Lithuanian traditional foods

Bulvinės bandos are a Dzūkija and Suvalkija dish: flat cakes shaped from grated-potato mass are baked on cabbage leaves in a bread oven.

Bulviniai blynai are an everyday Lithuanian grated-potato dish: thin pancakes are fried in a pan until the edges turn crisp and the center stays soft.

Cepelinai, also called didžkukuliai, are one of the most recognizable dishes of Lithuanian cuisine: large dumplings formed from grated and boiled potato mass,…

Kastinys with hot potatoes is one of the clearest combinations in Žemaitian dairy cooking.

Kugelis, often called bulvių plokštainis in Lithuanian, is an oven-baked grated potato dish with eggs, onions, hot milk, and cracklings.

Kukuliai is a broad Lithuanian kitchen term: it can mean potato, flour, meat, fish, curd cheese, or mushroom balls, boiled, braised, or baked and served with…

Švilpikai are pieces shaped from boiled-potato dough and browned in the oven or a pan, often served with mushroom, crackling, or sour-cream sauce.

Vėdarai are a traditional dish in which cleaned pig intestines are filled with grated potato mass or a blood and groat mixture, then baked until browned.

Žemaičių blynai are pan-fried pancakes shaped from boiled mashed potatoes and filled with meat, mushrooms, or curd cheese.

Baravykienė is a porcini mushroom soup in which the main flavor should come from porcini: fresh or dried.

Barščiai is a hot beet soup, cooked in Lithuania with broth, potatoes, carrots, sometimes cabbage, mushrooms, or fermented beets.

Bulvinių kukulių sriuba combines two traits of Lithuanian cooking: potato dough and warm soup.

Juka is an old blood soup associated with pig slaughter and the thrift of rural farm kitchens.

Mushroom soup is a Lithuanian forest-kitchen dish made from fresh or dried mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, onions, and sometimes groats or noodles.

Pieniška sriuba in Lithuanian cuisine is a broad group of everyday dishes: groats, potatoes, vegetables, dough crumbs, or dumplings cooked in milk.

Pupelių sriuba is a thick winter soup made from soaked common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), usually cooked with smoked pork or bones, onions, and root vegetables.

Raugintų kopūstų sriuba is a hearty Lithuanian winter soup made with sauerkraut, potatoes, carrots, onions, and often smoked pork.

Rūgštynių sriuba is a spring and summer green soup made with sorrel, potatoes, carrots, and onion, often served with boiled egg and sour cream.

Šaltibarščiai is Lithuania's bright pink summer soup made with kefir, beets, cucumbers, dill, scallions, and boiled egg.

Zacirka is a simple soup with flour crumbs rubbed between the fingers or torn small.

Žuvienė is a fisherman's fish soup cooked from fish heads, bones, fillets, potatoes, carrots, onions, and spices.

Balandėliai are cabbage leaves wrapped around ground meat with rice or groats and braised in tomato, sour cream, or broth-based sauce.

Lašiniai are salted, smoked, or dried pork fat, or fatty bacon, traditionally eaten in thin slices with rye bread, onion, and garlic, or used for cracklings and…

Lietuviškos dešros include fresh frying sausages, smoked sausages, blood sausages, and other stuffed meat products.

Pamario žuvies patiekalai are the cuisine of the Curonian Lagoon and coastal region, where the fishing catch - eel, smelt, flounder, and other lagoon and sea…

Rūkyta žuvis is a tradition of Lithuania's coast, lagoon, and lake regions: fish is salted or brined, dried, and smoked, often over alder smoke.

Rūkytas kumpis is a traditional preserved pork product: ham is salted, seasoned, dried, and smoked, then served in thin slices or warmed with potatoes, cabbage,…

Šaltiena is a Lithuanian meat aspic made from long-simmered meat and collagen-rich pork cuts that set without added gelatin.

Silkė su bulvėmis is a simple but very Lithuanian pairing: salted or marinated herring served with boiled potatoes, onions, oil, dill, and sometimes sour cream,…

Skilandis is a traditional Lithuanian aged and smoked meat product made from coarsely cut pork, pieces of fat, and spices stuffed into a natural casing.

Stuffed pike is a festive fish dish: the skin is carefully removed from the pike, the fish flesh is ground with additions, the stuffing is returned to the skin,…

Užkulas, elsewhere called taukinė, užtrinas, or įsnauja, is an old Lithuanian pork-fat product: belly fat seasoned with spices and garlic, wrapped in caul fat,…

Bėralinė duona was the everyday rye bread of Lithuanian peasants in the serfdom era, baked from flour ground from unwinnowed grain with chaff (bėralas).

