Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Wiener Schnitzel
Vienna’s golden icon: a thin cutlet in a puffed, wavy breadcrumb crust, fried in butter and finished with lemon.
Austrian · medium · serves 4
prep 25 min · cook 15 min
~902 cal · 18g protein · 88g carbs · 53g fat · 7g fiber · 5g sugars · 31g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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The Wiener Schnitzel is Vienna's culinary emblem, and Austria guards it by law: to be sold under that name it must be veal, and any pork or chicken version has to declare itself as Schnitzel Wiener Art, "Viennese style", on the menu. Vienna enforces the distinction with genuine feeling.
The dish is deceptively simple, a thin-pounded veal cutlet breaded and fried, but the mark of a master is the souffle effect: a crust that puffs up and lifts away from the meat in loose golden waves rather than clinging tight. It is coaxed out by frying in plenty of hot fat and gently swirling the pan so the oil washes over the top and inflates the coating.
It arrives large enough to overhang the plate, with nothing more than a wedge of lemon and, classically, a potato salad or parsley potatoes alongside. Sauce is considered an insult to a proper schnitzel: the crisp, buttery crust and the squeeze of lemon are the entire point.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally nut-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
4 veal cutlets (or pork, honestly labeled), pounded thin
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups fine breadcrumbs
1 cup butter (or half butter, half oil)
1 lemon, in wedges
for 4 potato salad or parsley potatoes, to serve
Instructions
1
Season the cutlets (or celeriac). Set up flour, egg, and breadcrumb stations.
2
Dredge, dip, and crumb each cutlet, pressing the crumbs on is forbidden; they should sit loose. That looseness makes the waves.
3
Heat a generous depth of clarified butter to a lively shimmer.
4
Fry one schnitzel at a time, swirling the pan constantly so hot fat washes over the top, 2-3 minutes per side to deep gold.
5
Drain briefly, salt, and serve at once with lemon and potato salad. The crust should rustle.
Viennese tradition (legally protected, no less).
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Vienna. Vienna is an imperial kitchen that gathered dishes from across its empire, Hungarian-descended goulash and Bohemian dumplings among them. Its own is the plate-sized breaded veal Wiener schnitzel; the tale that Field Marshal Radetzky brought it back from Milan in 1848 is a later invention, since the name is already printed in a Viennese cookbook of 1831. Its coffee houses turned pastry into an institution, from Sachertorte to apple strudel.
🗺️
Austria. Viennese cooking is an inventory of an empire. Goulash came from Hungary, Buchteln and Powidl from the Czech lands, Palatschinken are claimed by the Romanians, and the whole assembly acquired the name Wiener Kuche in German cookbooks around the end of the eighteenth century. What Vienna added was the technique and the presentation rather than the dishes.
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Europe. European cooking is built on the land and the seasons, wheat, butter, and cured pork in the north; olive oil, tomatoes, and seafood around the Mediterranean; preserved vegetables and hearty stews through long winters. Centuries of peasant tradition, guild craft, and royal courts refined techniques from French mother sauces to Italian fresh pasta and Central European baking. Regional identity runs remarkably deep, with a single dish often changing from one valley to the next.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Austria
Wiener FrühstückA Viennese breakfast of a crusty Kaisersemmel, soft-boiled egg, butter, jam, and a milky Melange.
FrittatensuppeClear beef broth poured over ribbons of sliced savory pancake, a classic Viennese starter and light lunch.
SachertorteA dense chocolate sponge with a thin layer of apricot jam under a glossy dark chocolate glaze, Vienna's famous cake.
Browse all Austria recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Austria meal
KaiserschmarrnDessert
FrittatensuppeLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Wiener Schnitzel?
Vienna’s golden icon: a thin cutlet in a puffed, wavy breadcrumb crust, fried in butter and finished with lemon.
Where does Wiener Schnitzel come from?
Wiener Schnitzel is a Austrian dish from Vienna, Austria.
Can Wiener Schnitzel be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Wiener Schnitzel 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 Wiener Schnitzel 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 Wiener Schnitzel take to make?
About 40 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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