Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
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.
Lithuanian · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 20 min
~293 cal · 17g protein · 44g carbs · 6g fat · 5g fiber · 20g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
When the short Lithuanian summer finally arrives, so does saltibarsciai, a cold beetroot soup of an almost startling neon pink. Made from grated beets and kefir or buttermilk, brightened with cucumber, dill, and spring onion, and often finished with chopped hard-boiled egg, it is served ice-cold and eaten almost daily through the warm months.
Its colour has made it a small national mascot; Vilnius even hosts an annual pink soup festival in its honour, and it is one of the most photographed things a visitor eats in Lithuania. Cool, tangy, and refreshing, it is exactly the food a hot afternoon calls for.
The rule that surprises everyone is the potatoes: they are boiled and served hot, on the side, not in the bowl. You alternate spoonfuls of the icy pink soup with bites of warm potato, a hot-and-cold contrast Lithuanians consider essential and that defines how the dish is properly eaten.
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 vegetarian and gluten-, 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 4
3 medium cooked beets, grated
4 cups kefir (or buttermilk)
1 cucumber, diced
4
1 big handful fresh dill
3 hard-boiled eggs
1 tbsp lemon juice
to taste salt
1 lb baby potatoes, boiled hot, to serve
Instructions
1
Whisk the kefir smooth in a large bowl.
2
Stir in the grated beets, watch it turn electric pink, with cucumber, scallions, and most of the dill.
3
Season with lemon and salt; add cold water if you like it thinner.
4
Chill at least 2 hours; it must be properly cold.
5
Serve topped with chopped egg (or tofu) and the last dill, with a bowl of hot boiled potatoes on the side, exactly as Lithuania insists.
Vilnius summer 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. Vilnius serves summer cold and pink, in saltibarsciai, a chilled beet and kefir soup poured over dill and boiled egg with hot potatoes on the side. Rye bread, cured pork, mushrooms, and the potato dumpling cepelinai carry the rest of the year.
🗺️
Lithuania. Cepelinai are named for their shape: fat grated-potato dumplings pinched into blimps around a pork filling, boiled and served under bacon and soured cream. They are widely called the national dish and they are heavy in a way that makes sense of the climate. Rye, mushrooms gathered from the forest and cured pork fill in the rest of the year.
🌍
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
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.
Varškės Blynai (Curd Cheese Pancakes)Little pan-fried pancakes of fresh curd cheese, crisp and golden outside and tender inside, served with sour cream and jam.
Browse all Lithuania recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Whisk.
Storing it: Soup keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well. Reheat gently and loosen with a little water or stock if needed.
Make it a Lithuania meal
TinginysDessert
CepelinaiDinner
Similar dishes from around the world
Tarator (Cold Yogurt and Cucumber Soup)Bulgaria
KholodnikBelarus
SpasArmenia
DovgaAzerbaijan
Bayerischer Kartoffelsalat (Bavarian Potato Salad)Germany
Sopa NegraCosta Rica
Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is 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.
Where does Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) come from?
Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) is a Lithuanian dish from Vilnius, Lithuania.
Can Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) 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 Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) 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 Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beet Soup) take to make?
About 40 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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.