The Austrian Liptauer Recipe is a flavorful cheese spread enriched awith Paprika and similar spices and ingredients.
If you like cream cheese varieties spread over your bread, you might enjoy my spicy cream cheese spread.
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What is Liptauer?
Liptauer is a well seasoned and spiced cottage cheese spread.
This particular spicy spread is traditionally made with sheep's milk cheese, also known as bryndza.
Liptauer originated in the region of Liptov in Slovakia, which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the fall in 1918.
The spread was popular at that time among the royal circle and was served with a caviar topping at court and in noble restaurants in Vienna.
Nowadays, the cheese spread is served as a snack in most homes in Austria, Slovenia, and surrounding countries.
In Hungary the Liptauer is served as an appetizer known as körözött.
Origins
My family and I had taken a short vacation to east Austria with the aim of discovering and learning more about our culture.
East Austria is known for its White Wine and Viticultural areas in the whole world.
The local inns are run by so-called Weinbauer, known in English as winegrowers.
If you ever get to travel to east Austrian regions such as Styria, try to frequent a Buschenschank Inn (also called Heuriger, just like the drink!).
Buschenschanken serves up local delicacies such as wine, cheese, cold cuts, and also the Liptauer spread.
Homemade bread is rather common as well so the best way to taste the cheese spread is in Styria in a Buschenschanken OR you can recreate the same setting at home.
📖 Recipe
Austrian Liptauer Recipe
Ingredients
For the spread:
- 3.5 Ounces Fresh Cottage Cheese *See Notes
- 2 Tablespoons Butter soft
- 1 Tablespoon Onion chopped
- 1 Piece Garlic Clove chopped
- 1 Teaspoon Dijon Mustard
- 1 ½ Teaspoon Paprika Powder sweet variety
- ¼ Teaspoon Caraway Seeds Whole
- ¼ Teaspoon Salt
- Black Pepper Ground pinch
to Garnish:
- Bell Pepper sliced or diced small
- Pickles chopped
- Capers optional
- Pink Radish slices
Instructions
- Grab a bowl and add the soft butter together with the quark and mix well. See that no bits are left and the mixture is smooth.
- Clean, rinse the Onion and Garlic and chop fine, add them to the quark/butter mix.
- Throw in the rest of the spices and salt to the combination and mix it well.
- Garnish with red capsicum, pickled cucumbers and capers.
Notes
- Use a cottage cheese rich in fats for the best results, avoid low-fat cottage cheese! If you can get cottage cheese from a farmer's market, that would be the best option. If you can get 20% fat fresh cottage cheese, such as the Slovakian bryndza sheep cheese, that would be the most suitable choice. Of course these are hard to get by, so 4% to 6% cottage cheese will have to do.
- You can also use Mascarpone or other flavorless plain cream cheese variations.
- In Eastern Europe sheep cream cheese is still very common, and it lends the Liptauer a certain special flavor.
Nutrition
Serving
Serve up the Liptauer cheese spread as part of your cheese and charcuterie board.
I love to serve a white wine but a red wine of your choice will bring out the flavors of your cheese spread too.
Spread some of it into your sandwich bread with other cold cuts.
The Liptauer makes a great snack time savory treat and it's a common school break time snack with black bread for kids in Austria.
Or turn it into a Liptauer cheese dip by serving up salted sticks or a pretzel with it, inspired by the Bavarian Obatzda cheese dip.
You can garnish the cheese spread with caraway seeds or chopped garden cress.
More Recipes
- Austrian cold appetizers with cold cuts
- Clear Soup
- Austrian Beef Liver Pate
- Salmon Lox Spread
If you are planning to travel the wonderful Austrian plains, then you might need this food English/German/Austrian German translation, and you might appreciate a general Austrian German translation to common travel terms.
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with Spices and Herbs
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Laura says
Great recipe! How long can it be stored for/ what is its life expectancy? Not sure with the fresh onion how long it will keep. How many grams of liptauer is made per serve? And is it just a clove of garlic?
I Wilkerson says
This looks good. I'll bet you could put some on a regular sandwich too and turn it into something more special...
Nami | Just One Cookbook says
It's first time hearing this spread but now I know. 🙂 I'm really interested in Austrian dishes as I'm not familiar. I wish we can be more exposed to them in the US. Looks and sounds delicious though! Thanks for educating us! 🙂
Rosa May says
Liptauer spread is not something unknown to me, but I have never eaten it. I bet it tastes wonderful! We eat a lot of quark in Switzerland.
Cheers,
Rosa
Louise Volper says
You really have such an enjoyable blog, Helene. I just never know what I will find when I arrive and your stories are always so personal.
I have experienced Liptauer and I immediately grew quite fond of it. Black bread has never been one of my fortes either. I love what you have done with this spread and the fact that there was no paprika available didn't harm it one tiny bit:)
Thank you so much for sharing...
Lizzy Do says
I'd definitely try this creamy spread on brown bread....new to me, too, but it sounds delightful!
Nami | Just One Cookbook says
Hi Helene! It's unfortunate that I've never heard of this spread. I learn so many new ingredients and recipes/food from blog hopping. I'd never know if I wasn't visiting food blogs! I would love to try this spread - according to your recommendation it sounds amazing. 🙂
Sissi says
Actually bryndza is produced for centuries in both Slovakia and Poland. Both countries have registered the name as a regional product in the European Union. Frankly, I even didn't know about the Slovakian one, but knew only the Polish bryndza.
This spread looks delicious and reminds me of a Hungarian cheese spread with paprika 🙂 Hungarians also add caraway seeds often. I must try making it one day.
Helene Dsouza says
Hungarian cheese spread what you mean is the same as in this post, the liptauer. Austria and hungary, slovakia etc used to be one empire and this spread used to be served to the royal court back then.
Laura says
Bryndza is originally branza, a Wallachian cheese that was brought by the Romanian Vlach shepherds across the Carpathian mountain ranges of Eastern and Central Europe. Branza is made either with cows or sheeps milk, despite bryndza only being known to be a sheeps cheese <3 It was described for the first time in the port of Dubrovnik 1370 as Vlach or Wallachian cheese.