Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Kibinai
Golden hand pies of flaky pastry stuffed with seasoned minced meat and onion, a Karaim specialty of Lithuania.
Lithuanian · medium · serves 6
prep 40 min · cook 30 min
~721 cal · 26g protein · 53g carbs · 44g fat · 3g fiber · 3g sugars · 25g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
Kibinai are savoury baked hand pies brought to Lithuania by the Karaim, a small Turkic community settled near Trakai since the 14th century, when they came as the grand duke's guards. Their food became a treasured part of Lithuanian cuisine, and Trakai is still the place to eat them.
Half-moon parcels of rich, flaky pastry are filled with finely chopped mutton or beef and plenty of onion, crimped along the edge, and baked until deep golden. Juicy inside and crisp outside, they are eaten warm, often with a bowl of broth, and are the quintessential Lithuanian road-trip snack.
Saved recipes and passport stamps are kept on this device. Sign in to keep them across your devices and leave reviews.
Make it yours
✓ Naturally egg-, nut- 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
3 cups flour
3/4 cup butter, cold
1/2 cup sour cream
1 lb minced mutton or beef
2 onions, finely chopped
1 tsp dried marjoram
2 tbsp cold water or (to keep the filling juicy)
to taste salt and pepper
Instructions
1
Make a flaky pastry with the flour, cold butter, sour cream, and a pinch of salt, then chill.
2
Mix the raw minced meat with the chopped onion, marjoram, a splash of water, and plenty of seasoning.
✎ Chef’s note
Use plenty of onion (roughly as much as meat) and a splash of water so the filling stays juicy, and season boldly. It cooks inside the sealed pastry, so it needs to be well flavoured to start.
3
Roll the pastry, cut rounds, fill each, fold into half-moons, and crimp the edge.
4
Bake at 400F (200C) until deep golden, about 25 minutes, and eat warm.
Lithuanian Karaim tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Cooked it? Rate this dish:
No account needed. Sign in to leave a full review with a comment.
Cooked it?
Kept on this device, no account needed. Sign in to leave a review and keep your passport across your devices.
No reviews yet, be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Vilnius. The cold soup is a summer institution and its parts are fixed: kefir, grated cooked beetroot, cucumber, spring onion and a great deal of dill, with a hard-boiled egg on top. The hot boiled potatoes come on a separate plate rather than in the bowl, and leaving them off is not really an option.
🗺️
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.
🌍
Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
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
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and reheats covered in the oven. Most bakes can be assembled a day ahead and baked when needed.
Make it a Lithuania meal
TinginysDessert
CepelinaiDinner
Similar dishes from around the world
HawawshiEgypt
Pâté ChinoisCanada
Aussie Meat PieAustralia
Tavë KosiAlbania
Rocoto RellenoPeru
Empanadas MendocinasArgentina
Frequently asked questions
What is Kibinai?
Golden hand pies of flaky pastry stuffed with seasoned minced meat and onion, a Karaim specialty of Lithuania.
Where does Kibinai come from?
Kibinai is a Lithuanian dish from Vilnius, Lithuania.
Can Kibinai be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Kibinai 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 Kibinai 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 Kibinai take to make?
About 70 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking), serving 6.
Get the Sunday Spin
One dish from somewhere in the world, in your inbox every Sunday. No spam, just dinner inspiration you can cook that day.