Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Syrniki
Little pan-fried cottage-cheese pancakes, golden outside and tender within, served with sour cream and jam.
Ukrainian · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 15 min
~685 cal · 34g protein · 21g carbs · 52g fat · 1g fiber · 6g sugars · 33g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Syrniki are the breakfast pancakes of Ukraine, Russia, and much of Eastern Europe, small and golden and made not from a flour batter but from fresh farmer's cheese. Tvorog, the mild curd cheese that gives them their name, is bound with egg, a little flour, and sugar, then shaped into thick rounds and pan-fried in butter.
The result is quite unlike an ordinary pancake: soft, moist, and faintly sweet, with a crisp golden crust and a tender, almost cheesecake-like inside. Getting the balance right, enough flour to hold them but not so much that they turn heavy, is the small skill every household cook has their own feel for.
They are weekend food, served warm with the classic accompaniments of smetana (sour cream), fruit jam, or honey, and sometimes fresh berries. Homely and nostalgic, syrniki are the kind of breakfast a grandmother makes and a whole region grows up loving.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and 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
2 cups farmer's cheese (tvorog)
Hard to find? dry-curd cottage cheese pressed dry in a sieve - wetter cheeses need an extra spoon of flour or the syrniki slump in the pan
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sour cream, to serve
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp jam, to serve
Instructions
1
Mash the cheese (or tofu) with the egg yolk, a little sugar, the vanilla, and salt, mixing with a fork only until it comes together.
✎ Chef’s note
Yolk only, and do not over-mix. A whole egg brings in enough extra moisture that you have to add more flour to compensate, and the more flour goes in the less the syrnyky taste of cheese, which is the entire point. Use tvorog if you can get it: it is drier than cottage cheese, which is why it holds.
2
Work in most of the flour to a soft, sticky dough, then roll it on a well-floured board into a thick log and coat the outside in flour.
3
Cut the log into 6 or 7 thick rounds, lay them on a cut side, press them down only slightly and dredge both faces in flour.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep them about an inch tall. Syrnyky are not pancakes: flattened thin they dry out, while thick ones keep a soft, almost custardy middle under the crust.
4
Fry in butter or oil over medium heat, 1 to 2 minutes a side, until a golden crust forms, then finish them in a 400F oven for 7 to 8 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
The oven finish is what cooks the thick middles through. Straight from the pan they are browned outside and raw in the centre.
5
Serve warm with sour cream and jam.
Poltava tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Poltava. This is chernozem country, the deep black soil belt, and the cooking follows what grows easily there. Varenyky are filled with cherries in summer and potato or curd cheese the rest of the year, salo is salted and kept for months, and garlic, dill and soured cream turn up so consistently that their absence would be noticed.
🗺️
Ukraine. The culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking was inscribed on UNESCO's list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding on 1 July 2022, a listing made under wartime conditions. UNESCO's own note is that inscription does not make a tradition exclusive, so the honest framing is a recognised Ukrainian practice rather than sole ownership of the soup.
🌍
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 Ukraine
Varenyky (Potato Dumplings)Half-moon dumplings of tender dough filled with mashed potato and fried onion, boiled and tossed in butter, served with fried onions and sour cream.
BorschtThe famous beet soup, sweet-sour and garnet-red, ladled over beans and finished with dill and sour cream.
Chicken KyivA breaded chicken cutlet rolled around herb-garlic butter that bursts out golden when you cut in.
Browse all Ukraine recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Best fresh and hot. Keep batter covered in the fridge for up to a day, and rewarm cooked ones in a dry pan.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Syrniki?
Little pan-fried cottage-cheese pancakes, golden outside and tender within, served with sour cream and jam.
Where does Syrniki come from?
Syrniki is a Ukrainian dish from Poltava, Ukraine.
Can Syrniki be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Syrniki 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 Syrniki 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 Syrniki take to make?
About 30 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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