Top 10 Romanian Foods – Most Popular Dishes in Romania
While Romania is better known internationally for Dracula, Transylvania, and Nadia Comaneci, its lesser- known cuisine is something well worth exploring.Traditional Romanian food brings together a mix of local ingredients. It is heavily influenced by Balkan, Turkish, Serbian, German, and Hungarian cuisines, and due to this rich heritage, Romanian food is varied, filling, and very savory.
1. Sarmale (Cabbage Rolls)
Sarmale is a true comfort food that you can find at every traditional Romanian wedding and you’ll smell the mouthwatering aroma wafting on the streets during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The filling is made of minced meat (usually pork, sometimes combined with poultry) mixed with spices, rice, and onions. This is then rolled up in sour (fermented) cabbage leaf parcels, and simmered for hours in a special sauce made of sauerkraut juice, tomato juice, and other secret ingredients.
In some Romanian regions they use vine leaves instead of cabbage. For fasting or for a vegan choice, the minced meat can be very successfully replaced with a mixture of ground nuts, grated carrots, and chopped mushrooms.
Sărmăluțe, as you’ll find them on restaurant menus, are served with sour cream and hot mămăligă, which brings us to the next staple food.
2. Mămăligă (Polenta)
Usually a side dish for sarmale or served plain with sour cream and Romanian cheese, mămăligă is made from corn flour boiled in water with a pinch of salt and a few drops of sunflower oil.
It’s very healthy and makes a fantastic partner for gravies or stews. Shepherds like to mix it up with salty sheep cheese to create a specialty called “bulz”.
Check our traditional Romanian polenta recipe >>
3. Mici (Grilled Minced Meat Rolls)
Literally translated as “Small ones” because traditionally Mici were only the size of an adult finger. They are truly succulent and delicious, which explains why they are so popular at barbeques, street food, cottage weekends, and birthday celebrations.
This is another food that can be smelled from miles away and makes your mouth water. Easy to make, all you need is minced pork and beef mixed with garlic, spices, and a pinch of sodium bicarbonate.
Form the mixture into small sausage-like portions and put them on the grill. Juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside, you can enjoy them best with only mustard and fresh, crusty bread.
Check out our recipe for mititei >>
4. Ciorbă de burtă (Beef Tripe Soup)
Want to be a little bold when traveling abroad, and sample some unique local delicacies? Then you have to try one of the most popular soups in Romania – Beef Tripe Soup. While the name may not sound too appealing, it’s a real delicacy and is sure to make your tastebuds sing!
Considered the ultimate hangover remedy, Tripe Soup is made from the stomach of a cow, with vegetables, and special bones, flavored with lots of garlic and soured with vinegar. Hot chili peppers make a great pairing.
Check out our traditional Romanian beef tripe soup recipe >>
5. Pomana Porcului (Honoring The Pig)
This dish comes from an old rural tradition, and the two are best experienced together to get the full experience. It starts in the cold, crispy air of December, when pigs are sacrificed for Christmas dinner.
Fresh meat cut from the freshly slaughtered animal is then fried in its own fat in a deep pan.
This savory feast goes down best when served with authentic pickles. Restaurants often feature this dish on the menu, but if the pig is not freshly slaughtered, you won’t truly be honoring it and it won’t taste as good.
Check out our recipe for pomana porcului >>
6. Jumări (Greaves)
From the same sacrifice of the pig, Romanians make a crunchy, salty starter called jumări. It’s made by frying bits of bacon and pig fat.
Jumari is best served warm and is always accompanied with raw onions and a shot of țuică, the traditional plum brandy, as a digestive.
As delicious and moreish as it may be, you don’t want to overdo it if you still want your pants to fit.
Check out our recipe for Jumari >>
7. Cozonac (Sweet Bread)
There is no Christmas or Easter without this traditional Romanian treat. The pride of every cook, Cozonac can be a real challenge for a household because it has to be done right.
This Romanian dessert is a type of sweet bread filled with sweet walnut paste, poppy seed paste, or Turkish delight and raisins.
Kneading the dough is demanding work and the whole process takes a while, but the result is truly rewarding.
It can also be found all year round in stores or fairs, but nothing compares with the taste of a homemade one. If you get the opportunity to try, make sure you compliment the baker on the unique recipe and his or her skill in making this wonderful Romanian confection.
Check out our recipe for cozonac >>
8. Drob de miel (Lamb Haggis)
Lamb haggis (drob de miel) is a festive Romanian Easter dish that looks like meatloaf with boiled eggs inside. Recipes vary from one region to another, sometimes even from one family to the other. But there are some rules and secrets to keep in mind, no matter what kind of haggis you want to make because this tasty appetizer is much more than meets the eye.