Duonos kepimas in Lithuania is not only kitchen work: rye sourdough, scald, bread oven, bread peel, and respect for the loaf connect everyday food with home,…

Grikinė boba is a filling buckwheat-groat bake or casserole, most often associated with Dzūkija's buckwheat culture.

Juoda ruginė duona, Lithuanian black rye bread, is one of Lithuania's most important food symbols: fermented from rye flour, often scalded, flavored with…

Košės, porridges, are one of the oldest and simplest forms of Lithuanian cooking: groats, flour, potatoes, or vegetables are boiled in water or milk, seasoned…

Plikyta duona is a type of rye bread in which part of the flour is scalded with hot water.

Pupos su spirgučiais are an old Lithuanian peasant food made from boiled large-seeded garden fava beans (Vicia faba), seasoned with a sauce of fried bacon…

Ragaišis is a softer, lighter, and often more festive baked good than everyday rye bread.

Šiupinys is an old, hearty mixed dish of peas, beans, grains, meat, or spirgai, often associated with Užgavėnės and Žemaitian cooking.

In Lithuanian cooking, auselės is a variant name: it can refer to small ear-shaped dumplings with mushrooms or another filling, and in some places to thin sweet…

Grikiniai blynai are pancakes fried from buckwheat flour or cooked buckwheat groats, especially naturally connected with Dzūkija's buckwheat tradition.

Kibinai are Karaim pastries, in Lithuania most strongly associated with Trakai.

Koldūnai are small filled dough dumplings, in Lithuania most often boiled with meat, mushroom, or curd cheese filling.

Lietiniai blynai are thin Lithuanian pancakes made in a pan from a fluid batter of flour, eggs, and milk.

Sklindžiai are small, thicker Lithuanian pancakes made from a denser batter and spooned into a pan.

Skryliai are simple boiled pieces of flour dough cut into diamonds, triangles, or other shapes.

Varškėčiai are boiled, fried, or oven-baked dishes made from curd cheese, egg, and flour or semolina.

Virtiniai are Lithuanian boiled dough dishes with curd cheese, potato, mushroom, meat, or berry fillings.

Grietinė in Lithuanian cooking is not only something added to soup.

Kastinys is a dairy product characteristic of Žemaitija, hand-stirred from sour cream, butter, and soured milk products, flavored with caraway seeds, garlic, or…

Pasukos are the dairy by-product left after butter is churned from cream: a lean, biologically valuable, lightly sour liquid that in Lithuania was drunk, used…

Rūgpienis is one of the simplest and most important products in Lithuanian dairy cooking: soured milk eaten with potatoes, porridges, and bread, and used for…

Lithuanian sūriai include homemade curd cheese, caraway-flavored or dried cheese, and a separate tradition of aged rennet cheeses.

Sviestas, butter in Lithuanian cooking, connects dairy farming with bread, porridges, potatoes, baked goods, and kastinys.

Varškės sūris is one of Lithuania's most recognizable dairy products: cheese formed from curdled milk or curd cheese, pressed, and often flavored with caraway,…

Džiovinti grybai carry the forest season into winter.

Marinuoti grybai are a Lithuanian winter-table appetizer: pre-boiled wild mushrooms are covered with a sour spiced marinade and kept in jars.

In Lithuanian cuisine, mushrooms are both food and forest culture: they are gathered, dried, pickled, cooked in soups, fried with onions, used in dumplings, and…

Rauginti agurkai are cucumbers kept in salt brine with dill, garlic, horseradish or other leaves while lactic fermentation takes place.

Rauginti burokėliai and their rasalas are an old way to keep beets and obtain a sour base for beet soup, šaltibarščiai, or salads.

Raugintos daržovės žiemai are one of the most important Lithuanian ways to prepare stores: cabbage, cucumbers, beets, and other vegetables are fermented with…

Troškinti rauginti kopūstai is a winter dish or side in which sauerkraut is slowly braised with onions, carrots, spices, mushrooms, or smoked meat.

Meduoliai are spiced baked goods made with honey or syrup, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and other spices.

Obuolių sūris is not dairy cheese: it is a sweet made from long-cooked apples, sugar, and spices, then pressed and dried.

Šakotis is a festive Lithuanian cake traditionally baked by pouring egg- and butter-rich batter onto a rotating spit near heat.

