Bhutan
Ara
ཨ་རག
Rice, maize, millet or wheat fermented and distilled at home into a cloudy spirit, often served warm with butter and a fried egg stirred in.
southern-asia
Bhutan
Explore 43 foods connected to Bhutan, from everyday staples to rare local specialties.
43 foods12 leading categories1 Essentials guides
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The local shortlist
Bhutan Essentials
7 editor-selected foods for understanding the place through what people eat.
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Traditional foods from Bhutan.
43 foods in this view. Filter by category, type, rarity, or search every recorded name.
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Trashi Yangtse, Bhutan
Asham Thukpa
ཨ་ཤམ་ཐུག་པ
Trashi Yangtse's Asham Thukpa is a thick corn porridge cooked until spoonable, not a noodle soup.
Bhutan
Bangchang
བང་ཆང་།
Unfiltered home-brewed beer from fermented maize or millet mash, cloudy and low in alcohol, drunk in large quantities at village gatherings.
Bhutan
Bhutanese Chilli
ཨེ་མ།
Long, thick-walled chillies eaten as a vegetable, sold fresh and green in summer and dried scarlet on farmhouse roofs for winter.
Paro, Bhutan
Bhutanese Red Rice
ཟླུམ་འབྲས།
A short-grain japonica rice with a red bran layer, grown in the terraces of the Paro and Punakha valleys on glacial meltwater.
Tibet, Bhutan
Chhaang
छ्याङ
Millet or rice is fermented and steeped with hot water into a lightly alcoholic Himalayan drink shared across Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan.
Nepal
Chhurpi
छुर्पी
Yak or cow milk is cultured, pressed, and dried into a Himalayan cheese that can be soft, firm, or very hard.
Bumthang, Bhutan
Chogdan
ཅོག་དན
Bhutanese fried rice, usually with egg and vegetables, served at home and in eateries.
Nepal
Dal Bhat
दाल भात
Steamed rice is served with a pourable lentil soup, vegetables, pickle, and sometimes meat as Nepal's everyday meal.
Bhutan
Datshi
དར་ཚིལ།
Fresh, soft, faintly sour cow's-milk cheese made in the house from buttermilk curd, and the base of every dish with datshi in its name.
Bhutan
Ema Datshi
ཨེ་མ་དར་ཚིལ།
Whole green or dried red chillies simmered with water and crumbling local cheese until the cheese breaks into a loose sauce — chilli as the vegetable, not the seasoning.
Bhutan
Ezay
ཨེ་ཙེ།
Raw or roasted chillies pounded with tomato, cheese, coriander, onion and salt into a rough relish put on the table with every meal.
Bhutan
Goen Hogay
གོན་ཧོ་གད།
Cucumber sliced and dressed raw with chilli, onion, coriander, tomato and crumbled cheese — the closest thing Bhutan has to a salad.
Bhutan
Gondo Datshi
སྒོང་རྡོག་དར་ཚིལ།
Eggs scrambled into melting cheese with chilli and spring onion, a quick breakfast version of the datshi principle.
Haa, Bhutan
Hoentay
ཧོན་ཏེ།
Buckwheat dough folded around turnip greens, cheese, spinach and chilli and steamed, made in the Haa valley for the Lomba new year.
Bhutan
Jaju
ཇ་ཇུ།
A thin milk soup with turnip or spinach leaves and a lump of butter, served alongside the hot dishes to cool the mouth.
Bhutan
Jasha Maru
བྱ་ཤ་མ་རུ།
Minced or diced chicken cooked with tomato, ginger, garlic, chilli and coriander into a loose, brothy stew served over rice.
Bhutan
Juma
ཇུ་མ།
Minced meat mixed with rice and spices and packed into intestine, boiled and then sliced and fried.
Bhutan
K5 Whisky
K5
Blended whisky made at Gelephu by the state distillery, matured at altitude and named for the fifth king.
Bhutan
Kewa Datshi
ཀེ་བ་དར་ཚིལ།
Potato sliced thin and cooked in the same cheese sauce with a few chillies, the gentlest of the datshi family.
Bhutan
Khabzey
ཁ་བཟས།
Flour, butter and sugar dough shaped into knots, bows and ribbons and deep-fried, stacked into towers on the altar at Losar.
Bhutan
Kharang
ཁ་རང་།
Maize cracked into coarse grits and steamed, the everyday staple of eastern Bhutan where rice will not grow well.
Bumthang, Bhutan
Khur-le
ཁུར་ལེ།
Buckwheat or wheat batter poured onto a hot griddle into a thick pancake, eaten with datshi or ezay at breakfast in the Bumthang valleys.
Bhutan
Lom
ལོམ།
Turnip leaves dried in bundles on rooftops through the autumn and rehydrated into stews through the winter.
Bumthang, Bhutan
Matsutake
སངས་རྒྱས་ཤ་མུ།
Matsutake gathered in the pine forests around Ura and Genekha for a few weeks in late summer, most of it exported to Japan.
Tibet, China
Momos
ममः
Filled dumplings travelled through the Himalayan region and became a defining Nepali street food, steamed or fried and served with achar.
Bhutan
Nakey
ན་ཀེ།
Fiddlehead fern shoots picked wild in spring and stir-fried with cheese or chilli, tasting green and faintly bitter.
Bhutan
Ngaja
སྔར་ཇ།
Sweet milk tea boiled with sugar and sometimes cardamom, the alternative offered alongside suja and the one visitors usually pick.
Bhutan
Norsha Huentsey
ནོར་ཤ་ཧུན་ཚེ
Beef is cooked with spinach and other greens into a Bhutanese stew known as Norsha Huentsey.
Bhutan
Phaksha Paa
ཕག་ཤ་པ།
Pork belly with the skin and fat on, stir-fried hard with dried red chillies, radish or turnip and sometimes spinach.
Bhutan
Phaksha Phin Tshoem
ཕག་ཤ་ཕིན་ཚོད
Pork is cooked with rice noodles and Bhutanese aromatics in the Phaksha Phin Tshoem tradition.
Bumthang, Bhutan
Puta
པུ་ཏ།
Buckwheat noodles pressed through a wooden press straight into boiling water, then tossed with mustard oil, chilli powder and egg.
Bhutan
Red Panda
དམར་སྤྱང་བི་ར
Unfiltered Bavarian-style wheat beer brewed at Bumthang since 2006 by a Swiss-run brewery, cloudy and served from the keg.
Bhutan
Shakam Ezay
ཤ་སྐམ་ཨེ་ཙེ།
Dried beef shredded raw and dressed with chilli, onion, coriander and a little cheese, eaten as a snack with ara.
Bhutan
Shakam Paa
ཤ་སྐམ་པ།
Air-dried beef, hard as wood before cooking, simmered or fried with dried chillies and radish until it softens just enough to chew.
Bhutan
Shamu Datshi
ཤ་མུ་དར་ཚིལ།
Mushrooms — oyster, button or wild — cooked in cheese sauce with chilli and spring onion.