Minced lamb offal, green onions, eggs, and bread dipped in milk are baked together along with fresh cut herbs, such as dill and parsley, and garlic.Pork is sometimes added as are chicken livers.Drob de miel ican be served as a main course, with various side dishes, or as a tasty appetizer.Check out our recipe for drob the miel >>
9. Papanași
Returning to desserts, Papanași will definitely have you coming back for more. Originating from the northern part of the country, this calorie bomb is very popular among all Romanians with a sweet tooth.
It’s a donut shaped cottage cheese and semolina mixture that is first fried and then covered in sour cream and jam, preferably blueberry. This sour and sweet combination is a complete delight for your senses and feast for your eyes. It’s also a nightmare for your waistline, but who cares!
Check out our recipe for papanași >>
10. Salata De Boeuf (Beef Salad)
No dinner party is complete without Beef Salad. This festive dish is really easy to make from ingredients “leftover” from making a soup. Along with vegetables and meat cut into small cubes, the dish includes mayonnaise and is completed with pickles.
The original recipe is made with beef, but nowadays many Romanians replace the beef with chicken to create a lighter version.
Check out 7 different recipes for Romanian beef salad >>
Romanian food may not look very fancy but it’s very tasty and inviting. The recipes are being passed forward through generations without losing their identity or taste.
If you like Romanian cuisine, you might also be interested in the following:
- Most popular Romanian soups
- Most popular Romanian cheeses
- Guide to Romanian wine
- Top 10 Romanian cookbooks
- Top 10 Romanian red wines
- Top 10 Romanian white wines
- Best foods in Transylvania
Check out our list of most popular foods in neighboring countries:
- Most popular Hungarian foods
- Most popular Serbian foods
- Most popular Ukrainian foods
- Most popular Bulgarian foods
- Best wines from Moldova
- Best sweet Hungarian wines
This was very useful for my research on Romania. Thank you!!!
You forgot Varse la Cluj(diced cabbage with meat and rice)
1,3 and 6 are not Romanian. Mostly from Balkan( Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia) it is nothing new that Romanians are stealing things just like language.
To my personal opinion, probably only polenta is Romanian. Greek youghurt sounds also very strange. Why east europeans are so afraid to accept Bulgaria as a factor. History confirms it.
That is just uncalled for, Romanians are really warm and nice people. Perhaps you are just jealous on their delicious food. Also, all food in Europe is “borrowed” somehow from other cuisines, you’d be surprised to find out that your glorious cuisine is also “stolen” from Albania, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria etc. Also read more about language, as it is based remotely on Latin because the Romans conquered them.
Why do you hate? are you really that upset? Did they steal your language? What language should they be speaking? How are #1 #3 not Romanian food?
Polenta is Italian, history confirms it LMAO, what you are looking at is Mamaliga, all Eastern European countries have very delicious cuisine, being that they have been influenced by many some of these food may look similar but the taste differ, and a question for you Mr History and Rile who came first, the chicken or the egg? How do you know the other cultures didn’t get inspired by Romanians? if you don’t like the food don’t eat it, stop hating.
They are not stolen. In the Balkans we each have our own variant of the same thing. I know that ”Mici” is Cevapcici, I know that Sarmale is also made in Turkey, I do not know the ”yugoslavian” or serbian version of jumări, although I live close to you in Timișoara, but I know that they make them in the Southern States of USA in the same way. We borrowed things from one another. ”Salată de vinete” is what Persians and other Eastern countries call Baba Ghanoush. We have dishes enharited from those who ruled in these parts – Turks, Austro-Hungarians – we have paprikaș, the Hungarians have goulash, I am sure you have a potato stew with meat and paprika as well.
I love salata de beouf🤤🤤
Si eu am facut salata de beouf🤤🤤
Are there any vegetarian options?
mamaliga
Yes, you can make “sarmale” or “salata de boeuf”without meat but they won’t have the same good taste.
Amazing loved it.
sarmale are the best and I’m Romanian and I love it
Thanks so much I am doing a school project on Romania and this was a big part of my research…
YOU ARE AMAZING
si eu am facut ciorba de burta azi
We are searching for the Romanian chocolate imbibed desert small tarts called MACOTA – around cake like – and JOFRE – vertical finger-like delicacy
Good food?
Yes it’s really delicious
Tochitura Moldoveneasca nu?
Am facut si eu astazi o oala de sarmale
Amazing