I can’t believe we have lived in Tübingen 2.5 years and I have never blogged about the German-style “macaroni and cheese” that is one of the typical dishes in this part of Germany. But it’s true – I promised to do it more than two years ago, but apparently never did. Until today.

Called Käsespätzle, it’s made with the spätzle — a type of egg noodles — that are a staple in Southern Germany. Normally they show up on a plate at the side of meat dish, without any sauce of their own on top of them.

However, the Käse in Käsespätzle means “cheese”, so Käsespätzle would literally translate to “cheese noodles”. The dish involves combining the spätzle in a rich cheese sauce, and then baking the dish to finish it off.  To me, that means it’s really “macaroni and cheese”,  by any other name and noodle. 😉

Here in Tübingen, and the rest of Schwabia (the region Tübingen is in), the dish is traditionally served topped with caramelized onions; those caramelized onions show up on top of meat dishes here, as well as just about everything else savory here for a main dish.  There are as many different variations on how the Käsespetzle is prepared as places where we’ve had it, with flavors and consistency ranging from a a very familiar “American-style” type not-super-creamy cheese sauce (with a mild cheese) to an amazingly rich, super-flavorful very that our favorite restaurant down-the-street, Zum Gutenberg, used to make. Here’s a photo of that version:

Käsespeztle at Zum Gutenberg restaurant

The cheese that the Zum Gutenberg chef used was very different from everyone else’s recipe around here, resulting in a very strong sauce that was really quite a unique taste. As I wrote about last month, the couple that ran that restaurant decided to move back to eastern Germany. So we’ll have to get out and try more places to find a new favorite place to get a dish of Käsespätzle. It’s really been one of my favorite dishes around here, so it’s definitely about time it got a mention here on the blog. 😉