Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the typical and traditional fare of the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine reflects influences of the Pennsylvania Dutch's German heritage, agrarian society, and rejection of rapid change.

It is common to find Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine throughout the Philadelphia, Allentown, and Lancaster regions of Pennsylvania.

Techniques

In the 18th century, baking was still done in wood-fired ovens that produced inconsistent results and could easily overheat. The Pennsylvania Dutch baked pastries on cabbage leaves to protect against hot spots that could develop in the oven.

Soups

Soups, often featuring egg noodles, are characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Soups were traditionally divided into different categories, including Sippli, which is a light broth, Koppsupper, a cup soup, Suppe, which is a thick, chowder soup often served as a meal with bread, and G'schmorte, a soup with no broth often like a Brei or gravy.

Pennsylvania Dutch soups are often thickened with a starch, such as mashed potatoes, flour, rice, noodles, fried bread, dumplings, and Riwwels or rivels, which are small dumplings described as "large crumbs" made from "rubbing egg yolk and flour between the fingers", from the German verb for "to rub."

Dishes

  • Amish potato salad
  • Apple butter
  • Brown butter noodles—egg noodles combined with butter that was melted and browned in a pan.
  • Chicken corn soup—made with egg noodles and sometimes saffron, which has been cultivated in Pennsylvania Dutch country since the early 19th century; egg noodles, corn, hard-boiled eggs, and chicken. Sometimes an addition is rivels, small dumplings.
  • Gingerbread, ginger snaps, ginger cake, and pot roast spiced with ginger and other aromatic spices.
  • Hamloaf—a meatloaf-like dish made of ground ham, often baked with brown sugar on top, lacking the spices and bread crumbs found in meatloaf.
  • Lebanon bologna
  • Pepper cabbage—a sweet and sour dish
  • Scrapple
  • Cracker pudding—thickened with saltine crackers
  • Fastnachts
  • Funnel cake
  • Funny cake—a combination of pie and cake that is made by baking a cake surrounded by pie crust, marbled throughout with chocolate streaks.
  • Whoopie pie
  • Shoofly pie—molasses crumb cake with a pie crust for easier eating.