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EveryCheese

Pasta, rice and grains

Käsespätzle

Soft egg noodles layered with grated mountain cheese and topped with crisp fried onions.

Käsespätzle are fresh egg spätzle layered while hot with grated cheese, so the cheese melts between them, and topped with onions fried until brown and crisp. They come from Swabia, the Allgäu and Vorarlberg, and are sometimes called the macaroni cheese of southern Germany. A green salad is the usual partner.

What goes in

Bergkäse and Emmental: 26%26%Flour: 32%32%Eggs: 21%21%Onions: 16%16%Butter: 5%5parts
  • Bergkäse and Emmental526%, Grated, layered while hot.
  • Flour632%, For the spätzle.
  • Eggs421%, Bind the dough.
  • Onions316%, Fried brown and crisp.
  • Butter15%, For frying.

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 Beat flour, eggs, water and salt into a thick, bubbly batter and let it rest.
  2. Step 2: Fry Slice onions and fry them slowly in butter until brown.
  3. Step 3: Simmer Press or scrape the dough into boiling salted water and lift out the spätzle as they rise.
  4. Step 4: Grate Grate the cheeses.
  5. Step 5: Layer Layer hot spätzle and cheese in a warm dish.
  6. Step 6: Melt Keep warm until the cheese melts, then top with the onions and serve.
  7. Bergkäse and Emmental: 26%26%Flour: 32%32%Eggs: 21%21%Onions: 16%16%Butter: 5%
    Finished Käsespätzle, by share.

Spätzle country

Spätzle are small dumplings or noodles made from a wet dough of flour and eggs, scraped off a board into boiling water or pressed through a perforated tool. They are a staple of Swabian cooking in Baden-Württemberg. In the Allgäu and the Austrian Vorarlberg, where dairy farming is strong, they are layered with local mountain cheeses to make Käsespätzle, often called Kässpätzle locally.

The cheese

The usual cheeses are Allgäu Emmentaler and Bergkäse, sometimes with a sharper, more pungent cheese such as Weißlacker or a Limburger type to give a strong smell. In Vorarlberg, Bergkäse and Räßkäse are typical. The layers are kept hot in a dish in the oven or on the stove so the cheese melts completely before serving.

Where it is used

Weekday supperMountain hut lunch

The cheeses in it

EmmentalGives a long, stretchy melt.LimburgerSome cooks add it for a sharper smell.

Also part of it, and being written: Bergkäse (Mountain cheese of the Allgäu and Vorarlberg.).

More on EveryCheese

🇨🇭 Switzerland and 5 moreEmmentalEmmentaler A yellow, medium-hard Swiss cheese with natural holes, aged for several months.Cow · Semi-hard · Savoury and brothy

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.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven cheeses you may not know, the cheese days of the week ahead, and one dish explained step by step.