Hungarian cuisine is renowned for its ability to combine quality ingredients and create perfect harmonies of flavors and aromas. Hungarians love food, including sweet desserts, so in Hungary, you’ll find many cafes and restaurants offering excellent dishes. Hungarian cuisine is also partially inspired by the cooking of neighboring countries, taking the best from Austrian, Bulgarian, and even Turkish cuisines.
The most important ingredients in Hungarian cuisine include meat, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, baked goods, and spices. A key component of Hungarian cuisine is paprika, both sweet and spicy, as well as cream, which softens the dishes. Spicy paprika is used generously, making Hungarian cuisine the spiciest in all of Europe.
Highly popular are various sausages, ground meats, game, freshwater fish, goose liver, and soups. We must not forget the world-famous Tokaj wine. Among vegetables, the most commonly used are onions, garlic, tomatoes, cabbage, kale, potatoes, and paprika.
Dishes are prepared by baking, stewing, grilling, smoking, drying, and pickling.
Selected traditional Hungarian specialties:
Gulyás – guláš – a famous Hungarian dish known worldwide needs little introduction. It is a stew, most commonly made with beef, vegetables, and seasoned with ground paprika. It is typically served with white bread or pasta and is thinner than Paprikash and Pörkölt. Its thicker variations are Pörkölt (Perkelt) and Tokány.
Halászlé – a very popular fish soup made from freshwater fish, originally a fishermen’s dish from the Danube region. The broth typically includes large chunks of carp, although the best options are often catfish or pike. Ingredients such as onions, garlic, ground paprika, tomatoes, pepper, chili, and sometimes white wine are added. The recipe varies by region, and Hungarians often debate which version is the best and most flavorful.
Töltött paprika – peppers stuffed with ground meat, spices, and rice, stewed in tomato sauce.
Lecsó – a vegetable dish. A mixture of chopped peppers stewed with tomatoes, onions, and ground paprika, with eggs and hot peppers added to give the dish a pleasant spiciness.
Koloszváry töltött káposzta – Kolozsvár Stuffed Cabbage – cabbage leaves filled with a stuffing and stewed in a sauce. The most common filling includes ground meat, vegetables, rice, and spices, with several variations of the recipe.
Hortobágyi palacsinta – Palačinka stuffed with meat mixture – a pancake filled with a meat mixture, served in a paprika cream sauce.
Paprikás – Stewed meat in a paprika cream sauce – the meat is typically poultry, but it can also be rabbit or lamb.
Lecsó (lečo) – a stewed dish made from peppers, onions, tomatoes, and eggs, often complemented with sausages.
Lángos – arguably the most famous Hungarian „street food“ dish. Fried dough patties, sprinkled with cheese and typically served with sour cream and garlic, or bacon and sauerkraut, paprika, sausage, eggs, and many other variations.