Hungarian cuisine features hearty soups, stuffed vegetables, meat stews, and sweet pastries. Influenced by neighboring cultures over centuries, it combines paprika-flavored dishes with noodles, dumplings, and cold fruit soups. Staple meals include stuffed cabbage, goulash soup, paprika chicken, and palacsinta crepes filled with various savory or sweet fillings. Sausages, salami, and cheeses also feature prominently in Hungarian breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

1. TRADITIONAL HUNGARIAN CUISINE

2. General features 1
• Hungarians are especially passionate about their soups,
desserts, pastries and stuffed pancakes (palacsinta)
• Regional variations of the same dish (like the Hungarian hot fish
soup called fisherman's soup or halászlé, cooked differently on
the banks of Hungary's two main rivers: the Danube and the
Tisza)
• Other famous Hungarian dishes: paprikás (paprika stew, meat
simmered in thick creamy paprika gravy) served with nokedli
(small dumplings), gulyás (goulash), Gundel palacsinta
(pancakes served flambéed in dark chocolate sauce filled with
ground walnuts) and Dobos cake (layered sponge cake, with
chocolate buttercream filling and topped with a thin caramel
slice).
• Two remarkable elements of Hungarian cuisine:
a) different forms of vegetable stews called főzelék
b) cold fruit soups, like cold sour cherry soup

3. General features 2
• Meat stews, casseroles, steaks, roasted
pork, beef, poultry, lamb or game and the Hungarian
sausages (kolbász) and winter salami are a major part of
Hungarian cuisine. The mixing of different varieties of meat
is a traditional feature of the Hungarian cuisine.
Goulash, stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbages or fatányéros
(Hungarian mixed grill on wooden platter) can combine
beef and pork, sometimes mutton.
• Various kinds of noodles and dumplings, potatoes and rice
are commonly served as a side dish. The Hungarian
cuisine uses a large variety of cheeses, but the most
common are: quark, cream cheeses, ewe-cheese
(juhtúró), Emmentaler, Edam and the Hungarian cheeses
Trappista, Pálpusztai and Pannonia cheese.

4. Spices
• Hungarian food is often spicy, due to the common use of
hot paprika. Sweet (mild) paprika is also common.
Additionally, the combination of paprika, lard and yellow
onions is typical of Hungarian cuisine, and the use of the
thick sour cream called tejföl.
• In addition to various kinds of paprika and onions
(raw, sweated, seared, browned or caramelized), other
common flavor components include:
white and black peppercorn, parsley, bay
leaf, dill, caraway, marjoram, thyme and creeping
thyme, mustard
(prepared), tarragon, vinegar, savory, lovage, chervil, lem
on juice and peel, almond, vanilla, poppy
seeds, cinnamon, coriander, rosemary, juniper
berries, anise, basil, oregano, allspice, horseradish, clove
s, mace, safflower.

5. History 1
Hungarian cuisine has influenced the history of the
Hungarian people. The importance of livestock and the
nomadic lifestyle is apparent in the prominence of meat in
Hungarian food and may be reflected in traditional meat
dishes cooked over the fire like goulash (in Hungarian
"gulyás", lit. "herdsman's (meal)"), pörkölt stew and the
spicy fisherman’s soup called halászlé are all traditionally
cooked over the open fire in a bogrács (cauldron). In the
15th century, King Matthias Corvinus and his Neopolitan
wife Beatrice, influenced by Renaissance
culture, introduced new ingredients and spices like
garlic, ginger, mace, saffron and nutmeg, onion and the use
of fruits in stuffings or cooked with meat. Some of these
spices like ginger and saffron are no longer used in modern
Hungarian cuisine. At that time and later, considerable
numbers of Saxons (a German ethnic
group), Armenians, Italians, Jews and Serbs settled in the
Hungarian basin and in Transylvania

6. History 2
Elements of ancient Turkish cuisine were adopted during the
Ottoman era, in the form of sweets (for example different
nougats, like white nougat called törökméz, quince sweets, Turkish
Delight), Turkish coffee, the cake called bejgli or rice dishes like pilaf
(in Transylvania), meat and vegetable dishes like the eggplant, used
in eggplant salads and appetizers, stuffed paprika and stuffed
cabbage. Hungarian cuisine was influenced by Austrian cuisine
under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; dishes and methods of food
preparation have often been borrowed from Austrian cuisine, and
vice versa. Some cakes and sweets in Hungary show a strong
German-Austrian influence. All told, modern Hungarian cuisine is a
synthesis of ancient Asiatic components mixed with
Germanic, Italian, and Slavic elements. The food of Hungary can be
considered a melting pot of the continent, with its own original
cuisine from its original Magyar people.

