I liked this, although a lot of prep, with all the chopping, shredding, etc. Made a big batch of soup. I made changes based on the reviews (such as adding vinegar and dried dill, adding just half a can of tomato paste, boiling then peeling and shredding the beets and adding them to the soup at the end, substituting water from beet boiling plus some vegetable broth for the 2 qt. of water in the soup). My main comment, though, is you HAVE to use the sour cream--I was surprised how much it livened up the soup.

Good receipe. I live in Ukraine for the last 5 years. Another thing you can try is Chicken instead of sausage and shread your beets, and also, add a carrot shredded as well. Plus, if you take your onion and cut it open and drop into the boiling water for 5 minutes before adding your sausage will add a little extra flavor then remove onion and dice, adding to your tomato paste with shreaded carrot as well.

I loved this recipe and will definitely make it again! I made it vegetarian-style so omitted the sausage and also did not use any sugar - but it turned out wonderfully and was absolutely delicious.

I saw some great looking beets at the market and came home to figure out what to do with them. I then found this recipe! Fabulous flavor--young children said they liked it and hubby asked for it again next week. I took a reviewers reccomendation and used chicken stock in leiu of sausage, added kidney beans and the children ate it heaped with parmigiana cheese. (don't tell the kids but it's healthy as all get out!)

Very good soup recipe. I boiled my beets first, and then the peels just fall off. It is much easier than peeling first. Thank you for a good beet recipe.

I am russian, husband is ukranian- i decided to try this for a different recipe for our traditional borscht and we prefer ours- i really do not like the sausage in this recipe

I have never made borscht before but this was very good.My husband really liked it and said it was like his grandmother's.Will do again.

Very good. The only thing I changed was I didn't use the parsley. I added probably a tbsp or so of fresh dill. My husband says it's better than my Mom's borscht - but don't tell her that!

I made the vegetarian version exactly to recipe two times. This is delicious! It will be a regular in my kitchen.

I have used this recipe twice- excellent. Read carefully, I have been to 23 countries. This is how I modified: No meat-to greasy. No garlic- not needed. No sugar- use aged vinegar, nice and sweet. I also added one cube chicken bullion and one can of chicken stock, no fat. Also HALF the tomato paste. FRESH dill- lots. Cooked onions in grape seed oil, high burn rate. If you follow what I suggest, you will achieve culinary greatness and Ukrainian authenticity.

This is excellent with ribs instead of pork sausage!! My great grandmother's recipe was similar to this one.

I'm used to Borscht with no meat or potatoes, so I left them out. No sugar either. I loved it! And the soup has gorgeous color to boot!

This recipe was terrific! I've had vegetarian Borscht before and actually found it quite bland, but decided to try this recipe to use up the beets and cabbage from our farm CSA box. Both my husband and I had two bowls each, it was SO good. I did cheat a bit due to time (and not wanting to mess up another pan) - I cooked the onion with the pork (just used ground pork, seasoned with some salt and pepper), then added the water with the veggies in the order I chopped them up. I par-boiled the beets to help with peeling them before adding them to the soup. I didn't have chopped tomatoes on hand so I just used one can of garlic tomato paste, adding this in at the end with the fresh garlic, salt and pepper and one teaspoon of brown sugar. Let it sit for 5 minutes then served with a sprinkling of fresh dill. My husband insists that I make this again - and since we get another vegetable delivery this week I think I will! Thanks!

Excellent - authentic and close to what my husband's Ukranian family makes. I would leave out the garlic next time, and add a whole lot of dill. Otherwise the texture and colour was perfect

This dish is simple enough to make (my first soup attempt ever, and it went off without a hitch), and has an awesome old world, authentic kind of taste to it. The sausage addition makes for a hearty soup!

Not quite like grama's recipe

Excellent, authentic recipe with lots of flavor. I misread the reciped (only once!) and added 2 whole cloves instead of cloves of garlic but this only made it more spicy and robust!

I must say that I was skeptical, but I absolutely LOVED it! We like our veggies in chunks (it's hard to shred beets without turning the counter pink!), so we diced/chopped all the vegetables, and it came out great. Thanks for this recipe!