Traditional breakfast: Banitsa

Round cheese Banitsa
Round Banitsa

Banitsa, Banitsa in different shapes, colors and tastes is part of the traditional Bulgarian pastry breakfast. When I was a little the Yummy smell of this delicious dish, used to get me out of my bed in the cold winter weekends. My grandma had been awake since 5 o'clock in the morning to make the crusts, for which you need to spend at least 2 hours (hopefully nowadays in the supermarkets you can buy ready ones), and then add some ingredients and voila!!


1. Types
This pastry breakfast can be stuffed with different ingredients and named differently, depending from the components and the region. The original one is with eggs and cheese, see the picture above. Also, you can use spinach, cabbage ("zelnik"), apples ("Shtrudel"), pumpkin ("tikvenik"), and even meat. My favorite one is with spinach and cheese also called Burek. This dish also comes in different shapes: round/ slim and long/ short.
Spinach Banitsa
Spinach Banitsa
2. Recipe
Its time to cook Banitsa. Actually, the preparation and the cooking are easy-pissy, even though I scared you with my grandma, but this was in the old times. Nowadays you can buy ready Banitsa in almost every corner of every village of Bulgaria, or you can just buy it from the supermarket freezed and put it in the oven for 15 minutes. Nevertheless, let's introduce how I cook Banitsa because home-made is the most delicious one. So let's show you the ingredients for 8 servings:

  • Eggs - 4 
  • Yogurt - 500 grams 
  • Cheese - 400 grams
  • Crust - 500 grams 
  • Sparkling water - 1 tea cup
  • Oil - 1 tea cup 
  • Baking soda - 1 teaspoon

The cooking time will be approximately 1 hour. 1. The first step is to prepare the stuffing. Grab a big bowl. Stir inside the eggs, yogurt, baking soda, oil, sparkling water, and cheese. the obtained mixture should be homogeneous. 2. In a pan put 2 sheets of crust above put 3 spoons of the stuffing mixture, repeat this procedure until the ingredients are done. 3. Baking time! Take a knife and slice it, to be easier for you after baking to take out the pieces from the pan. Finally, put the Banitsa into the preheated oven on 200 degrees for about 40 minutes. When you see the pie- golden, you can take iu out. Wait to cool it down a few minutes and you can taste it.

Slim Banitsa
Slim Banitsa
If you enjoy Banitsa, you should try Mektisas as well.

Enjoy your meal!

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