplings are further enhanced with the addition of salt, black pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and freshly chopped parsley.

How to make it?

To prepare the Semmelknödel from scratch, you will need to follow these simple steps.

Step 1

Chop onions small and sauté until soft with some butter.

Step 2

Add all ingredients, including cooked onions, to a large bowl.

Mix it all together with your hand.

Step 3

Bring a pot of water with salt to boil.

The dumplings are shaped into balls and dropped into the boiling water.

Step 4

The Knödel dumplings cook in the boiling water and are taken out once they swim on the surface.

Drip off excess water and serve with various local meals.

Tips

You need to keep an eye on a few tell-tale signs to succeed with the preparation of these dumplings.

I watched my French mother struggle in the past because of a few pain points when prepping German dumplings from scratch.

• Not all stale bread is equally dry. Some require more milk than others. A larger egg might make it more soggy too.
• Your mass cannot be too wet, it's more dry. You should be able to shape your Knödel mass into balls. If it sticks a bit it's ok, but if it's all over the place, it's simply too wet.
• To fix a wet mass, add all-purpose flour or some dried bread cubes to it to fix the consistency.
• The perfect consistency of your Knödel mass is achieved if you can roll a dumpling between the palm of your hands, without it falling apart. The dumplings should remain round, even if you place it on a surface.
• Your onions MUST be chopped small and sautéed well so that they are soft. Do not increase the butter quantity or else your onions will be too oily. The butter and onions are added to the dumpling mass and if they are too large or too oily, the dumplings won't hold.
• Shape all dumplings equally large. A tennis ball size is too big, a golf ball too small. Shaping your Knödel like an American Billiard ball works the best (2.2 inches/5.7 cm diameter). You can go a little smaller too if this is your first time making dumplings.
• You need boiling salt water because the salt water will get the dumplings to float upwards when they are done.
• Wait for the water to come to a rolling boil. Then reduce the heat and only drop your shaped dumplings into the water when the water is NOT rolling anymore. A heavy boil can open up your dumplings, especially if the mass was too wet in the first place.

Serving

Semmelknödel are versatile dumplings. They are rather plain in flavor but work really well as a side dish with various meats and other side dishes.

They are never served by themselves!

Instead, we love these round bread dumplings with Sauerkraut and sausage. I mean, there is no better combo here in my opinion and I call this my comfort food.

My mum likes to roast or grill ribs and add that to the Sauerkraut and Semmelknödel combination, or we enjoy them with our Dutch oven pork roast and Sauerkraut dish.

But don't limit yourself because we also serve braised red spiced cabbage, chanterelle mushrooms and venison with these Knödel dumplings in fall.

I also think you should try adding the Semmelknödel to other sauce or gravy-based dishes, such as a classic Jägerschnitzel or a beef goulash.

Contrary to related dumplings, such as the Tiroler Speckknödel, these are not commonly served in a clear broth soup.

What are Semmelknödel?

Semmelknödel are dumplings prepared with diced stale bread rolls.

They are originally from Southern Germany, Bavaria, but due to the entangled history they are commonly made in Austria as well, especially western Austria.

Authentic Semmelknödel are made with Semmel or so-called Kaisersemmel, which are bread rolls from Austria. The Bavarians picked up the art of making Semmels in the last centuries.

However, Semmelknödel can be prepared with any other white bread roll too, as long as the bread is dried stale.

The stale bread pieces are then mixed with egg, sautéed onion, and seasonings before they are shaped into equal sized round dumplings.

These are then boiled and served as a side dish with pork meat and cabbage or other local specialties such as wild game and red cabbage. (see Serving further below)

Other local dumpling varieties

• Serviettenknödel (similar to Semmelknödel but shaped into a log)
• Bratknödel (with beef)
• Tyrolean Speckknödel (with cured Tyrolean Speck bacon)
• Pressknödel (cheesy Tyrolean press dumplings)
• German Potato dumplings
• Biskuitschöberl - Diamond-shaped herb biscuit dumplings
• Marillenknödel (sweet dessert apricot dumplings)