On the quest for the best khachapuri recipe

Khachapuri is a Georgian dish made of dough similar to pizza but with a boat shape, filled with cheese and eggs. So if you like to eat pizza, cheese and eggs, you should try khachapuri for breakfast or brunch. There are three different types of Georgian khachapuri and they are called after the names of the regions they are coming from: Imeruli, Megruli and Acharuli khachapuri. The most popular is adjaruli but here I will share with you recipes for imeruli khachapuri as well.

If you are on a special diet or you don’t like to consume pastry made with yeast, I have good news for you! At the bottom of my article you can also find keto khachapuri recipe and khachapuri recipe without yeast.

Adjaruli khachapuri recipe

I checked a lot of different khachapuri recipes online and compared the ingredients and the amount of each ingredient. Based on my long experience with making dough and pastry in general, I made a combination that sounds the most logical to me. I was very satisfied with my results. Here’s how to make adjaruli khachapuri with tasty and fluffy dough.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 ¹⁄₂ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 ½ tsp dry active yeast or 1/2 of fresh yeast cube (I used fresh yeast cube)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk or 1/2 cup natural yogurt (this time I used milk, but from my experience yogurt is also a good choice when you make phyllo pies.)
• 2-4 eggs (put one egg on each boat, or two eggs if you want to prepare bigger boat for two)
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed optional
• 1 1/2 cup Farmers cheese
• 1 1/2 cup Shredded mozzarella
• 1 1/2 cup Feta cheese
• Flake salt (optional)

NOTES

The choice of cheese is up to you. If you can find original sulguni cheese that’s perfect, but if you can’t you should try the mixture of these three types of cheeses. I put the same amount of each cheese, but if you prefer more of one type of cheese, you can reduce the amount of other cheese. In the end, it is important to fill the boat with a cheese feeling so if you need more cheese, feel free to add it.

If you like to taste salt on the edges of the pizza, you can also put flakes salt on the edges of the boat. This time I didn’t have flake salt but I put a regular one and the taste was very good.

When you measure flour, take it with a spoon and don’t pour it from the flour bag. In that way flour won’t be compact.

Here are the steps to prepare adjaruli khachapuri

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Combine dry ingredients in one bowl (flour, salt, sugar, and yeast if you use dry active yeast). Warm milk and add fresh yeast there (unless you didn’t use dry yeast). When milk and yeast are mixed well, add them to the bowl with flour.

Add olive oil and water and stir well with a spoon.

Put some flour on the surface where you will pour the dough and knead it.

First knead it with your hands by pressing your palms on it.
Leave it to rest for 30 minutes.

The next step is to cut the ball into pieces. I first cut the ball into 4 pieces because many recipes I found suggested that. Dough balls looked fine, but when I started making a boat from one ball, I noticed it was really hard to make a nice-looking boat from it. I needed more dough. So I combined two balls and ended up with 2 big boats.

One big boat is too much for one person, but you can share it with someone. If you want smaller boats, like one-person khachapuri boats, I would suggest you to try to cut the whole amount of dough into 3 and not 4 pieces.

The final step is to get a rolling pin and roll every dough ball until it looks smooth. Now comes the hardest but most interesting part, you need to make a boat of it. Even my boyfriend got interested in this part and helped me with one boat.

Start by flattening the dough until becomes flat and thin, like pizza dough. Fold the edges up and shape them to look like the edges of a boat, or a canoe.

Now, fill the boat with cheese mixture and brush the edges of the boat with a stirred egg. Optionally, you can add some salt or flakes salt on the edges. Bake for 15 minutes at 220 degrees Celsius or until the edges are golden. Don’t forget to put a baking sheet in your pan.

When khachapuri looks almost ready, make a hole in the middle of it and add one whole egg.

If you prepare 2 bigger boats like I did, I suggest you to put 2 eggs so you can easier share khachapuri. I didn’t do that so I had to cut one egg in half 😀

It takes 5 more minutes to bake the egg in the oven, but you can turn down the temperature a bit. Bake the egg according to your preferences.  

