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We’ve been eating crepes for the past 2 weeks for breakfast and I’m pretty sure I’ll never grow tired of them. These Russian crepes with cheese are our favorite breakfast and I love that they can be prepared ahead of time; making it the ideal breakfast dish for company.
I had fun making this video and my husband decided to keep it “uncensored” and include the embarrassing footage; he thought it would be more entertaining. In the end, I hope you are inspired to go on and become a crepe-making ninja.
Watch How To Make Russian Crepes:
In unrelated, but good news: last night was my final night shift; no more flipping back and forth torture and constantly thinking about my sleep schedule. I start the day shift on Monday. I’m so excited to get my normal energy and spunk back. After all, I need that energy to keep up with things like cooking, blogging… and a gazillion other things. The Mr. and I are celebrating my transition to days with our usual (and favorite) salsa; ceviche.
P.S. I have some variations of crepes posted on the blog including: Crepes with Meat and Mushrooms, and Crepes with Cheese and Pineapple . You can find the original recipe by clicking here.
Nalesniki with Cheese and Raisins (Russian Crepes)
Ingredients
For the Crepes Batter:
- ½ cup lukewarm water
- 1 cup milk
- 4 large eggs
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted. Plus more to sauté.
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, you can use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup all-purpose
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- Pinch salt
Instructions
How to Make the Crepes:
- Put all of the ingredients for the crepes (in the order that they are listed) in a blender and blend until well combined: 1/2 cup lukwarm water, 1 cup milk, 4 eggs, 4 tbsp melted butter (or olive oil), 1 cup flour.
- Melt a dot of butter in a non-stick skillet over medium heat (2 skillets make the process go faster).
- As you are pouring into the skillet, swirl the batter to evenly coat the bottom. If you get any small gaps, you can fill them with more batter. Depending on the size of your skillet; add about 2-3 Tbsp of batter. I use a small ladle.
- Once the bottom is lightly golden (about a minute or less) flip the crepe using a sharp edged spatula to easily get under the crepe. Let the other side get lightly golden and plop the crepe out onto a cutting board.
- Repeat with remaining batter; you may not need to dot with butter after the first time if your skillet is a good one (and remember there is butter in the batter). Don’t stack hot crepes on top of each other. Once they are just warm or room temp, they can be stacked.
- Don’t panic, my first crepe never turns out nice so I wolf it down to conceal the evidence!
How to make cheese filling and complete nalesniki:
- In a colander, rinse the cottage cheese with cold water and drain well.
- Mash the cream cheese, cottage cheese and sugar with a potato masher until well combined and creamy. Cottage cheese will still be a little lumpy.
- Using a spatula, spread 2 generous Tbsp of cheese filling on each crepe.
- Sprinkle with about 15 raisins.
- Roll the crepe into a log and cut in half.
- Refrigerate crepes that aren’t being served. It keeps in the fridge for almost one week.
To Serve:
- Melt about 1 Tbsp of butter in a skillet and sauté the rolled cheese crepes on medium heat until golden brown on both sides. They don't take long to sauté. Be careful not to burn them.
- Dust with powered sugar (optional) and serve with sour cream or jam on the side.
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Awesome, will try them tomorrow. I especially loved the mask:))
Ha ha thanks.
Love it! I also love to add Pumpkin Pie Spice as a nice variation for Autumn!
Oh my goodness, yum! Do you add it to the batter?
Natasha, I love your website! Great job
Thank you Vita and welcome to the site :).
I have tried many times to make blinchiki. They were tossed in the garbage before anybody found out I’ve made them.
I’ve followed your recipe and these blinchiki were happy sitting in our tummies =D
Awesome :), I’m glad you like the recipe Vera :).
Natasha,
WOW, The Russian Crepes with cheese are great ! Was fun to make also, and as you mentioned the first one might not turn out looking perfect. So as you suggested, I ate the evidence and while it didn’t look pretty it still tasted great.
I did save back a few Crepes and will fill them with a meat paste as I had some London Broil left over from last nights supper.
This was my first time cooking Crepes and your recipe and video made it easy. Sure would like your permission to add it to my own cooking website, but I always ask first and wouldn’t add it without your permission.
Best Wishes,
Bill (aka)“ArizonaBill”
That would be ok with me as long as you credit the recipe and photos to my site and link back. I also ask that the recipe not be copied word for word since Google will ding you for “duplicate content”. Thanks for sharing and I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂
Will follow your instruction, and will for sure give You Credit and a link back to your site. Actually I think I’ve told more people about your site than my little one.
