Russian Cheese Pancakes (Syrniki) Recipe
This post may contain affiliate links (disclosure).
Cheese pancakes is a popular Russian recipe. Cheese pancakes is “syrniki” in Russian – the Russian word for cheese is “syr”. Syrniki are made out of farmer’s cheese. You can find farmer’s cheese in the same isle as ricotta cheese in most well-stocked supermarkets. You can use regular or lowfat farmer’s cheese for the cheese pancakes recipe.
Cheese pancakes make a great breakfast. They are a nice change for the usual breakfast fare. If you want something new and different for breakfast, go ahead and make syrniki cheese pancakes!
Cheese pancakes can be made with or without raisins. I like the version with raisins much better, so I always make my syrniki loaded with raisins!
Cheese pancakes go really well with honey, jam or sour cream. Cheese pancakes also taste good cold. You can make a double portion of the cheese pancakes, eat half of them while they are hot and refrigerate the rest. Syrniki will make a great breakfast on the second day – you can eat them cold or reheat in the microwave.
Here’s a picture of the stack of Russian Cheese Pancakes (Syrniki):
Cheese Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 lb of farmer's cheese
- 2 tbsp sugar or Splenda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup raisins optional
- 2 tbsp flour plus additional 1 cup of flour for coating - to make it gluten-free, use gluten-free flour
- 1 tbsp oil
Instructions
- Put 1 cup of flour on a large plate.
- Mix farmer's cheese, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, raisins and 2 tbsp of flour in a bowl. Divide the mixture into 10 parts, and roll each part in a little ball. Dip each ball in flour and roll so it's coated with flour on all sides.
- Heat the oil on a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Put the cheese balls on a frying pan and flatten each ball with your hands so it makes a patty. Cook the cheese pancakes for 4 minutes (or until golden-brown on the bottom), then flip with a spatula and cook for another 4 minutes on the other side.
- Remove the cheese pancakes from heat and serve!
These sound wonderful! I’ve never made anything quite like them before.
I saw your review about the Kalahari resort in Wisconsin Dells and it brought back great memories of when our girls were little. We would always eat breakfast at Paul Bunyan’s :)
I’ve never heard of cheese pancakes before but they look delicious! I don’t know what farmers’ cheese is though as we don’t have that here – I’m thinking it’s a soft cheese?
Lovely recipe.
Farmer’s cheese has a texture like ricotta and tastes like cottage cheese… but ricotta or cottage cheese unfortunately don’t work in this recipe.
I’ve always wanted to learn more about Russian food. This sounds terrific – definitely my type of dish, yum!
I’m quite unfamiliar with Russian food, all I know of is borscht. I like sound of these pancakes, sound so inviting.
I tried these in Russia and I loved them, and when I came back home I tried to make them following several recipes and the results were disastrous. I tried your recipe and they turned out delicious! I’m so glad I found it, thank you :)
There’s look delicious and I can’t wait to try them. Can you use almond flour to make them low carb?
Not sure if it will work with almond flour, I haven’t tried it. If you try making it with almond flour, please let us know how it turned out!
I added some fresh berries and a drizzle of honey, and it was the perfect breakfast treat.
I just got back from a trip to Eastern Europe and tried a yummy food called syrniki. I found a recipe to make them at home, and they tasted exactly like the ones I had there! The recipe was super easy to follow, and the pancakes were delicious with a little sugar on top. It’s like bringing a bit of my trip into my kitchen.