Imeruli khachapuri

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Imeruli khachapuri looks like Greek pita bread or Indian naan. It is flat and the dough is more stiff than the one you prepare for adjaruli khachapuri. In Georgia, they combine imeruli with sulguni cheese when preparing imeruli khachapuri.  Imeruli cheese is a mixture of cow’s milk and leftovers from other older cheeses.

As imeruli and sulguni cheeses are hard to find, unless you are located in Georgia, you can use this combination of cheeses that will give similar taste:

• Cheddar
• Emmental
• Cottage cheese
• Mozzarella

Apart from the combination here’s what you will need as well:

Ingredients for the dough:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon of dry yeast or ⅔ cubes of fresh yeast
• 150ml milk or yogurt
• 3 ½ tablespoons of oil or melted butter
• 1 full teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

Ingredients for the filling:

• 350 gr of cheeses in total (combine these four cheeses equally- cheddar, emmental, mozzarella, cottage cheese)
• some pepper
• 25 ml of water (optional)
• 1 egg, beaten

Grind these four cheeses in a small bowl and season them with pepper. Add half of the beaten egg in the filling, and keep the rest to brush the bread. If the filling is not consistent, add some water.

How to make the dough for imeruli khachapuri

If you use dry yeast, combine it with all dry ingredients first. In other bowl, combine all wet ingredients and finally mix everything into one bowl. If you use fresh yeast, put the cube of yeast into a warm milk and let it melt. After 10 minutes, some foam should appear. Add other ingredients into the bowl and knead the mixture well. When you are done with kneading, cover the dough with a cloth and leave it to rest at the room temperature.

Put some oil on your hands and knead the dough again after 30 minutes. Wait for the dough to rise. Depending on how much your dough rises, you can make 2 or 3 dough balls. Use a knife to easily cut the dough and split it in three equal parts.

After you put some flour on the working surface, place one dough ball and roll it until it becomes a disk. Put the filling mixture on the centre but make sure you have equal amount of filling for each disk. Stretch the dough and fold the edges to close the disk and cover all the filling. Roll it a bit more to make a flatbread but be gentle, so the cheese filling doesn’t come out. When you prepare all the discs, brush them with beaten egg. Bake khachapuri in the oven for about 25 minutes or until it is golden, at 225 degrees.

Keto khachapuri recipe

If you are on a keto diet, you may want to try my khachapuri recipe. Here’s what you need to prepare keto-friendly Georgian bread.

• 2 cups almond flour
• ½  teaspoon of baking soda
• ½  teaspoon of fresh lemon juice
• 2 cups of Mozzarella cheese
• 2 cups of cottage cheese
• 2 eggs + 2 for the top
• 1 teaspoon of stevia
• Some butter

Mix cottage cheese and mozzarella well so the mixture becomes consistent. Add flour and stevia and stir well. In a separate bowl, stir two eggs, put it into the bowl with cheeses but leave some of it for later.

Stir soda and lemon in one separate bowl and then add them in the cheese bowl. Knead the dough for a few minutes and cut it in two even pieces. Roll the dough nicely and make a boat from it. Repeat the same for the other piece of dough. Add the cheese filling and brush the edges with the stirred eggs you saved for later.

In the center of the boats, make some space for the egg that you will add later. Put khachapuri in the preheated oven at 220 degrees Celsius. Bake it for less than 10 minutes and then add the whole egg in each boat and bake it for a few more minutes.

Khachapuri recipe without yeast

If you don’t like to eat yeast or your stomach doesn’t tolerate it, you would be happy to know that you can prepare a yeast alternative. So, whatever khachapuri recipe you decide to use, you can replace yeast with the following mixture:

• Baking soda
• Lemon juice

The perfect combination of lemon juice which is acid and baking soda releases carbon dioxide which is necessary for making the pastry rise. As for the amount of each ingredient, it depends on how much yeast the recipe requires. The sum of baking soda and lemon juice should equal the required amount of yeast. The ratio should be 50/50, so if you need two tablespoons of yeast, you will put one tablespoon of baking soda and one tablespoon of lemon juice.

What is interesting, you don’t need to wait for the pastry to rise when you use baking soda and lemon. On the contrary, you should better mix other ingredients necessary for khachapuri and bake it immediately. Otherwise the pastry will lose volume.