Danish cuisine (2024)

FAQs

What is traditional Danish food? ›

In general, people eat home-cooked food in Denmark, and many families eat together every night. A typical lunch in Denmark consists of slices of rye bread with different toppings such as chicken salad, roastbeef, paté, or herring. For dinner, traditional Danish dishes often includes potatoes on the side.

The Danish 'open faced' sandwiches, smørrebrød, are perhaps the most famous of the Danish food classics. Smørrebrød is simply a slice of rye bread with various combinations of toppings such as pickled herring, roast beef and eggs topped with mayo and shrimps.

Typical Danish breakfast is bread (white or rye bread) with cream or soft cheese, sausage, cured cold meat or jam with coffee or tea. Among popular breakfast dishes are also cereals and porridge. One of the most interesting things and a very traditional Danish food you can eat in Copenhagen is øllebrød.

The "national dish of Denmark" is stegt flæsk - pieces of pork, fried until crisp, and then served with boiled potatoes and parsley sauce. Ironically, the tasty frosted pastries known to much of the world as "Danish" are not Danish at all.

Main meals. Most Danes have three regular meals a day, usually consisting of a cold breakfast with coffee or tea, a cold lunch at work and a hot dinner at home with the family. Some also have a snack in the middle of the afternoon or in the late evening.

The open-faced sandwich, or smørrebrød, is as Danish as a block of LEGO. It is a mini design marvel in its own way too: a delicately balanced dance of textures, flavours and colours piled in a tower built on a buttered rye bread base.

Our traditional Danish lunch the open-faced sandwiches known as smørrebrød are as delicious and varied as the word is difficult to pronounce. Smørrebrød are slices of rye bread heaped with different kinds of toppings, such as pickled herring, potato slices, or roast beef.

"Our Nordic study showed dinners in Denmark to be around 6:30pm or 7pm. In Norway they are earlier, so Denmark is not particularly early here, but compared to countries like Spain, they are. In Denmark, the evening meal is often a hot meal," she added.

Snaps is the traditional hard liquor. The word refers generically to a shot of hard liquor, but in Denmark is almost always akvavit. This is distilled from grain and potatoes and flavored with herbs. It is a core part of Danish culture, drunk with herring and potatoes and at crayfish parties.

Danish eggs are animal welfare of a high quality. The eggs are produced under sound conditions and with high demands for the well-being and welfare of the hens throughout the production period. Unlike many foreign hens, Danish hens are not beak trimmed.

What are the manners of eating in Denmark? ›

Table manners are Continental -- hold the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right while eating. Always keep your hands visible when eating. Keep your wrists resting on the edge of the table.

noun. hyg·​ge ˈhyü-gə ˈhü- ˈhu̇- : a cozy quality that makes a person feel content and comfortable. During the long, dark winters when Danes retreat inside their homes, hygge is what brings them a great sense of comfort and joy.

"The tradition to eat lunch early, at 12, might be that lunch in Denmark is not a big meal like other European countries. It's a cold meal and often a lunch pack from home, often a few sandwiches," Professor Lotte Holm of the University of Copenhagen told The Local.

The list of what Denmark is famous for ranges from impeccable modernist design to baroque palaces, a popular, long-reigning royal family to an equally popular quasi-anarchist Copenhagen community, and so much more. Above all, this small nation is proud of its welcoming spirit, which makes it a joy to visit.