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Boards, snacks and starters

Cheese momo

Himalayan steamed dumplings filled with soft churpi or local cheese, often with greens, served with chilli sauce.

Momos are steamed dumplings eaten across Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the Himalayan foothills. Alongside meat and vegetable fillings, cheese momos are filled with soft churpi, fresh local cheese, sometimes mixed with cabbage, spinach or onion. They are served with a hot tomato and chilli sauce.

What goes in

Soft churpi or fresh cheese: 28%28%Flour dough: 33%33%Cabbage or spinach: 17%17%Onion, ginger and garlic: 11%11%Tomato chilli sauce: 11%11%5parts
  • Soft churpi or fresh cheese528%, Crumbled.
  • Flour dough633%, Thin wrappers.
  • Cabbage or spinach317%, Finely chopped.
  • Onion, ginger and garlic211%, Aromatics.
  • Tomato chilli sauce211%, To dip.

Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each ingredient's share of the dish.

Made step by step

Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house; this is one traditional way, in outline.

  1. Step 1: Knead Knead a firm dough of flour and water and rest it.
  2. Step 2: Grate Crumble the cheese and mix with greens, onion, ginger and salt.
  3. Step 3: Knead Roll small, thin wrappers with thinner edges.
  4. Step 4: Fill Fill each wrapper and pleat it closed into a round or half moon.
  5. Step 5: Simmer Steam on oiled trays until the wrappers turn translucent.
  6. Step 6: Serve Serve hot with tomato and chilli sauce.
  7. Soft churpi or fresh cheese: 28%28%Flour dough: 33%33%Cabbage or spinach: 17%17%Onion, ginger and garlic: 11%11%Tomato chilli sauce: 11%11%
    Finished Cheese momo, by share.

Himalayan dumplings

Momos are thought to have come from Tibet, and spread with Tibetan and Newar traders and later with Tibetan refugees. Today they are street food from Kathmandu to Delhi. In Sikkim, Darjeeling and Bhutan, where meat is not always eaten, cheese momos made with soft churpi, a fresh cheese from cow's or yak's milk, are a long-standing favourite.

Soft and hard churpi

Churpi comes in two forms. Soft churpi is a fresh, slightly sour cheese used in soups, curries and momo fillings. Hard churpi is dried until stone-hard and chewed for hours as a snack. For momos, soft churpi or a fresh cottage-style cheese is crumbled with greens and spices. In Bhutan, datshi momos are made with local datshi.

Where it is used

Street snackFamily mealFestival food

The cheeses in it

ChhurpiSoft churpi is the classic filling.DatshiUsed for Bhutanese datshi momos.

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Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text and drawings by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and kitchen makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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