🥔 SIDE
Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter)
Butter and thick sour cream beaten together a spoonful at a time over gentle warmth into a pale, fluffy, tangy spread seasoned with caraway, salt and pepper, chilled and spooned over hot boiled potatoes.
Lithuanian (Samogitian) · medium · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 25 min · plus 3 h hands-off time
~498 cal · 6g protein · 37g carbs · 37g fat · 4g fiber · 4g sugars · 23g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Kastinys is a peasant dish of Žemaitija, Samogitia, the western region of Lithuania, and of neighbouring Courland in Latvia. The Lithuanian encyclopaedia describes it as a food stirred from butter and sour cream with seasonings: butter was put in a warmed clay bowl and spoonfuls of sour cream were worked into it with a wooden spoon, one after another, until the mixture thickened. It was seasoned with salt and caraway, sometimes pepper and onion or garlic, chilled, and eaten with hot boiled potatoes and sometimes bread, especially during fasts and at the communal work days, talkos, when neighbours helped each other with the harvest.
Samogitians jokingly call it Samogitian caviar. It faded from everyday cooking in the middle of the twentieth century and has come back since the early 2000s as a proud regional dish, served in Samogitian restaurants and sold by dairies. Making it takes patience: the butter and cream must be at room temperature and added a little at a time, or the mixture separates instead of turning light and thick.
It is served cold, as a side, with a big bowl of hot potatoes boiled in their skins to split open and smother with it.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, 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 6
- 500 g full-fat sour cream (at least 30% fat), at room temperature
- 50 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp caraway seeds
- a pinch black pepper
- 1 garlic clove, crushed, or 1 tbsp very finely chopped onion, optional
- 1.2 kg small potatoes, scrubbed, to serve
Instructions
- 1Leave the sour cream and butter out for 2 hours so both are at room temperature.
- 2Put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of sour cream in a bowl and beat them together hard with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stand the bowl in a larger bowl of hot water for a moment, lift it out, and add another spoonful of each, beating well.✎ Chef’s noteAdd only a spoonful at a time and keep the mixture just barely warm. If it gets hot it separates; if it is cold it will not come together.
- 3Keep adding butter and sour cream a spoonful at a time, beating after each and warming the bowl briefly in the hot water now and then, for about 20 minutes in all, until everything is used and the mixture has turned thick, pale and fluffy.
- 4Beat in the salt, caraway, pepper and the garlic or onion if using. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour, until firm enough to scoop.
- 5Boil the potatoes in their skins in salted water for about 20 minutes, until tender. Serve them hot, split open, with the cold kastinys to spoon over.
Samogitian (Žemaitija) farm tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Vilnius. Cepelinai are named for their shape, a zeppelin of grated potato moulded around minced pork, boiled and then served under pork crackling and sour cream. Rye bread, forest mushrooms and cured pork carry the rest of the year, when nothing cold is wanted at all.
🗺️
Lithuania. Lithuanian cooking is hearty and cool-climate, cepelinai potato dumplings, cold beet soup (šaltibarščiai) glowing pink, and dark rye bread. Potato, pork, dairy, and foraged mushrooms anchor the Baltic table.
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Europe. Europe has written a great deal of its food into law. A regulation of 1992 created the protected designation of origin and the protected geographical indication, tying a name to a place and a method, and an EU evaluation published in 2021 counted more than three thousand registered names across those schemes, from cheeses and hams down to particular shapes of bread.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Lithuania
Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup)A shocking-pink chilled soup of beets, kefir, cucumber, and dill, Lithuania’s summer in a bowl, with hot potatoes on the side.
Kugelis (Baked Potato Pudding)A dense baked pudding of finely grated raw potato bound with egg, milk, onion and smoked bacon, browned on top and served with sour cream.
CepelinaiZeppelin-shaped potato dumplings stuffed with meat, served with bacon-onion sauce and sour cream.
Browse all Lithuania recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Keeps 2 to 3 days refrigerated. Resteam or warm through gently to serve.
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter)?
Butter and thick sour cream beaten together a spoonful at a time over gentle warmth into a pale, fluffy, tangy spread seasoned with caraway, salt and pepper, chilled and spooned over hot boiled potatoes.
Where does Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) come from?
Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) is a Lithuanian (Samogitian) dish from Vilnius, Lithuania.
Can Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Kastinys (Samogitian Sour Cream Butter) take to make?
About 3 h 45 min in all: 20 minutes prep and 25 minutes cooking, plus 3 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.
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