The other week I made one of my favorite foods, adjaruli khachapuri, which hails from one of my favorite countries—Georgia! After feasting on Georgian food all over Eastern Europe on my big trip in summer 2017, I knew I had to make a pilgrimage to the Caucasus to try this food in its home country. It did the next year in 2018, and it did not disappoint!

Khachapuri is a cheesy bread and one of Georgia’s most famous dishes. There are actually a lot of different varieties of khachapuri! Imeruli khachapuri is probably the most popular, and there are lots of other versions like megrulian and ossetian khachapuri. When we checked into our Airbnb in Tbilisi, our host’s mom had cooked us fresh khachapuri (imeruli khachapuri), which is the picture above! But by far my favorite khachapuri is adjaruli khachapuri.

Adjaruli khachapuri is traditionally from the Adjara region of Georgia, which is on the Black Sea. Boats are a part of everyday life near the Black Sea, hence the boat-like shape. The egg in the middle of the khachapuri is meant to represent the sun apparently!

Khachapuri is delicious and adjaruli khachapuri is nothing short of addicting. You can serve it all sorts of different ways: as a sharing appetizer with a couple of people, for a very cheesy-eggy brunch, or for a main meal. In this recipe I tried to list ingredients for both the US cooking system (cups!) and for the rest of the world (grams!). It’s not approximate, but it’s close enough and hopefully saves you having to google the conversions. Note that sulguni and imeruli cheeses are traditionally used for khachapuri. But they’re difficult to find outside of the Caucasus, and every recipe I’ve seen substitutes a mixture of shredded mozzarella and feta cheeses. This is what I used.

After a bit of a disaster when I made it last year, I combined a few different recipes (both from a cookbook and some online) to make this one. So many people on Instagram said they wanted a recipe as well, so here you go! I love khachapuri and with this recipe I hope you will too. If you can’t make it to Georgia yourself, here’s how to make adjaruli khachapuri at home!

Adjaruli Khachapuri Recipe

Makes: 4

Time Required: 2.5 hours

Ingredients: Dough

• ¾ cup warm water (about 80˚F) (~175 ml)
• ¾ cup warm milk (about 80˚F) (~175 ml)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups flour (plus extra for flour surfaces) (~500 grams)
• 1 ½ tsp salt

Ingredients: Filling

• 6 eggs
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese (shredded) (~250 grams)
• 6 oz. feta cheese (crumbled) (~160-180 grams)
• 2 tbsp butter (~60 grams)

Instructions For The Dough

1) Mix the water and milk in a large bowl. Add the sugar and mix. Sprinkle the yeast over the liquid. Let this stand for 5-10 minutes, until the yeast becomes foamy (don’t panic if your yeast doesn’t look overly foamy, mine didn’t!).

2) Mix the yeast into the liquid. Add in the oil and mix well.

3) Add in the salt. Then mix 4 cups of flour a little bit at a time, mixing after you add each bit in, until the mixtures becomes dough.

4) On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough by hand for 5-10 minutes. You can add flour to both the surface and your hands to keep it from sticking. You should have a soft (but not sticky) dough at the end.

5) Put the dough into a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth. Put the bowl in a warm place to rise for 1-1.5 hours, until the dough has roughly doubled in size and is lighter and a bit bubbly.

TIP: I turned on my oven on low (about 250˚F or 100˚ fan C), and put the bowl (with the dough) on a chair in front of the oven. That way there was warmer air circulating than usual, to help the dough rise.

Instructions For The Rest

1) You can make the filling while the dough is rising to save yourself some time! In a smaller bowl, mix the shredded mozzarella and crumbled feta cheese with one egg. Set aside.

2) Preheat your oven to 475˚F (245˚C or 220˚ fan C). After 1-1.5 hours, you’ll want to come back to check the dough.

3) Check to make sure the dough his risen. The easiest way to do this is to essentially poke the dough with two fingers about ½ inch. If an indentation remains after you take your fingers out, the dough is ready.

4) Punch the dough down and turn it on a floured surface. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Try to get these pieces to be even in size. I don’t much at all about baking bread or dough, so if you’re reading this and about to google punching dough, I got you. Here’s a nice helpful Youtube video.

