A very traditional dish you get everywhere in Austria and Swizerland. Plus a life hack on how to prepare and freeze a few extra portions.

Depending where you are there are different types of cheese used for this dish. People usually have strong feelings that their choice of cheese is the right one. Often cheese is used that is only available locally and you can not get them else where.

Rather than give an exact list I give some types I like to use. If you cant get any of them just get two or three intense tasting ones.

Ingredients

Spätzle:

• 400g fine wheat flour
• 4 eggs
• 200g water
• 8g salt

Cheese:

• 300g of different sorts

Types I use:

• Pinzgauer
• Rasskäse
• Graukäse (max. 1/4 of the total amount of cheese)
• Bieräse
• Weinkäse

Topping:

• 5 big onions
• 50g butter

Instructions

Spätzle

Mix everything together.

Fill a big pot half full with water, add some salt and bring it to a boil. If you have a “Spätzelreibe” go ahead and use it. The spaetzle have to cook for about 3 minutes. If you don’t have such an essential kitchen tool,.. well you are boned..

Kidding. In case you do not have one you can let the dough slowly rin out of the vessel into the boiling water using a knife to cut the dough off slice by slice. The spaetzle will be bigger than with the heavy machinery shown in the picture, but they will still be as good. Maybe let them cook for 5 minutes.

Toppings

Cut the onions into stripes. Fry them in some butter on low to medium heat. Wait until they get golden, then remove them from the pan.

Frying

Cut the cheese into small pieces.

Get a big pan. If you have, use a cast iron one. This allows you to get a nice crust and to use a fork to eat out of it directly without damaging the pan.

Add the spätzle and cut cheese. Under full heat let the cheese melt. Do stir once in a while. At one point the cheese will build a crust. Remove the pan from the heat and serve directly in the pan.

I really enjoy toppind them with caramelized onions.

Freezing

Note: freezind fully finished Käsespätzle is not really working for me. As you have to heat them up anyways the better option for me is to freeze cooked spätzle with the cut cheese unfried. The result is way better while the effort is the same.

The workflow of making fresh ones differs a bit:

After letting the spätzle cook rinse them with cold water. Let them drain and dry for half an hour, stiring from time to time so they dont clump.

Cut the cheese and mix it in. Without frying them in the pan, fill them in bags. Press them flat before vacuum and close them. This allows fast thawning. This way you can simply get the bag out and place it in hot water for a few seconds and you are ready to place it in the pan to fry them.