Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Khabzey
Crisp, lightly sweet fried dough shaped into knots and butterflies, a festive Bhutanese biscuit for New Year and offerings.
Bhutanese · medium · serves 8
prep 40 min · cook 20 min
~316 cal · 5g protein · 45g carbs · 12g fat · 1g fiber · 9g sugars · 8g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Khabzey are traditional Bhutanese deep-fried biscuits, made especially for Losar, the Bhutanese New Year, and for religious offerings and celebrations. Shaped into decorative knots, twists, and butterfly forms, they are as much about beauty as taste, piled high on festive tables and altars.
A simple dough of flour, butter, and a little sugar is rolled thin, cut, and folded into ornamental shapes, then deep-fried until crisp and golden. Only lightly sweet, they are crunchy and buttery, meant to keep for the long festival season. Making them together is a communal ritual in the days before Losar.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
3 cups flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup, or as needed milk
1/3 cup sugar
for frying oil, for frying
Instructions
1
Dissolve the sugar in the warm milk, then work it and the butter into the flour to make a firm, smooth dough; rest 30 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep the dough firm; a stiff dough holds the cut shapes crisply instead of puffing shapeless in the oil.
2
Roll thin, cut into strips, and fold or twist into knots and butterfly shapes.
✎ Chef’s note
Roll the dough quite thin so the biscuits fry up crisp and light rather than hard and doughy.
3
Deep-fry the shapes in batches until golden and crisp.
4
Drain well and cool; they keep for the festival season.
Bhutanese Losar tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Thimphu. Red rice is the grain at this altitude, a short husked grain that cooks softer and stickier than white and tints the whole plate. Butter tea, churned with salt instead of sugar, works as a hot drink and a broth at the same time, and dried meat hangs through the winter because nothing is growing.
🗺️
Bhutan. Bhutanese cuisine is fiercely chili-loving, and its national dish, ema datshi, is simply chilies stewed in cheese. Red rice, buckwheat, and yak dairy sustain life in the high Himalayas.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Bhutan
Ema DatshiBhutan’s national dish: green chilies stewed as the vegetable, not the seasoning, in a silky cheese sauce.
Khur-leRustic buckwheat pancakes from the Bhutanese highlands, eaten with chili-cheese ezay.
Jasha MarooA soupy, spicy minced-chicken stew with tomato, ginger, and coriander, a warming everyday Bhutanese dish.
Browse all Bhutan recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Deep pot for frying.
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Bhutan meal
Ema DatshiDinner
Suja (Butter Tea)Drink
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Khabzey?
Crisp, lightly sweet fried dough shaped into knots and butterflies, a festive Bhutanese biscuit for New Year and offerings.
Where does Khabzey come from?
Khabzey is a Bhutanese dish from Thimphu, Bhutan.
Can Khabzey be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Khabzey recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Khabzey safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Khabzey take to make?
About 60 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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