5) Shape each piece of dough into an oval, anywhere from 9-12 inches long and 4-6 inches wide. The exact sizes aren’t all that important, as long as it is clearly an oval shape.

6) Fold up the sides of dough in towards the middle, to create almost a wall. This thick crust will make sure the filling stays inside.

TIP: If you want to get creative, mix a bit of the filling inside the sides of the dough so that there will be cheese inside the crust! (You’ll thank me later!)

7) Pinch and twist the two ends of each bit of dough into points. Again, stick a bit of the filling inside these bits if you want! The dough should look like a boat now.

8) Transfer each boat to a lightly greased baking sheet. I used two baking sheets, which each had two boats.

9) Spoon one-quarter of the filling into each doughy boat. Spread the filling into all the sides and corners of the boat. Make sure all the sides of the boat are still higher than the filling layer.

10) Crack an egg into a small bowl and mix well. Use a pastry brush to brush the egg liquid along the sides of the dough, and around the points of each boat.

11) Make a small indent in the middle of each cheese filling, then put them into the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, until lightly golden.

12) Take them out of the oven and give another brush over the bread with the egg mixture. You should have a slight indent in the middle of each khachapuri. Crack one egg and try to get the yolk into the indent (this stops the yolk spilling over). Put them back in the oven and bake for another 3-5 minutes, just until the egg has set and the yolk is starting to turn white.

13) Take out of the oven and place a large chunk of butter in the middle of the filling. Transfer to plates and serve warm.

TIP: In Georgia, it’s traditional to mix the egg, butter, and melted cheese filling with a fork to create a cheesy-buttery-eggy mix. Then tear off the sides of the crust and dip it into the middle. You can see a short 5-second clip of this in one of my vlogs above! (I know the preview shows my face, but the video will start at 0:28 seconds where you can see the khachapuri!)

What If I Want Leftovers?

More often than not, Adam and I cook our evening meals to have 4 portion sizes, so we will each have leftovers for lunch the next day. If you want to save one or two of the khachapuri for another day, follow the above instructions to step #10 and bake them. After they’ve cooled, plate them up and refrigerate them until you’re ready to eat.

The next day when you’re ready to eat them, turn your oven on to 475˚F (245˚C or 220˚ fan C). Put the boats in for about 5 minutes, to warm the cheese up. Then pick up the instructions at step #11—brush them again with egg, and then crack an egg over the top and bake again.

If you’re interested in more Georgian food, I have this wonderful cookbook: Supra: A Feast of Georgian Cooking. You can buy it on Amazon (UK) and Amazon (US)! There are so many recipes here and I’m embarrassed that I haven’t used it more. It’s a great introduction to all sorts of Georgian food!

Georgia is one of my favorite countries in the world. Tbilisi is a fantastic city, with so much to see and do. There are some really fun bars and some amazing viewpoints! You can easily take daytrips to Mtskheta, Kazbegi, and Gori. I also loved visiting Kutaisi! My favorite adjaruli khachapuri was at Cafe Pavilion in Tbilisi. And I ate khachapuri everywhere almost every day, so I did some serious taste-testing while I was there!

If you can’t get all the way to Georgia, I’ve had some pretty amazing Georgian food elsewhere in Europe. Saperavi in Moscow and Khachapuri y Vino in St. Petersburg are two of my favorites in Russia. I loved John Jolie and Khurma in Kiev as well. If you ever find yourself craving Eastern European food (khachapuri included!), I definitely recommend visiting The Admiral in Dublin—you might be the only non-Russian speaker, but weekend nights are lit.

I hope this recipe inspires you to bring a little bit of Georgia to your kitchen! And maybe even inspires you to take a trip to Georgia itself—it definitely convinced me!

Have you had khachapuri before? Excited to try the recipe? Share your experiences in the comments!

You might also like my posts:

All my Recipe posts!

20 Photos To Convince You To Visit Georgia

The Best Bars In Tbilisi, Georgia

44 Awesome Things You Must Do In Tbilisi: A Complete Guide To The Georgian Capital

How Much Does It Cost To Travel The Caucasus And Istanbul For 2.5 Weeks?

All of my Georgia posts!

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