Boards, snacks and starters
Liptauer
A paprika-red spread of fresh sheep or curd cheese, butter, onion and caraway, eaten on rye bread.
Liptauer is a spiced cheese spread named after the Liptov region of northern Slovakia. Fresh cheese is beaten with butter, sweet paprika, caraway, onion and often mustard or capers, until smooth and orange-red. It is spread on dark bread and eaten in Vienna's wine taverns, in Hungary as körözött and across the old lands of the Habsburg monarchy.
What goes in
- Bryndza or quark747%, Fresh sheep or cow's cheese.
- Butter320%, Softened.
- Sweet paprika17%, Colour and flavour.
- Onion and chives213%, Finely chopped.
- Caraway17%, Whole or ground.
- Mustard or capers17%, Optional.
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.
Step 1: Rest Drain the cheese if it is wet and press it through a sieve. Step 2: Knead Beat it with softened butter until smooth. Step 3: Knead Mix in paprika, caraway, onion and any extras. Step 4: Rest Chill for an hour so the flavours settle. Step 5: Serve Serve on rye bread with radishes and chives. Finished Liptauer, by share.
From Liptov sheep cheese
The original base was bryndza, the soft, salty sheep's cheese of the Slovak mountains, which Liptov traders sold widely in the nineteenth century. Vienna adopted the spread under the name Liptauer. Since bryndza was not always to hand, cooks across the empire used quark or other fresh cow's cheese instead, and many versions today use only cow's milk.
In the Heuriger
In the Heuriger, the seasonal wine taverns of Vienna, Liptauer is part of the cold buffet, served with radishes, chives and slices of rye bread alongside new wine. In Hungary, körözött is eaten for breakfast or as a snack with green peppers. Each household adds its own extras, such as chopped gherkin, anchovy paste or beer.
Where it is used
The cheeses in it
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Sources and further reading
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.
- Quark: SKopp, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bryndza: Kagor, GFDL, source