A hearty North Dakotan soup with dumplings, potatoes, and tender pheasant meat.
Pronounced “nef-la,” this hearty North Dakotan soup is stuffed with potatoes and dumplings associated to German spaetzle. When German immigrants settled in America, significantly within the North Dakota area, knoephla was born. In comparison with Southern dumplings, knoephla is denser and chewier.
There are numerous variations of knoephla, and in my analysis, I got here throughout many feedback from North Dakotans about how their grandmother used to make it. Each household makes knoephla soup in their very own approach. And though most recipes don’t embody meat, pheasant meat works fairly properly so as to add a little bit of protein. Be happy to make it your personal this looking season.


Pheasant and Knoephla Soup Recipe
A hearty, German-inspired North Dakotan soup recipe with dumplings, potatoes, and tender pheasant meat, excellent for these chilly days.
Prep Time 30 minutes minutes
Prepare dinner Time 2 hours hrs
Course Soup
Delicacies German
Knoephla Dumplings
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour1 tbsp recent dill finely chopped1 tbsp recent parsley finely chopped¾ tsp positive sea salt½ tsp floor pepper1 massive egg7 tbsp complete milk plus further
In a heavy-bottomed pot, soften the butter over medium warmth. Pat pheasant items dry with paper towels and season with salt. Brown the pheasant on each side within the butter and take away it from the pot.
Add the chopped celery, onion, diced carrots, and a pinch of salt to the remaining butter. Sweat the greens till the onion turns into translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Then, add garlic and stir for 30 seconds till aromatic. Add the pheasant items again to the pot, together with 6 cups of water. Convey it to a boil and stir within the hen base to dissolve. Decrease warmth to a simmer and prepare dinner lined for 1 to 1.5 hours or till the pheasant turns into tender.
In the meantime, make the knoephla dumplings. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, dill, parsley, salt, and pepper. Then, make a effectively in the midst of the flour and add one egg. Use a fork to flippantly beat the egg, then pour milk into the effectively. Incorporate the dry substances into the moist substances, then flippantly knead till you get a ball. Don’t overwork the dough.
Place the dough onto a flippantly floured floor and divide into 4 equal items. Working with one piece at a time, roll it into a skinny log about ¾ inch in diameter. Minimize the log into small, bite-size items. (In hindsight, I’d’ve most popular smaller items than what I made attributable to their density.) Place the uncooked dumplings, not touching, on a cookie sheet lined with wax or parchment paper. Maintain dumplings lined with a towel to maintain them from drying out when you work with the remaining dough.
When tender, take away the pheasant from the soup and set it apart. Convey the soup to a boil after which drop in dumplings one after the other, stirring often to stop clumping. Convey soup right down to a simmer, cowl, and prepare dinner for 10 minutes. In the meantime, peel the potatoes and lower them into 1-inch cubes. Shred the pheasant into bite-size items and discard the bones.
Add potatoes and shredded pheasant again to the pot. Add milk and return to simmer. Prepare dinner till potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring often. Don’t enable the milk to boil. Season to style and luxuriate in.
Learn Extra
Corned Pheasant and Hash
Vietnamese Pheasant Congee – Rice Porridge
A Information to Wild Pheasant Looking in North America
Pushing and Blocking Methodology of Pheasant Looking


Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley is an out of doors author, photographer and editor in Nebraska. Jenny based Meals for Hunters in 2011. Discover her wild sport recipes in quite a few looking and fishing publications.
Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley
October 11, 2024