Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Rømmegrøt
A rich Norwegian festive porridge made by cooking full-fat sour cream with flour until its butterfat separates, loosened with milk and served with cinnamon sugar.
Norwegian · medium · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 25 min
~648 cal · 8g protein · 31g carbs · 55g fat · 1g fiber · 17g sugars · 35g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Rømmegrøt means, literally, "sour cream porridge": rømme is sour cream and grøt is porridge. Where porridge is usually humble everyday food, this one broke the rule. Rich with sour cream and butter, sweetened and dusted with cinnamon, it was historically too indulgent for daily eating and was saved for weddings, baptisms, harvest gatherings and midsummer.
The method is what makes it remarkable. Full-fat sour cream is simmered with flour until its butterfat separates and pools golden on the surface; that fat is skimmed off and reserved, and the porridge is then loosened with warm milk into a smooth, thick, gently tangy base. The whole point is the tartness of the sour cream, so it genuinely cannot be made with sweet cream alone.
To serve, the porridge is ladled into a bowl, the reserved butterfat is drizzled back over so every spoonful runs through a pool of golden fat, and a generous dusting of cinnamon sugar goes over the top. In Norway it is sometimes eaten as a festive main with meats alongside, and sometimes as a sweet dish in its own right.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and 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 4
500 g full-fat sour cream (at least 35% fat)
75 g wheat flour
500 ml whole milk
1/2 tsp fine salt
2 tbsp butter (for the topping, if little fat separates)
2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon sugar and ground cinnamon, to serve
Instructions
1
Simmer the sour cream, covered, in a heavy pan over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes until it loosens.
2
Lower the heat and whisk in half the flour. Cook, stirring, until pools of golden butterfat separate and rise; skim the fat off into a small bowl and reserve.
✎ Chef’s note
The fat separation is the whole trick; if little separates, simply use melted butter for the topping instead.
3
Whisk in the remaining flour, then add the milk in four additions, whisking constantly to keep it smooth.
4
Cook gently for about 5 minutes until the porridge is thick enough to coat a spoon. Stir in the salt.
5
Ladle into warm bowls, press a well in the centre and drizzle in the reserved butterfat (or melted butter), then dust generously with cinnamon sugar and serve at once.
Norwegian festive tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Vestland (Bergen). The everyday dish is raspeballer, dense potato balls bound with flour and simmered in salted broth, eaten with salt meat and a sweet swede mash. In Bergen they belong to Thursday, a habit left over from the days when shops stayed open late and restaurants fed the shoppers cheaply.
🗺️
Norway. Norway dries its cod two different ways and the difference matters. Torrfisk is hung on wooden racks in the cold Lofoten air with no salt at all, a trade that has run for centuries; klippfisk is salted first and then dried. Lutefisk is dried fish brought back with lye. The salmon on modern menus, by contrast, is overwhelmingly farmed.
🌍
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 Norway
FårikålNorway's national dish: lamb and cabbage layered with whole peppercorns and simmered until tender.
Norwegian Vafler (Heart Waffles)Soft, cardamom-scented waffles cooked in a heart-shaped iron, served warm with brown cheese, jam, or sour cream.
FiskekakerLight pan-fried fish cakes bound with milk and potato starch, a Norwegian everyday staple served with vegetables.
Browse all Norway recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Whisk.
Storing it: Thickens as it sits. Reheat with extra water or milk to loosen, and keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Rømmegrøt?
A rich Norwegian festive porridge made by cooking full-fat sour cream with flour until its butterfat separates, loosened with milk and served with cinnamon sugar.
Where does Rømmegrøt come from?
Rømmegrøt is a Norwegian dish from Vestland (Bergen), Norway.
Can Rømmegrøt be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Rømmegrøt 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 Rømmegrøt 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 Rømmegrøt take to make?
About 30 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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