Šaltnosiai, more often also written as šaltanosiai, are sweet Lithuanian dumplings with blueberries or other berries.

Šimtalapis is a pastry of Lithuanian Tatar gastronomy that has become a widely recognized festive dessert in Lithuania.

Skruzdėlynas is an impressive Lithuanian festive dessert made from thinly rolled dough sheets fried in oil, stacked into a tower, and drizzled with honey syrup.

Spurgos in Lithuania are most familiar as curd spurgos or yeast spurgos.

Tinginys is a modern Lithuanian home dessert: broken biscuits are mixed with a cocoa, butter, and condensed-milk mixture, shaped, and chilled.

Velykų pyragas is not one strict recipe, but a sweet bake enriched with butter and eggs, placed on the festive Easter table alongside margučiai, meat dishes,…

Žagarėliai are thin, twisted dough treats fried in oil and dusted with powdered sugar.

Aguonpienis is a white, sweet drink or cold soup made from soaked and crushed poppy seeds, traditionally served at Kūčios with kūčiukai.

Cibulynė is a cold Žemaitijan dish made from onions, herring, water, vinegar or herring brine, and pepper, most often eaten with hot potatoes.

Kūčių vakarienės patiekalai, the dishes of the Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner, form a quiet fasting table without meat or dairy: herring, mushrooms, beans,…

Kūčiukai are small poppy-seed baked pieces inseparable from the Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner.

Margučiai are not only folk-art objects but also edible symbols of the Easter table.

Velykų stalo patiekalai mark the end of Lent and the spring holiday: margučiai are eaten first, with šaltiena, ham, sausages, horseradish, salads, and sweet…

Wedding feasts in Lithuania connect the communal table, karvojus, homemade cakes, beer, and šakotis.

Avižinis kisielius is Lithuania's oldest kisielius: a sour, unsweetened dish made from oat flour fermented for two to three days.

Gilių kava is a coffee substitute made from oak acorns that are soaked, dried, roasted, and ground.

Gira is a traditional lightly fermented drink, in Lithuania most often made from rye bread, sugar or honey, water, and yeast or natural fermentation.

Keptinis alus is a rare branch of Lithuanian brewing associated with the Jūžintai area: barley malt mass is shaped into loaves, baked in an oven, then used to…

Krupnikas is a honey and spice liqueur associated with Lithuanian and Polish noble and later drink traditions.

Lietuviškas alus covers home-brewed, farmhouse, and industrial layers of beer, but the traditional core is barley malt, water, hops, yeast, wort, and the…

Midus is a naturally fermented honey drink with old historical memory in Lithuania and a modern protected-geographical-indication context in Stakliškės.

Naminis alus in Lithuania is especially associated with the brewing tradition of the Biržai and Kupiškis areas.

Spanguolių kisielius is a bright red, tart Lithuanian Kūčios and winter-table drink or dessert.

Sula is birch or maple sap collected in spring, drunk fresh, fermented, or preserved.

Trauktinės are strong, aromatic alcoholic drinks with a bitter edge, made by pouring spirit or vodka over herbs, roots, seeds, and berries and letting them…

Žolelių arbatos in Lithuania are made from local flowers, leaves, twigs, and fruits: chamomile, linden blossom, thyme, raspberry twigs, and wild strawberry…

In Lithuanian cooking, aguonos are most important at Christmas Eve and in baked goods: they are used for aguonpienis, fillings, rolls, and as a topping for…

Hemp foods in Lithuanian cooking mean food-grade hemp seeds: roasted, crushed with salt, onion, or other additions, and eaten with potatoes.

Kepta duona is black rye bread fried in oil or crisped in the oven, rubbed with garlic, and often served with cheese, mayonnaise, or sour cream sauce.

Kmynai, caraway seeds, are one of the most recognizable Lithuanian seasonings: they are added to bread, curd cheese, kastinys, cabbage, meat products, and…

Krienai, horseradish, are a sharp Lithuanian table condiment eaten with meat, eggs, saltiena, and Easter dishes.

Spirgai are slowly fried pieces of lašiniai or fatty bacon with the rendered pork fat, often flavored with onions.

Martyno žąsis is a goose roasted for St.

Užgavėnių valgiai form a deliberately filling and fatty table on the last day of the winter meat-eating season before Lent: pancakes, Samogitian šiupinys,…

Žirniai su spirgučiais is an old peasant dish: dried peas are soaked, boiled until soft, and left whole or mashed, while spirgučiai, small fried cubes of bacon…