How Hungarian Home Cooking Helps Me Feed a Family on a Budget 🇭🇺
Hello from my Hungarian kitchen! ❤️
What I cooked when the fridge was almost empty 😂🇭🇺
Simple Hungarian comfort food, a little baking, and the meals that save dinner when you don’t have much in the fridge. ❤️
Hello from my Hungarian kitchen! ❤️
This week in my kitchen was very much about real-life cooking. Not fancy ingredients. Not perfectly planned meals. Just opening the fridge, looking at what I have, and figuring out how to turn it into something the whole family will actually eat. 😂 And somehow, those meals are often the ones I love sharing with you the most. Because this is really how I grew up cooking.
My mom and grandma taught me that you don't need expensive ingredients to put something delicious on the table. A few potatoes, some flour, vegetables, eggs, a little meat — and somehow there was always dinner. That philosophy is becoming an even bigger part of From My Hungarian Kitchen. 🇭🇺❤️
🍲 The dinner that fed 6… with only 500 g of meat
Everything was closed.
I had 500 g of ground beef in the freezer, six people to feed AND I needed leftovers for lunchboxes the next day. So I made Rakott Zöldbab.
Yellow wax beans, rice, paprika-seasoned ground beef, sour cream and cheese — layered together and baked until golden. Nothing expensive. Nothing complicated. But it fed everyone. And here's the best part: It tasted even better the next day. 😂 This is exactly the kind of Hungarian home cooking I love — stretching a small amount of meat with inexpensive ingredients and still ending up with a proper family dinner.
🥣 Soup season continues…
You already know what happens in my house when the weather starts getting cooler. The soup pot comes out. 😂 I've been sharing more of the simple Hungarian soups I grew up eating — the kind of recipes that don't necessarily look impressive on paper, but somehow taste like home.
One of my recent favorites is Fejtett Bableves — Hungarian shelled bean soup. And of course, there has been plenty of csipetke happening in my kitchen too. 🇭🇺 So many of you asked how I make it that I finally showed the entire process.
One very important rule from my mom: No water in the csipetke dough! Just egg and flour, adding the flour gradually until you get the right texture. And keep flouring those tiny pieces while you're pinching them so they don't stick together.
🥔 Sometimes the simplest Hungarian food wins
I've noticed something interesting lately. Whenever I share very simple, traditional Hungarian food, you seem to love it. And I completely understand why.
These aren't restaurant dishes. They're the meals our mothers and grandmothers made on ordinary Tuesdays when nobody had time to spend three hours cooking. Krumplifőzelék with fasírt is exactly that kind of meal. Creamy potato főzelék with crispy Hungarian meatballs — inexpensive, filling and pure comfort food. It might not win a beauty contest…
…but give me a bowl and some fresh bread and I'm very happy. 😂❤️
🥐 And apparently… you really like when I bake
I'm starting to get the message. 😂
Every time I post breads, pastries or traditional Hungarian baking, you show up. So I've been thinking…
What if I made a small Hungarian bread & pastry collection?
Not a huge complicated cookbook.
Just the recipes I actually make at home — kifli, breads, savory pastries and those old-fashioned Hungarian baked recipes that are worth keeping.
I would LOVE to know if this is something you'd want.
👉 REPLY TO THIS EMAIL AND TELL ME: YES TO THE BAKING BOOK!
If enough of you say yes… I think I know what my next project is. 😃
🎄 One more thing…
I know it's only September. But apparently my kitchen has already started thinking about Christmas. 😂🎄
My Hungarian Christmas Baking book is available in both digital and paperback versions, with some of the recipes that make Christmas feel like Christmas to me. And seeing some of you actually buying the book and baking from it still feels slightly surreal.
❤️ A little update from behind the scenes
From My Hungarian Kitchen is growing little by little, and lately I've been spending a lot of time improving the website too.
More recipes are going up, older recipes are being organized, and I'm trying to make it easier for you to actually find what you want to cook.
And there are now 122 of you receiving these little Monday emails.
That might not sound enormous compared with social media numbers, but to me it feels completely different.
You're not just scrolling past a 20-second cooking video.
You actually invited me into your inbox.
And I don't take that for granted. ❤️
Thank you for being here.
🇭🇺 Your turn: What should I cook next?
I want to hear from you. What is one Hungarian dish you haven't eaten in YEARS but still remember? Maybe your grandmother made it. Maybe you ate it at school. Maybe you remember the taste but don't even know exactly what it was called. Reply and tell me. You never know — your childhood favorite might end up in next week's kitchen. 😃 Until next Monday, cook something good, use what you already have, and remember that dinner doesn't have to be expensive or perfect to bring everyone to the table. ❤️
With love, Anita
From My Hungarian Kitchen 🇭🇺
P.S. If you make one of my recipes, please tag me or send me a picture. Seeing Hungarian recipes appearing in kitchens all over the world is still one of my favorite parts of doing this. ❤️
Comments