8 Georgian Khachapuri and Breads to Bake This Month

The first khachapuri I ever pulled apart with my hands was on a bench outside a bakery in Batumi, three blocks back from the Black Sea, at 11 in the morning. The dough was still hot enough to fog my glasses. The yolk slid into the cheese, the cheese slid into the butter, and a babushka two seats down nodded at me like I had finally understood something. That bread, the Adjarian one shaped like a boat, is what most people outside Georgia now call khachapuri. It is one of eight in this list, and arguably not even the best of them.

Georgia bakes more cheese bread than any country its size has business making. Every region claims its own shape, its own ratio of sulguni to imeruli cheese, its own argument about whether butter belongs on top or inside. I have spent enough mornings in Tbilisi bakeries (and enough late nights in my own kitchen reverse-engineering them) to know which ones are worth your flour this month.

The criteria, briefly

I baked all eight of these in my home oven over six weekends, testing with both imported sulguni from a Georgian grocer in Brooklyn ($14/lb) and a 50/50 swap of low-moisture mozzarella plus feta, which is the standard cheat outside the Caucasus. The cut is based on three things: whether a home cook can pull it off without specialist kit, whether the dough rewards the time it asks for, and whether the bread tastes like itself rather than a generic cheese pastry. A few famous shapes did not make it. I will explain at the end.

1. Adjarian Khachapuri, the boat with the yolk

This is the postcard. A canoe of yeasted dough, edges twisted into handles, filled with melted cheese, finished with a raw egg yolk and a knob of butter you stir in at the table with a fork. The drama is real. The technique is forgiving. That combination is exactly why it leads this list.

The trick most home cooks miss: the dough needs to be wet, around 68% hydration, so the crust crackles and the inside stays pillowy under the cheese. I use bread flour, not all-purpose, and let the dough cold-ferment overnight in the fridge. That single step is the difference between a bread that tastes like itself and one that tastes like a pizza-shop knockoff.

Best for the first khachapuri you ever make, or the one you serve when you want a small gasp at the table.

2. Imeruli Khachapuri, the everyday round

If Adjarian is the showpiece, Imeruli is the bread Georgians actually eat on a Tuesday. A flat, round, fully sealed cheese pie from the Imereti region, baked until the top is freckled gold and the cheese inside is just barely molten. No yolk, no theatrics. Just a clean ratio of dough to filling that you can eat with one hand.

The dough here is enriched with matsoni (Georgian yogurt) or, in my kitchen, full-fat Greek yogurt cut with a splash of milk. That dairy in the dough is non-negotiable. It gives Imeruli its faint tang and tender, almost flatbread chew. I have tried a straight water-and-flour dough and it bakes up technically correct but tastes like nothing.

Best for a weeknight, a lunchbox the next day, and anyone who finds the Adjarian boat a bit much.

3. Megrelian Khachapuri, the cheese-topped cousin

Megrelian is Imeruli's louder cousin from Samegrelo. Same construction, sealed round, but with an extra layer of cheese melted across the top. When that exterior cheese hits a 240C oven it pulls into a lacy, blistered crust that shatters under a knife. There is no version of this bread that is not better than the one that came before it.

The move I learned from a baker named Lela in Zugdidi: brush the top with egg yolk before the cheese goes on. The yolk acts like glue and like a tan accelerator, so the cheese sticks and the underside browns evenly instead of sliding off in a sad sheet.

Best for when one bread has to feed four people and impress all of them.

4. Penovani Khachapuri, the flaky square

Penovani is the cheat code. Instead of a yeasted dough, it uses laminated puff pastry, folded around cheese into a square parcel with the corners pulled toward the center. It is the bread Georgian bakeries sell at 7 am to people running for the marshrutka, and it is the recipe I give to friends who say they cannot bake.

Good frozen all-butter puff pastry, the kind that runs around $7 for a 500 g block at a decent grocer, is genuinely fine here. I have tested it against scratch rough puff and the gap is not worth the three hours.

Best for the weekday morning you want a hot cheese bread and have 35 minutes total.

5. Lobiani, the bean-stuffed sibling

Lobiani is khachapuri's sibling who skipped the cheese course. Same dough, same round shape, but filled with mashed seasoned red kidney beans instead. Georgians eat it on Barbaroba (St. Barbara's Day, December 17) and any cold afternoon when something cheese-heavy feels like too much.

The bean filling needs more seasoning than feels reasonable. Blue fenugreek (utskho suneli) is the soul ingredient here. Can't find it? A 2:1 blend of ground fenugreek and dried marjoram gets you 85% of the way. Do not skip it. A bland lobiani is a sad lobiani.

Best for a vegetarian table, a cold Sunday, or anyone tired of pretending they want more cheese.

6. Ossetian Khabizgina, the potato-cheese round

Khabizgina crosses a border (technically Ossetian rather than Georgian) but it lives on the same table in Kazbegi and northern Georgia and behaves like a cousin. The filling is a 50/50 mash of boiled potato and grated cheese, seasoned with a lot of black pepper. The result is denser than khachapuri, more comforting, and almost impossible to overbake.

The ratio matters. Too much potato and it tastes like a pierogi; too much cheese and the filling weeps and splits the bread. I have settled on 280 g cooked potato to 280 g cheese for a single round, weighed after cooking, with a full teaspoon of cracked pepper.

Best for the night you want something heavy in the best way. Serve with a sharp pickle.

7. Achma, the layered noodle bread

Achma is what happens when khachapuri meets lasagna. Sheets of par-boiled dough are layered with cheese, brushed generously with butter between each sheet, and baked into a slab that you cut into squares. It also comes from Adjara, and it is the bread I make when I want leftovers for three days.

The dough is unyeasted, closer to fresh pasta. You roll it thin, par-boil the sheets in salted water for 90 seconds each, shock them in ice water, then layer them in a buttered baking dish. The first time you do it the whole process feels insane. The second time it feels obvious.

Best for feeding six, or feeding yourself for the next four lunches.

8. Shoti, the canoe-shaped table bread

Shoti is not stuffed with cheese. It is the bread you tear and eat alongside everything else on a Georgian supra table, including, often, the khachapuri above. I include it because no Georgian bread list is honest without it, and because a good shoti out of your own oven changes the way you eat for a week.

Shoti is traditionally slapped against the inside wall of a tone, a clay oven that hits 400C. Your home oven cannot do that. What it can do, with a preheated baking steel and a cast iron pan of boiling water on the bottom rack, is land somewhere in the right neighborhood: a crackling crust, an open crumb, an interior that stays soft for a day.

Best for the cook who already bakes bread and wants a new shape in the rotation.

How to choose which one to bake this weekend

The honest decision tree: if you have never made any of these, start with Penovani on a weekday, then Imeruli on a Saturday, then Adjarian on a Sunday morning when you want to feel clever. Save Achma and Shoti for the weekend you actually have time. Lobiani and Khabizgina belong to colder months, when bean and potato fillings stop feeling like an obligation and start feeling like the point.

What almost made the cut

A last note from my kitchen. Every one of these breads is better the day it is baked, eaten hot, torn rather than sliced, with your hands rather than a fork. The Adjarian boat is the one Instagram wants. The Imeruli round is the one your friends will ask you to make again. Bake both.