Savory Cheese Pie (Placinta cu Branza)
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This delicious savory cheese pie is truly a treat. A must try! Super simple to make with puff pastry.
This is such an easy savory cheese pie recipe. I don’t think cheese pies are as popular here in North America as they are in Europe and especially Turkey. There are so many variations of cheese pies, but I found a very easy way for me to make these. Whenever I make them. my husband and I fight over them, that’s how good they are. For these you can use any puff pastry you can find. I do not make the puff pastry so that’s why this is so easy.
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Ingredients
- 2 cups feta cheese
- 500 ml ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 4 pieces puff pastry
- fresh dill (optional)
Before You Begin! If you make this, please leave a review and rating letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business thrive & continue providing free recipes.
Instructions
- Grate the feta cheese in a bowl and mix with ricotta cheese and egg. The reason I add ricotta cheese is so that the pie doesn’t end up being too salty, so the mixture is half feta and half ricotta.
- Roll out your puff pastry and spread 1/4 of the cheese mixture then roll up the dough. Repeat with remainder of puff pastry, brush with egg wash and poke holes in each pastry with a fork.
- Bake in the oven at 375 F degrees for about an hour or until deep golden brown. Note, you do not have to butter the baking sheet, the puff pastry has plenty of butter in it so it will not stick.
Nutrition Information
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
Enjoy!
I have a question. This looks exactly like what my grandmother made. But I am sure she used cottage cheese. Can you tell me if cottage cheese is interchangeable in this recipe? If so, please tell me how you would substitute. Thank you! Diane
Hi Diane! I’ve never made it with cottage cheese, but I think it would be fine, just replace the ricotta with it. I would still keep the feta though because it does provide that saltiness to it.
My mom used cottage cheese, farmer’s cheese and ricotta- always a delicious food (I just used cottage cheese and feta- yummy)… I am going to try this one now!
That’s great, let me know how you like it!
Serve with tomato sauce or sweet chilli do you think?
Hi Jasmine,
This recipe is amazing on its own or with any dipping sauce you’d prefer if you want to spice things up. Let us know how the flavor is with any of those sauces you mentioned.
Very good but. Instructions could have been clearer or more specific. Although I know what jelly roll means so many people wouldn’t. Roll out puff pastry to what size is not specified. Spread cheese out how far? Also, I only used 1 pkg of puff pastry and made whole batch of filling then realized the recipe was a double batch making 4 rolls which didn’t make sense to me. It was too late when I realized this and used the whole batch of cheese filling for just 2 sheets of puff pastry and it came out great! So over all was a success just read instructions carefully and make adjustments per other suggestions.
I made it today! Excellent! My whole family loved it!
Dear Jo! I spended 6 months in Romania.This recipe reminded me days in there.It was amazing experiences. Romania has tasty kitchen with pastry. It was funny when I order water every time they bring sparking water. First thing which I learned was apa plata 🙂 Thanks for great post!
https://www.iptvforza.com/iptv-bayilik/
When you say “roll up the dough,” what do you mean? Fold it? In a triangle or rectangle shape? Thank you!
I found the answer in your other comments. Thank you!
You roll it up jelly roll style.
I’ve just eaten a piece of cheese pie, wonderful! I did them exactly to the recipe but made turnovers. Will definitely be a regular make!
My mom made something like this she was from Sidbu Romania or something like that and Transylvania. but she didn’t use the puff pastry dough she made her own go and I didn’t like to mess with the dough so I didn’t watch her she use cream cheese brick cheese cottage cheese egg sugar and vanilla and she made a big I like pizza crust but it was delicious and she put it in a real big square pan or rectangle pan and then she just bake it like a pizza. I want to learn how to make that she died when I was just 14 and now I’m 59 so I’ve been looking for recipes do you have any good dough recipes that I could make or start trying out something for dessert cuz she punch it down and let it rise punch it down and let it ride like three times and then she would use it or she didn’t put nothing on top it would cook like a pizza. And then she made this other thing with fried cabbage and bacon and black pepper and then that’s had the crust on top and the cabbage inside it’s delicious lots of Romanian bacon and onion and cabbage. It would be fried and she also shredded it. Thank you
I’m not sure about the dough she made but I have this recipe for the cabbage with bacon: https://www.jocooks.com/ingredient/pork-main-courses/braised-cabbage-with-bacon/
Hi Jo, I recently discovered your blog when I was searching placinta recipes. My parents are from the Banat region but I was born here. My mother used to make her own dough for placinta and made it with different fillings such as pumpkin, apples and cheese. When I search recipes for this it comes up on Pinterest in Romanian and in metric. I’m wondering if you have a recipe for placinta cu mere? I’m not opposed to using store bought phyllo but also would love a recipe making homemade if you have it. My mother passed away several years ago and she made this without ever using a recipe. Thanks so much! Valerie
Hi Valerie! I have a recipe on the blog for an apple strudel with store bought phyllo, you can find it here, however it’s not a Romanian recipe. If I usually make apple strudels I’ll use store bought puff pastry actually, super easy and fast. I use the same thing for the cheese pie as well. You can find that recipe here.
I haven’t made this yet, but planning on it. Love the addition of ricotta, the cheese they use in Turkey for it is not as salty as the feta we get over here. Can’t wait to eat this, loved having this for breakfast while I was in Turkey. Thanks for sharing!
Made this yesterday! Yummy!
My Romanian husband is very excited about this recipe!
So good and so easy. My husband and I enjoyed it so much! We used about 2/3 ricotta, since we did not have more feta left, and added some pepper. Looking forward to trying your other recipies!
Thank you!! So glad you guys enjoyed this, since this is one of my favorites ever!
Just made this…excellent! I added a small am’t of dried dill and a pinch of nutmeg! Very nice flavor
Next time I’ll leave dill and nutmeg out but add a few golden raisins!
Thank you:)
Note: Do bake until nice and browned/crispy on the outside
Glad you liked this, really one of my favorites!
Can the same method be used to have it filled with potatoes? If so, how would that be done?
I’VE NEVER WORKED WITH PUFF PASTRY, BUT HAVE WATCHED SHOWS WHERE IT HAS BEEN USED. HOW MANY SHEETS ARE IN A PKG. DO I TAKE THEM AND SEPARATE INTO 4 SHEETS OR EVENLY DIVIDE WHAT’S IN THE PKG INTO 4 PILES?
Hi Sandra,
Usually there are only two sheets of puff pastry, some packages come with the sheets already rolled out, some they come where they’re like little blocks and need rolling out. So to get 4 pies you need 4 sheets. If you only want 2 pies then just buy one package of puff pastry and cut the other ingredients in half.
THANK YOU! VERY HELPFUL!