Khachapuri – Georgian Cheese Filled Bread

Khachapuri – Georgian Cheese Filled Bread is a flatbread which combines a delicious crust and salty, rich, and silky cheese filling. Irresistibly delicious! 

Hello, everyone. I hope you’re doing well. And I also hope you won’t mind some awesome gooey and cheesy recipe?

While this recipe is from Georgian cuisine, I believe it is very common in many former Soviet countries. Anyway, isn’t it interesting how one similar recipe or idea can often exist in different cuisines? Bread and particularly flatbread would be a good example. Bread and cheese would be even a better example. That’s awesome. Each country should have its own recipe of cheese bread, in my book.

Of course, some of you probably didn’t hear of Khachapuri – Georgian Cheese Filled Bread, but I doubt that. It’s been a very trendy food lately, and you can often see it popping up on the Instagram feed.

What’s the Khachapuri? Basically, it’s a yeast dough crust combined with the cheese filling and baked till golden and bubbly. Many people would also call this kind of bread a “cheese boat”. While I don’t have a purpose to find the similarities and differences with other similar recipes, I would like to mention what’s special about khachapuri.

• The filling is rather salty. The authentic recipes use local hard and soft salty cheeses produced in Georgia and the adherent territories. I believe it’s impossible to find these cheeses in North America, but the combination of feta and pizza mozzarella does a job.
• Butter it up. Literally. The khachapuri requires a good portion of butter. You add it in the filling which gives that extra decadent and luscious texture. Once it’s out from the oven, you need to butter the crust. And don’t forget to place an extra piece on top of the bubbly filling. Also: you can skip the gym today.
• There could be different ways to tackle the dough base, but I opted for the crust which is stuffed along the edges. Who needs just a crust when you can also stuff it with some cheese, right?
• You also add eggs into the filling; it helps to hold it together and enhance the flavour and texture;
• A traditional Georgian Khachapuri doesn’t require an extra egg on top of the filling. It’s an Adjaruli kind of khachapuri (Adjara – the region of Georgia).

Indeed, I never tried a khachapuri topped with an egg until this year. I was a little skeptical about the result, but I decided to give it a try. After all, it looks pretty, too.

The result didn’t disappoint us! You only need to bake an egg for a couple of minutes, so it’s firm from the outside but still runny inside. Then, you take a fork, and this is where all magic happens. The egg yolks combined with the cheesy filling and butter gives an extra rich, silky, and decadent texture. It works similar to carbonara. My advice: try versions with and without an egg. And I believe the ones with an egg won’t disappoint you.

That’s enough for today, my friends. I hope this recipe intrigued you, and you will try Khachapuri – Georgian Cheese Filled Bread one day.

Cheers.

Ben | Havocinthekitchen

Hi – I’m Ben, a blogger, recipe developer, and food photographer. I’m glad you’re here! I hope you will enjoy hundreds of delicious recipes and a pinch of havoc in the kitchen.