Nalysnyky: Ukrainian Crepes Rolled Around Sweet Cheese and Baked in Cream
The UAFest kitchen team
October 2026 · 6 min read
Nalysnyky straight from the oven, with sour cream on the side
Nalysnyky are thin crepes spread with a filling, usually sweetened farmer's cheese, rolled up, laid side by side in a dish and baked with butter and sour cream until the edges catch. They are Sunday breakfast, Christmas morning and a church supper favourite in one dish.
On the Prairies and in many Ukrainian Canadian cookbooks the same dish is spelled nalesniki. It is the same crepe, the same cheese and the same baking dish.
Mlyntsi, nalysnyky and crepes
Mlyntsi is the general Ukrainian word for pancakes and crepes. Nalysnyky are the thin kind, cooked on one side or briefly on both, and then filled. The batter is close to a French crêpe: eggs, milk, flour, a little sugar, a little oil to keep them supple.
What makes them nalysnyky is the second cooking. Filled and rolled, they go into the oven under sour cream or cream, and come out soft in the middle and crisp at the ends.
The cheese, and what to buy in Canada
The filling is syr, the fresh, dry, crumbly curd cheese Ukrainians also use for syrnyky and varenyky. In Canada look for dry curd cottage cheese, farmer's cheese or pressed cottage cheese; European delis sell it as tvorog or twaróg. Ordinary creamed cottage cheese is too wet unless you hang it in a cloth overnight.
Sweet nalysnyky take egg yolk, sugar, vanilla and raisins in the cheese. The savoury kind, just as old, takes salt, a little butter and a lot of chopped dill, and is eaten with sour cream as a main course.
Fillings beyond cheese
The dish takes almost anything a Ukrainian kitchen has on hand:
- Cooked buckwheat with fried onion and mushrooms.
- Minced cooked chicken or liver with onion.
- Cabbage stewed with onion, as for varenyky.
- Poppy seed with honey, or apples with cinnamon, for a dessert pan.
Recipe
Nalysnyky (Ukrainian Crepes with Sweet Cheese)
Thin crepes rolled around farmer's cheese and baked in sour cream until golden.
- Prep
- 40 minutes
- Cook
- 45 minutes
- Total
- 1 hour 25 minutes
- Makes
- About 14 nalysnyky, 4–6 servings
Ingredients
Crepes
- 2 eggs
- 500 ml milk
- 160 g all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- A pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil, plus a little for the pan
Sweet cheese filling
- 500 g dry curd cottage cheese or farmer's cheese
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50 g raisins (optional)
For baking
- 30 g butter, melted
- 250 ml sour cream (or 35% cream)
- 1 tbsp sugar
Method
- 1Make the batterWhisk the eggs, sugar and salt, add half the milk, then whisk in the flour until smooth. Whisk in the rest of the milk and the oil. Rest the batter for 20 minutes.
- 2Cook the crepesHeat a lightly oiled 20–22 cm pan over medium heat. Pour in a small ladle of batter, tilt to cover the base thinly and cook until the edges lift and the underside is pale gold, about a minute; turn for 15 seconds. Stack on a plate.
- 3Make the fillingPress the cheese through a sieve or mash it with a fork, then mix in the yolk, sugar, vanilla and raisins.
- 4Fill and rollSpread 2 tablespoons of filling on the browned side of each crepe, fold in the sides and roll up. Lay them seam side down in a buttered baking dish.
- 5BakeBrush with the melted butter, spoon over the sour cream mixed with the sugar and bake at 180 °C for 20–25 minutes, until bubbling and golden at the ends.
Notes from the kitchen
- For the savoury version, leave out sugar, vanilla and raisins and add salt, 2 tbsp melted butter and a handful of chopped dill.
- Nalysnyky can be filled and rolled a day ahead and kept covered in the fridge; bake them just before serving.
- Drained ricotta works if no dry curd cheese is to be found.
Ukrainian home cooking, live music and a market by the river — UAFest returns in September 2027.
UAFest 2026 took place on Sunday, September 13 · Riverside Park, Carleton Place
What people ask
The batter is nearly the same. Nalysnyky are filled, rolled and then baked a second time in butter and sour cream or cream; a French crêpe usually goes straight from the pan to the plate.
Yes. Nalesniki is the spelling common in Ukrainian Canadian and Polish-Canadian cookbooks; nalysnyky is the transliteration of the Ukrainian word.
Dry, fresh curd cheese: dry curd cottage cheese, farmer's cheese or tvorog. Wet creamed cottage cheese has to be drained first or the filling runs.
Yes. Fill and roll them up to a day ahead and keep them covered in the fridge, then add the sour cream and bake. Baked leftovers reheat well in the oven.
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