Easy Hungarian Farmer Cheese Rétes – Túrós Rétes
- artisanistshop
- 8 hours ago
- 6 min read
There are some Hungarian foods that immediately bring back childhood memories, and rétes is definitely one of them.🇭🇺
If you grew up in Hungary, chances are you remember a grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt or neighbor who could make real homemade rétes dough. The kind of dough that was carefully stretched across an entire table until it became so thin you could almost see through it.
Traditional homemade rétes is wonderful, and I have enormous respect for anyone who still makes the dough from scratch.
But this is not that recipe. 😂
This is my busy weekday version — because sometimes I want warm, crispy homemade rétes, but I only have about 10 minutes to put it together.
And that’s when ready-made phyllo dough comes to the rescue.
Hungarian Rétes for Real Life
I love cooking from scratch, but I also live in the real world.
There are workdays, appointments, laundry, school schedules, kids asking what’s for dinner — and sometimes I simply don’t have the time to spend hours making and stretching traditional rétes dough.
That doesn’t mean we can’t have rétes. 😃
Using good-quality ready-made phyllo dough makes this recipe incredibly quick. The farmer cheese filling takes only a few minutes to mix, then I layer the phyllo, add the filling, roll everything up and put it in the oven.
The actual hands-on work is only about 10 minutes.
Is it exactly the same as the beautiful hand-stretched rétes our Hungarian grandmothers made?
No.
Is it crispy, warm, delicious and something my family is very happy to see coming out of the oven?
Absolutely.
What Is Túrós Rétes?
Túrós rétes is a traditional Hungarian strudel filled with sweetened farmer cheese, or túró, usually flavored with vanilla and fresh lemon zest.
Túró is one of those ingredients you will find everywhere in Hungarian cooking. We use it in both sweet and savory dishes, from rétes and túrós batyu to noodles, pastries and desserts.
If you’re shopping outside Hungary, look for farmer cheese. It gives you the crumbly texture we want for an authentic túrós rétes.
The filling in this version is simple: farmer cheese, eggs, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and a little sour cream.
I also add a small amount of semolina and breadcrumbs. These help absorb excess moisture from the filling so the phyllo stays beautifully crisp instead of becoming soggy.
Classic Túrós Rétes or Sour Cherry? 🍒
This time I decided to make both.
One roll was the classic farmer cheese version, and I added sour cherries to the other.
Farmer cheese and sour cherries are such a wonderful combination. You get the creamy, lightly sweet and lemony filling with little bursts of tart cherry inside all those crispy golden layers.
If you’re adding sour cherries, make sure you drain them very well before using them. Extra liquid is the enemy of crispy rétes.
And then there is the great Hungarian rétes question:
Raisins or no raisins? 😂
Raisins are traditionally added to túrós rétes in many Hungarian families.
Not in mine.
I don’t like raisins in my rétes, so you won’t find them in my version. If you love them, of course you can add them. 😃
The Secret to Crispy Phyllo Rétes
Ready-made phyllo makes this recipe very easy, but there are a couple of things worth remembering.
Don’t open the phyllo package until you’re ready to work with it. Those thin sheets dry very quickly once exposed to air.
I use several sheets for each roll and brush the layers lightly with melted butter.
And if one sheet tears?
Don’t panic.
Once everything is layered, filled and rolled, nobody is going to notice. 😂
Only About 10 Minutes of Hands-On Work
This is probably my favorite thing about this recipe.
You can have beautiful homemade Hungarian rétes with only around 10 minutes of actual preparation.
After that, the oven does the work.
It’s perfect for a weekday dessert, weekend breakfast, afternoon coffee, a quick treat when family is coming over, or even for the kids’ lunchboxes the next day.
Assuming there is any left. 😃
Easy Hungarian Farmer Cheese Rétes Recipe
Túrós Rétes
Prep time: about 10 minutesBake time: 15–25 minutesOven: 180°C / 350°FMakes: 2 larger or 3 smaller rétes rolls
Ingredients
For the phyllo
8–9 sheets phyllo dough
70 g butter, melted
2 tbsp sour cream
For the farmer cheese filling
500 g farmer cheese (túró)
2 eggs
100 g sugar
20 g vanilla sugar
2 pinches salt
2 level tbsp semolina
2 level tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp sour cream
1–2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
Optional
Well-drained sour cherries
Powdered sugar, for serving
Instructions
1. Prepare the filling
Preheat your oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Place the farmer cheese in a large bowl and break it up well with a fork.
Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, sour cream, lemon zest, semolina and breadcrumbs.
Mix everything together until well combined.
Set the filling aside while you prepare the phyllo.
2. Prepare the phyllo dough
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Carefully unfold the phyllo dough.
Take one sheet and place it on your work surface. Lightly brush it with melted butter.
Place the second sheet on top and brush again.
Continue layering until you have 3 or 4 sheets for each roll, depending on whether you are making 2 larger or 3 smaller rétes rolls.
You can make 3 smaller rolls from 9 sheets, using 3 sheets for each roll.
3. Add the farmer cheese filling
Spoon the farmer cheese filling in a long strip near one end of the phyllo.
Leave approximately 3 cm around the sides and about 5 cm at the bottom so you have enough pastry to fold around the filling.
Fold the sides inward slightly, then fold the bottom section over the filling.
Carefully roll the phyllo up into a long strudel.
Repeat with the remaining phyllo and filling.
4. Make the sour cherry version
If you want to make one of the rolls with sour cherries, spoon the farmer cheese filling onto the phyllo as usual.
Add a row of well-drained sour cherries over the farmer cheese.
Then fold and roll the rétes in the same way.
Make sure the cherries are drained very well so they don’t release too much liquid into the filling.
5. Brush the tops
Mix the remaining melted butter with 1–2 tablespoons of sour cream.
Brush this mixture generously over the tops and sides of the rétes rolls.
This helps them bake beautifully golden and crisp.
6. Bake
Place the rolls on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake at 180°C / 350°F for approximately 15–25 minutes, until the phyllo is crisp and golden brown.
Try not to bake the rétes at too high a temperature. The pastry should brown gradually so the farmer cheese filling has enough time to cook through properly.
7. Serve
Let the rétes rest for a few minutes after removing it from the oven.
Slice carefully and dust generously with powdered sugar.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
How I Like to Serve Túrós Rétes
For me, rétes is at its best when it is still slightly warm.
A generous dusting of powdered sugar is really all it needs.
Give me a slice of warm túrós rétes and a cup of coffee and I’m perfectly happy. ☕️
And don’t worry about all those crispy phyllo flakes ending up on the plate, the table and probably your clothes.
That’s part of eating a good rétes. 😂
If you have leftovers, keep them refrigerated and gently warm them the next day.
A Little Piece of Hungary, Made for Real Life
One of the reasons I love sharing Hungarian recipes is because I want these foods to continue being cooked — not only remembered.
But I don’t think preserving tradition means every single dish has to be prepared exactly the way it was 70 years ago.
Life changes. Our kitchens change. The amount of time we have changes.
Sometimes keeping a tradition alive simply means finding a way to make it fit into the life we live today.
Our grandmothers may have stretched their rétes dough across the entire kitchen table.
I’m opening a package of phyllo after work. 😃
And I’m completely fine with that.
Because when those golden rolls come out of the oven, I sprinkle them with powdered sugar and cut through all those crispy layers to reveal the warm farmer cheese filling inside…
…it still feels wonderfully Hungarian to me. 🇭🇺❤️
Jó étvágyat!
Comments