Kolaches: 12 Things To Know About The Savory Treat

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If you haven't had the pleasure of tasting a kolache, you're missing out on one of the U.S.'s very few hand-held savory pies. While the sweet kolache originated from the eastern part of the Czech Republic called Moravia, it was believed that a descendent from a Czech immigrant invented the savory kolache in Texas in the 1950s. What started out as a simple pigs-in-the-blanket-style sausage roll has evolved over the years to contain all sorts of breakfast foods and other tasty savory ingredients. Now, you can find them in gas stations, donut shops, and dedicated kolache shops. It's also migrated beyond Texas. When a kolache shop opened in Washington, D.C., hundreds of people familiar with them from their time in Texas lined up around the block (via NPR).

According to Texas Hill Country News, the word "kolache" comes from the Czech word "kola," which means "rounds" or "wheels." But what exactly are they? Imagine a circular savory roll filled with ham and cheese, barbecue brisket, or even sausage and gravy. It's both tasty and portable, and it works for any meal of the day. We've uncovered the history of the savory kolache in the U.S. and explained a bit of its evolution over time.

If you encounter a kolache in the Czech Republic, it will likely be sweet. The story goes that several generations back, a mother and daughter in the Moravia region of central Europe, which is now part of the Czech Republic, found a recipe for a sweet, yeasty roll filled with fruit or sweetened cheese. Once they made the recipe and shared it, the rest is history. Families all over Moravia began making kolaches. What was inside any given kolache depended on which fruits were available.

When kolaches began appearing in the U.S., they were a sweet confectionery. They contained the ingredients Czechs were accustomed to using at home, like prunes, apricots, and poppy seeds; however, they eventually began experimenting with other ingredients they found in the U.S., like blueberries, pineapples, and cream cheese (via NPR).

As kolaches have spread beyond Texas, the most popular ones have often been savory. When we talked to Isabella Milam, the co-owner of Golden Kolache Bakery in Fayetteville, Arkansas, about what sells better, she said that her bakers always make some sweet kolaches, but people tend to prefer the savory ones. People looking for something sweet are more likely to go to a donut shop or a traditional bakery instead. But kolaches can be a welcome savory option in those types of shops as well.

While it was Czech immigrants who brought the kolache to Texas, it was also a Czech who is believed to have first started serving savory kolaches in Texas. The first Czech bakery in Texas to sell kolaches appears to be Village Bakery, which was open between 1952 and 2019 in the city of West, Texas. West is located along Interstate 35 between Austin and Dallas.

It was during the second year the bakery was open, in 1953, that co-owner Wendel Montgomery started to experiment (via Texas Monthly). One day, when he was eating a hot dog, he had the idea of using the kolache dough to make something new. He convinced his mother-in-law to wrap a sausage link in the dough and bake it. Thus, the savory kolache was born. To some, he's considered the "Grandfather of Kolaches" (via Texas Standard).

In some donut shops -– like Daylight Donuts in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas -– dough filled with sausages are often the only type of kolaches available. You'll frequently see them labeled as "sausage rolls." Unfortunately, we've found that many donut shop sausage rolls don't contain sausages at all, just cheese hot dogs or cheese and jalapeño hot dogs. However, in other shops, you'll find savory kolaches with all sorts of fillings, not just sausage links (or hot dogs).

When food crosses cultural and language barriers, people tend to make spelling and pronunciation changes because of different alphabets, different grammar rules, or unfamiliar letter sounds. For example, most Mexican food lovers haven't realized that the singular version of "tamales" in Spanish is "tamal" rather than "tamale." And most Italian confection lovers don't realize that "cannoli" is the plural version of "cannolo." With an unfamiliar language like Czech, it's no wonder we've also made a few mistakes.

The actual Czech spelling for "kolache" is "koláče" (via Czechology). However, since the English language has no "č" or "á", someone eventually Americanized the spelling to get the pronunciation a little closer to correct.