7. Breakfast …
• In Hungary people usually have a large breakfast. Hungarian
breakfast generally is an open sandwich with fresh bread or a
toast, butter, cheese or different cream cheeses, túró cheese or
körözött (Liptauer cheese spread), cold cuts such as ham, véres
hurka (similar to black pudding), liver paté (called májkrém or
kenőmájas), bacon, salami, beef tongue, mortadella, disznósajt
(head cheese), sausages like kabanos, beerwurst or different
Hungarian sausages or kolbász. Even eggs, (fried, scrambled or
boiled), French toast called bundáskenyér and vegetables (like
peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, radish, scallion and cucumber)
are part of the Hungarian breakfast. Sometimes breakfast is a cup
of milk, tea or coffee with pastries, a bun, a kifli or a strudel with
jam or honey, or cereal like muesli and perhaps fruit. Children can
have rice pudding (tejberizs) or Cream of Wheat (tejbegríz) for
breakfast topped with cocoa powder and sugar. Hot drinks are
preferred for breakfast.

8. Lunch …
… is the major meal of the day, usually with several courses.
Cold or hot appetizers may be served sometimes (for example
fish, egg or liver), then soup. Soup is followed by a main dish. A
main dish can be a sweet pastry dish or dish including meat and
salad, which precedes the dessert. Fruit may follow. In Hungary,
pancakes are served as a main dish, not for breakfast. Salad is
always served with meat dishes, made of lettuce with tomatoes,
cucumbers and onions or a simple thin sliced cucumber salad in
vinaigrette. Salads are made of boiled potatoes, vegetables,
hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, fried or boiled meat or fish, in
vinaigrette, aspic or mayonnaise. These salads are eaten as
appetizers or even as a main course.

9. Dinner …
Some people and children eat a light meal in
the afternoon, called uzsonna, usually an open
sandwich.
Dinner is a far less significant meal than lunch.
It may be similar to breakfast, usually an open
sandwich, yogurt or virsli (hot dog sausage)
with a bun, more seldom a cake, pancakes
(palacsinta), and it consists of only one course.

10. Soups
• Gulyásleves (goulash soup; it is possible to cook gulyas like a
stew as well, for example székelygulyás)
• Halászlé (a famous hot and spicy fish soup with hot paprika)
• Húsleves (clear chicken (or veal meat) soup with soup
vegetables and thin soup pasta called csipetke)
• Hideg meggyleves (chilled sour-cherry soup)
• Jókai bableves (a bean soup named after the author Jókai Mór)
• Vadgombaleves (wild mushroom soup)
• Borleves (wine soup)
• Palócleves (named after the Palóc, an ethnic group of
Northeastern Hungary)
• Köménymagleves (caraway seed soup)

11. Goulash soup Fish soup
Sour cherry soup Bean soup

12. Main courses 1
• Töltött káposzta (stuffed cabbage)
• Töltött paprika (Stuffed peppers - ground meat, rice and spices
are used for the filling)
• Főzelék (thick vegetable stew)
• Lecsó (mixed vegetable stew)
• Pecsenye (thin pork steak served with cabbage or the dish
fatányéros, a Hungarian mixed grill on wooden platter)
• Wiener schnitzel (called Bécsi szelet)
• Stefánia szelet or Stefania slices (Hungarian meatloaf with hard
boiled eggs in the middle. Makes decorative white and yellow
rings in the middle of the slices)
• Túrós csusza. (noodles with quark cheese called túró - served
savoury with bacon or sweet)
• Székelygulyás (Goulash stew; can be made from three kinds of
meat and sauerkraut)
• Pörkölt (meat stew - similar to ragù)

13. Main courses 2
• Paprikáscsirke nokedlivel - paprika chicken with Nokedli (a stew with
a lot of sweet paprika, cream or sour cream called tejföl)
• Paprikás krumpli (paprika-based stew with spicy sausage and
potatoes)
• Rakott krumpli (potato casserole, se recipe on Wikibooks Cookbook)
(best cooked by Anita Gergely)
• Rakott káposzta (layered cabbage with Pörkölt and rice and sour
cream- recipe from Transylvania)
• Császármorzsa (sweet crepe crumbs)
• Hortobágyi palacsinta (savoury crepe filled with veal stew)
• Rántott sajt, (flat cheese croquette, cheese rolled in breadcrumbs
and, deep fried)
• Gundel palacsinta (Gundel crepe, stuffed with walnuts and served in
chocolate sauce, often flambéed)
• Szilvás gombóc and nudli (sweet plum dumplings and small
noodles, rolled in sweet fried butter breadcrumbs or streusel)
• Túrógombóc (Hungarian sweet quark cheese dumpling)

