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These slow cooker kielbasa potatoes are buttery, savory, and easy enough for busy nights. The sausage gets glossy and juicy, the baby potatoes soften in broth and butter, and the dry onion soup mix does all the seasoning work. You’re going to love the rich cooking juices spooned over every serving.
Why You’ll Love It
- Hands-off slow cooker dinner — layer everything, cover, and let it cook with no browning, peeling, or separate sauce pan.
- Tender, flavorful potatoes — baby potatoes soak up the buttery onion broth as they cook.
- Hearty and filling — kielbasa and potatoes make a satisfying dinner without a lot of fuss.
- Easy to stretch — serve it over buttered egg noodles or beside cabbage or sauerkraut.
Ingredient Notes
Use smoked kielbasa here, the fully cooked kind in the refrigerated meat section. I usually buy whichever brand looks best that week and isn’t priced like it was raised on a private island. Polska kielbasa works beautifully. Turkey kielbasa will work, too, though it is a little leaner and won’t give quite the same rich sausage drippings. Still tasty. I’m not snobbish about it.
For the potatoes, little red, gold, or mixed baby potatoes are all fine. Leave the truly small ones whole. If they’re larger than a golf ball, cut them in half so they finish at the same time. Do not peel them. Their skins are thin, and peeling baby potatoes is exactly the sort of unnecessary task that makes a person mutter in the kitchen.
The dry onion soup mix is doing a lot of heavy lifting, flavor-wise, so use low-sodium Chicken broth as called for. The soup mix and kielbasa can both be salty. Taste at the end before you add anything extra. I say that as someone who once salted a whole roast before remembering I’d used a salty seasoning packet. We ate it. We drank a lot of water.
Unsalted butter gives you more control, and four tablespoons makes the dish lush in the best old-fashioned way. Nothing creamy gets added here, despite what your eyes might tell you when you see all those lovely juices. It’s just butter, broth, sausage, and the magic of onions doing their thing.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds small baby potatoes, rinsed and left whole, or halved if any are larger than a golf ball
- 1 1/2 pounds smoked kielbasa sausage, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds—I don’t get out a ruler, obviously
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 packet dry onion soup mix, about 1 ounce
- 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- Pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper, only if needed after cooking
Instructions
Place the rinsed baby potatoes in an even layer across the bottom of a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Leave the little ones whole, but cut any larger potatoes in half. You want them roughly the same size so every potato finishes tender at dinner.
Scatter the sliced kielbasa over the potatoes, letting some of the rounds fall down in between them. Don’t worry about making it pretty. It all settles together while it cooks, and frankly, this is a slow cooker supper—not a beauty pageant.
Sprinkle the dry onion soup mix evenly over the sausage and potatoes. Try to distribute it rather than dumping it in one damp little clump. Multitasking is mostly a scam.
Dot the top with the pieces of butter, spacing them around as best you can. The butter melts down through the sausage and potatoes and makes those savory juices at the bottom that everyone suddenly wants “just a little more” of.
Pour the low-sodium chicken broth around the edges of the slow cooker, rather than straight over the top. This keeps the onion soup mix from washing off the sausage. You only need a shallow layer of liquid; the potatoes and kielbasa will release some moisture as they cook.
Cover with the lid and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the potatoes are very tender when pierced with a fork and the kielbasa is hot all the way through. I prefer LOW when I can manage it—the potatoes seem especially soft and buttery that way—but HIGH has saved many a busy day.
Gently stir everything from the bottom of the slow cooker so the potatoes and kielbasa get coated in the buttery onion juices. Taste before adding salt, then add a pinch of salt and some black pepper only if it needs it. Serve hot, with plenty of those juices spooned over each portion.
Variations
The plain version is my favorite because it tastes like a comforting supper after a long day, without making a production out of it. But there are a few ways to nudge it around.
Tuck baby Carrots and sliced yellow onion underneath the potatoes. It adds sweetness and color, especially if you have one of those gloomy winter days where every dinner plate starts looking beige. A little dried thyme sprinkled over the top with the onion soup mix is nice, too.
If you want a stronger smoky flavor, use a particularly smoky kielbasa. A few drops of liquid smoke can be added to the broth, though I’d be careful with that stuff. A few drops means a few drops. Too much can make the whole kitchen smell like a wood stove indoors. Not ideal.
You can reduce the butter to 2 tablespoons and increase the broth to 3/4 cup for a lighter version. It’s still good, though I’m going to be honest: the full-butter version is better. I said it. We can all move on.
Skip Chopped bell peppers. They go soft and sort of disappear into the juices in a way nobody appreciates. Braised cabbage or sauerkraut served alongside, though? That’s a different story. Wonderful with the smoky sausage.
Storage & Reheating
Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for about 3 to 4 days in a covered container. If there are leftovers, which is not guaranteed.
For reheating, a skillet is my preferred method. Add the kielbasa and potatoes over medium-high heat with a splash of chicken broth or water, then let them warm through and brown a little on the edges. The potatoes get a faint crispness that’s honestly almost better than the first night. Almost. I hate when leftovers are better because it feels like dinner is judging you.
The microwave works, too, especially for lunch. Cover loosely and heat in short bursts so the potatoes don’t turn strange and rubbery. Spoon a little of the broth over the top before reheating if things look dry.
I don’t love freezing this one. You can, technically, but cooked potatoes change texture after freezing and thawing. They get a little grainy, and I have enough to be annoyed about without asking a potato to behave differently than potatoes do.
Final Notes
Serve this with green beans tossed with lemon, or a simple Salad with a sharp vinegar dressing. Something crisp helps cut through the rich sausage and butter. Soft dinner rolls are good, too, although then you’ll be mopping up every last drop from the bowl, and suddenly nobody has room for whatever dessert you thought you might make.
Not that dessert is always necessary. Sometimes a warm bowl of kielbasa and potatoes on a busy night is plenty.
There’s something comforting about a meal that doesn’t ask much from you. Five ingredients. One cooker. A house that smells warm when you come in from the cold or the rain or one of those irritating days where the traffic was terrible for no clear reason.
And on the nights when everybody is talking over each other, passing bread, reaching for more sausage before you’ve even sat down—well. That’s about as close to a good evening as I know how to get.
Slow Cooker Amish Kielbasa Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds small baby potatoes Rinsed and left whole, or halved if larger than a golf ball; do not peel
- 1 1/2 pounds smoked kielbasa sausage Sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter Cut into small pieces
- 1 packet dry onion soup mix About 1 ounce
- 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 pinch salt Only if needed after cooking
- freshly ground black pepper Only if needed after cooking
Instructions
- Place the rinsed baby potatoes in an even layer across the bottom of a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, leaving small potatoes whole and cutting larger potatoes in half.
- Scatter the sliced kielbasa over the potatoes, letting some rounds fall between them.
- Sprinkle the dry onion soup mix evenly over the sausage and potatoes.
- Dot the top with the pieces of butter, spacing them around the slow cooker.
- Pour the low-sodium chicken broth around the edges of the slow cooker rather than directly over the top.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the potatoes are very tender when pierced with a fork and the kielbasa is hot throughout.
- Gently stir everything from the bottom of the slow cooker so the potatoes and kielbasa are coated in the buttery onion juices, taste, add salt and black pepper only if needed, and serve hot with the juices spooned over each portion.