Also, when you're saying "kolache," you're actually using the plural version of the word. "Kolach" is singular, while "kolache" is plural (via KBTX). So, every time we say "kolaches," we're pluralizing an already-plural word. Technically, we're doing the equivalent of saying "rollses" instead of "rolls." Classy.

Most of us also pronounce it incorrectly. Even The New York Times tells us to say it "ko-LAH-chee," but that isn't quite right. @TeAge from the Czech Republic demonstrates that the correct pronunciation for "koláče" is closer to "KO-LAAAAH-chay," drawing out the middle syllable far longer than the others (via Forvo Pronunciation). Also from the Czech Republic, @kunk reveals that the correct pronunciation for a singular koláč is "ko-LACH" (via Forvo Pronunciation). Now you know.

When Wendel Montgomery invented the klobasnek (savory kolache) in West, Texas, in 1953, he was inadvertently creating one of the U.S.'s very few savory hand-held pies (per Texas Monthly). When you think about it, the U.S. doesn't have a lot of them. Yet, they're infinitely useful, easily transportable, and self-contained meals.

Australia has meat pie, Lebanon has sfiha, Morocco has pastilla, Malaysia has karipap, China has xian bing, Russia has piroshki, and Latin America has empanadas (via Tasting Table). The list goes on and on. Yet, if you stop and try to think of what the U.S. has that we didn't borrow from another country, most of us couldn't think of anything except frozen Hot Pockets or chicken pot pies.

Besides savory kolaches, one of the few other hand-held savory pies we know of from the U.S. is the Michigan pasty, which came to that state's Upper Peninsula via a group of people from Cornwall, England, mining copper in the 1800s (via NPR). Another savory pie that is enclosed like an empanada is in Natchitoches, Louisiana, which is known as "The Meat Pie Capital of Louisiana" and has its own festival (via KTBS). There are probably other local handheld meat pies in various communities. However, in most parts of the U.S., you're not going to be able to locate a portable meat pie as easily as you can in countries like Australia without branching out into non-American cuisine.

The Village Bakery, the birthplace of the savory kolache, branched out slightly from its original link-sausage creation. Eventually, it sold kolaches with ham and cheese and with ground sausage, cheese and jalapeños (via Facebook).

Most people think of savory kolaches as breakfast food. So, as they have evolved, many shops have filled them with breakfast ingredients like meat, eggs, and cheese. In addition to breakfast kolaches, the Golden Kolache Bakery in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has other options, like spinach and artichoke ones or Mediterranean ones containing feta cheese, artichokes, kalamata olives, and capers. We've even seen some shops that bake them in muffin tins for a kolache that looks more like a giant popover.

If you think only locations outside of Texas are getting creative with kolaches, you'd be wrong. The Kolache Factory, which started out in Houston, Texas, sold one containing brisket, jalapeños, and macaroni and cheese (via Texas Monthly). And John T. Edge of The New York Times reports seeing kolaches stuffed with boudin (a Cajun sausage with rice and spices) in Houston and ones with sausage and sauerkraut in Austin.

When Texas Monthly asked about what the inventor of the klobasniky would think about its evolution, his daughter, Mimi Montgomery Irwin, said, "My father would probably have been aghast at the idea." She calls all the changes throughout the U.S. "the McDonaldization of a Czech food." Luckily, the majority are far superior to fast food.

When a baker procures a savory kolache for you, they'll often ask if you plan to eat it now or later. If now, they'll sometimes throw it in the microwave for a few seconds to warm the ingredients inside. If you're taking them home for later, the baker can give you heating instructions.

The amount of time in the microwave depends on the size and the number of kolaches you are heating at one time. According to Kolache Factory, you should microwave one or two for 10-15 seconds. However, the Golden Kolache Bakery quoted us 20 seconds, which seemed perfect. According to Kolache Factory's instructions, you should add an additional five to 10 seconds for every two additional kolaches you microwave. The trick is to heat them long enough to get the filling hot but not too long that the outside bread portion becomes chewy or (in a worst-case scenario) like a hockey puck.

The Kolache Factory also says you can heat them in your oven for five minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Using the oven instead of the microwave is especially helpful if you're reheating kolaches for a crowd.