What is the Dutch kitchen?

In my work I often meet foreign people. In the evening we take them for a dinner and talk about the food and the local habits. Then the question will come, “what is typical Dutch food?”.

The question to that seems to be difficult, but should it be?

Looking at restaurants it is indeed difficult to find a restaurant serving only Dutch dishes. The Dutch kitchen is mainly cooked at home. It has some basics, I will explain.

Potatoes

One main ingredient of the Dutch kitchen are potatoes. Mostly cooked. The most traditional family dinner on a weeks night is cooked potatoes, cooked vegetables and a good piece of meat.

Besides cooked, we like to eat potaties mashed and then mixed with a vegetable, called stamppot. It has common variants like Hutspot (with carrots and unions), Boerenkool (with Kale) and Zuurkool (with Sauerkraut). But also variants exist with Brussels Sprouts, Pumpkin, Pak Choi.

traditional stamppot plate with mashed potatoes mixed with a vegetable and meat aside

Vegetables

The most commonly eaten vegetables in the Dutch Kitchen are green beans, leek, cauli flower, red cabbage, red beets, brown beans, carrots, cucumber etc.

In the past 5 days a week at the dinner table, now more and more replaced by newer vegetables like broccoli, courgetti, corn, lettuces, bell peppers and tomatoes. Which are also activily grown in the glass greenhouses.

Bread

Myself I am fan of the Dutch bread culture. Dutch people eat a lot of slices of bread, at the breakfast table and in the “bring your own” lunch boxes. Our bakeries have a lot of variants of breads. Dutch breads have an open inner structure and a good outer hard crust. Mostly baked in baking tins.
But also thick and heavy rye breads are very common for the Dutch and Northern Europe bread culture.

Over the last years more and more also the sourdough breads come back, but they are more coming from the German and French bread culture.

typical slices of Dutch bread, here in common “Bus” shape

Sweat bakery

Besides bread, Dutch bakeries and home cookers also have a lot of traditional sweats. Some very common ones:

• Breads with raisins and currants.
• Traditional Cake (natte cake, oma cake)
• Vlaai (Dutch Flan)
• Suikerbrood/ Bolus
• Slofjes (dry cake with almond paste and a topping)
• Tompouce

Home baked Min-slofjes with raspberries on top

Fried snacks

Get Arjen Staal’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

Another thing where the Dutch kitchen is big in variations are the fried snacks. We fry everything in a crispy layer. It results in a lot of streetfood snacks filled with ragout, spicy rice or noodles or fish. With names like Kroket, Frikandel, Mexicano, Bamiblok etc.

And the most famous pub snack are the Bitterballen, easy to share and very tastefully!

Bitterballen, traditionally with mustard

Fish

As we are a country located at the Sea, fish is a important ingredient of the Dutch Kitchen. Especially also eaten raw like Herring (Haring) and Dutch Prawns (Hollandse garnalen).

But also in the markets you will find markets stalls with fried fish. People will for example eat Kibbeling as a street food snack.

International influences

As the Dutch travelled a lot around the world, the Dutch Kitchen is widely influenced by ingredients from around the world.

Very wide spread are the Chinese Restaurants serving a combination of mostly Cantonese and Indonesian kitchen. Nasi (with fried rice), Bami (with noodles), Bapi Pangang (pork meat) are dishes also made at home frequently.

Often accomplished with Pinda Saus, a tasty sauce with a base of peanut butter, sambal and water. Very good in combination with satay and other meat on a skewer. Like chicken or pork from the grill.

These chinese restaurants were for decades the most wide spread foreign influencers of our Dutch kitchen. But in the latest years with more and more international population you can find influences from all over the world in the Dutch kitchen.

You can see it in the weekly menu’s of Dutch families:

• Pasta as a main dish with sauce, vegetables and meat.
• Mexican Wraps or Burittos
• Noodles on Japanse, Chinese or Thai style.
• Greek Feta and Gyros.
• Spanish Chorizo and Paella.
• (Pizza/Pita) shoarma with spicy meat, garlic sauce and hot sauce.

Summarized

The basis of the Dutch kitchen is maybe not so exciting with mainly variants on potatoes and cooked vegetables. But because there are not so many traditional dished we like to influence ourselves with dishes and tasted from all over the world.

Very open to receive comments and adjustments to this summary of the Dutch kitchen.