Khachapuri
Boat-shaped bread filled with molten cheese and topped with a raw egg to swirl in.
Vegetarian
⚠ Contains: Gluten, Dairy, Egg. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
How this varies: The other major household style is Imeretian khachapuri — a round, fully enclosed stuffed flatbread (no visible egg well, no boat shape) using a roughly 2:1 blend of imeruli to sulguni — it's the everyday version most Georgian families make at home, versus Adjarian being more of a specialty/restaurant dish from the Adjara region.
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) instant yeast
- 1 cup warm milk or matsoni (Georgian soured milk) / plain yogurt thinned with milk
- 1 egg, 2 tbsp butter, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt (for dough)
- 300g sulguni cheese, shredded (or, if unavailable, low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella as a substitute base)
- 150g feta or imeruli cheese, crumbled (approximates the tang of Georgian imeruli)
- 2 eggs (for topping)
- 2 tbsp butter, extra, cut into pats
Steps
- Combine flour, yeast, warm milk, egg, butter, sugar, and salt into a soft dough; knead 8 minutes until smooth and elastic.
- Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Divide dough in two; roll each into a long oval about 1cm thick.
- Fold the long edges up and inward, twisting and pinching the ends into two pointed tips that curl upward, forming a boat shape with raised sides to hold the filling.
- Fill the boats with the mixed sulguni and feta/imeruli.
- Bake at 220C (425F) for 10-12 minutes until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbling but not yet fully set at the very center.
- Working quickly, crack an egg into the center well of each hot khachapuri and add a pat of butter, then return to the hot oven for 2-3 minutes more — just long enough for the egg white to set while the yolk stays runny.
- Serve immediately, stirring the egg and butter into the molten cheese before tearing off bread to dip.