14. Hortobágyi pancake Chiken paprika with ‘nokedli’
Stuffed cabbage Gundel pancake filled with
nuts and chocolate sauce

15. Stuffed cabbage Lecsó
Fatányéros: „mixed plate” Stove cake

16. Meatloaf with egg Noodles with quark cheese
Sweet plum dumpling

17. Sausages and cold cuts
• Hurka (sausage, two types: liver sausage called májas hurka,
made of pork liver, meat and rice and black sausage called
véres hurka, which is equivalent to the black pudding)
• Téliszalámi - (or Winter salami, salami made of spiced meat,
cold smoked, and dry ripened, the most famous brand made
by Pick Szeged)
• Herz Szalámi from Budapest
• Csabai szalámi and kolbász (spicy salami and smoked
sausage, made in the town Békéscsaba)
• Gyulai kolbász (spicy sausage, made in the town Gyula)
• Debreceni kolbász (Debrecener sausage)
• Disznósajt (head cheese, meat jelly, meat slices in aspic with
additional gelatin)
• Szalonna (Hungarian bacon, fatback, back bacon rind, has
more fat than usual breakfast bacon)
• Virsli (a Frankfurter-like long and thin sausage, consumed
boiled with bread mustard)

18. ‘Téliszalámi’ Bacon topped
with crushed red pepper
Csabai kolbász ‘Black pudding’

19. Sweets and cakes 1
• Dobos torta (sponge cake layered with chocolate paste and
glazed with caramel and nuts)
• Rigó Jancsi (Cube-shaped sponge cake with dark chocolate
glaze)
• Gesztenyepüré (cooked and mashed sweet chestnuts with
sugar and rum, topped with whipped cream).
• Bejgli (cake roll eaten at Christmas and Easter.)
• Kürtőskalács Stove cake or Chimney cake, cooked over an
open fire—a Transylvanian specialty, famous as Hungary's
oldest pastry
• Csöröge (crispy, light Hungarian Angel Wing fry cookies a
twisted thin fried cookie made of yeast dough, dusted with
powdered sugar)
• Vaníliás kifli (vanilla croissant, small, crescent shaped biscuits)

20. Sweets and cakes 2
• Piskóta (thin, light, sweet delicate, crispy cookie)
• Rétes (strudel)
• Kuglóf (Kuglóf cake, a traditional Austro-Hungarian coffee party
cake)
• Lekváros bukta or bukta (a baked dessert filled with jam, túró or
ground walnuts)
• Lekváros tekercs (Rolled up soft sponge cake filled with jam)
• Lekvár (Thick Hungarian jam)
• Birsalma sajt (Quince cheese, or quince jelly made of quince fruits)
• Madártej (Floating island, a dessert made of milk custard with
eggwhite dumplinds floating on top)
• Túró Rudi (sweet quark cheese - called túró - filled chocolate bar)
• Szaloncukor (flavoured candies which hang on the Christmas tree,
eaten at Christmas)
• Aranygaluska (dumplings or dough balls with vanilla custard)

21. Dobos cake ‘Beigli’ Strudel
Chestnut puree Floating island

22. Sweets and cakes 3
• Lángos (fried bread dough)
• Pogácsa (a type of bun, round puffed pastry with
bacon, traditionally cooked on the fire)
• Májgaluska (small liver dumplings used in different soups, for
example liverball soup)
• Grizgaluska (Hungarian boiled semolina dumplings used in soup).
• Tarhonya (a kind of large Hungarian "couscous", big pasta
grain, served as a side dish)
• Rizi-bizi (Hungarian risotto, white rice mixed with green
peas, served as a side dish)
• Körözött or Liptai túró (cheese spread with ground sweet paprika
and onions)
• Libamájpástétom (Hungarian delicacie: foie gras - goose liver pâté)
• Bundás kenyér (literally, "coated bread" or "bread with a
fur", French toast or Gypsy toast, a breakfast food)
• Bread (Hungarian bread - kenyér - is baked fresh every morning in
the bakeries.

23. Lángos Pogácsa Perec
Bread

24. Drinks
• Hungarian wines date back to at least Roman times, and that
history reflects the country's position between the Slavs and the
Germanic peoples. The best-known wines are the white dessert
wine called Tokaji (after the North-Eastern region of Hungary,
Tokaj) and the red wines from Villány (Southern part of
Hungary). Famous is also the wine called Bull's Blood (Egri
bikavér), a dark, full-bodied red wine. Hungarian fruit wines, like
redcurrant wine, are mild and soft in taste and texture.
• Though not as famous as the country's wines, Hungarian beer
has a long history as well. Hungary's most notable liquors are
Unicum, a herbal bitters, and pálinka, a range of fruit brandies.
• Also notable are the 21 brands of Hungarian mineral waters. (for
example Apenta, Margitszigeti and Kékkúti) Some of them have
therapeutic value, like Mira.
• Traubi or Traubisoda, is a soft drink based on an Austrian
license produced in Balatonvilágos since 1971.

25. Unicum Tokaji wine Apricot pálinka Sopron beer
Mineral water from Margaret Island Traubisoda