Ended making these again for a friend, they thought I was a master chef. But I did take them online and introduced them to your website and recipe, that way they knew you were the Chef and I was just the cook, lol
Thanks,
Bill
Thank you for spreading the word Bill :).
Made these today and they were DELICIOUS! I followed the instructions exactly (including the blender!) and they turned out perfect. We really enjoyed them, gonna keep this recipe for sure 😉 I used to have trouble flipping crepes but with a new non-stick skillet, by crepe #3 I had it under control. haha. Keep us the hard work, it’s definitely appreciated!
That’s Julia for the inspiration and encouragement 🙂 It really means a lot to me. I love putting my time into this blog for you all and I’m so glad you find it useful.
I use a crepe maker ($20 from bed bath & beyond) to make my crepes and it speeds things up so much!! No need for butter either. It’s so much simpler, cleaner, and easier to use than a skillet!! You should give it a try, I’m sure once you start using a crepe maker you will never go back to a skillet! 🙂
You’re not the first perso to say so; there must be something to it! 🙂
I loved the idea of using a blender! I usually use my KitchenAid mixer for that. Also you actually can skip a spoon and just pour batter from a blender. It’s easier and less clean up 🙂
Crepes were wonderful! Enjoyed making them with my 3 year old!
That’s true but I can never pour the right amount that way so I cheat and use a little ladle. 🙂
Hi Natasha! I am a big fan of nalisniki and I tried so much different recipes. I have my own recipe that I created a while back, but I have to be honest after I tried your recipe its the best I ever tried. The mixture is do smoth and fun to make. I had to make 4 batches for a baby shower and guess what? I had to share the recipe with couple of ladies. They were gone the first thing. I warm them up in the oven for 25 min before serving so we serve them hot. I layer them in a pyrex dish and brush the layers with butter. The best crepes I ever made. Only one thing that I was upset it didn’t work for the crepe maker. I guess because the recipe has butter but its owesome for the skillet. Can’t wait till Saturday to make more!
Thank you so much for sharing great recipes!
Wow, thank you so much for such a great review and for sharing it with your friends. I’m so happy that the recipe was a hit :).
This is the best recipe for nalisniki. Thank you so much!
This is my new favorite cooking blog.
Natasha, you are so beautiful and talented! God bless you and your family!
Thank you for such a sweet comment Maya, I hope that you will find many new favorites :).
Natasha,
Recently I found your blog. Thank you for such amazing and simple receipts! I was wondering what is the brand/where can I buy those scoops for various flour/sugar (solids!) amounts. It is so easy to fill 1 of ur scoops for 1 cup! I have plain basic glass measuring cup that I use for liquid/solids but constantly have to bend to make sure the amount is correct, or raise it up…. Then subtract etc. it’s our utensils look very handy!
I also like your spatulas.
Please advise.
Thank you again
Alla
Welcome to the site Alla :). I’m using Progressive and Trudeau kitchen tools. I have them listed on my shop page.
Some thing is wrong with ur ingredient list. I didn’t see the video, just printed the receipe and 1st thing u say is “put all the ingredients to make crepes (in order they are on list)…. Is it weird that ur crepe recipe calls for cream cheese?
Oh my gosh, you’re right!! I fixed it and yes it is weird to have cottage cheese and cream cheese in the batter!! It’s much clearer now. Thank you so much Tanya for bringing this to my attention.
I’ve been making these 3 weeks in a row now…I can’t get enough. And cranberries are such a great idea 🙂 Wonderful recipe! Natasha thank you so much for your hard work. Love your website.
Thank you so much Lena :). I just had some crepes for breakfast this morning.
Also, I want to share with you guys how to make a Belgian crepes. Probably, many of you know, but any ways… At the middle of a warm crepe put one tea spoon of hot nutella or caramel, spread it on a crepe, add sliced strawberries, rolled up, let it warm a little bit ( spreading staff is hot and we don’t need to give whip to melt) then put nicely whip cream on a top and decorate with few raspberries an blueberries. Also, instead of strawberries you can put blueberries , raspberries or kiwi inside. It looks very fancy and soooo yumi!
That sounds fancy and very tasty! Thanks for sharing!
These nalisniki are so good!!! So Yumi! and supper easy to do! The most I loved an idea to mix everything in a blender. Also, I like to rinse a cottage cheese and adding butter instead of oil what I used to do for more then ten years. Thanks again for the best ever recipe of Russian crepes.
I think you were ahead of your time with the oil. I just discovered it! I tried it with olive oil today and it was great! The results were equally good and it was healthier! 🙂
BTW loved the recipe … and crandberries where a great idea 🙂
Thank you so much Lena! 🙂
I use crepe maker instead a skillet. It’s faster. I bought mine at bed bath and beyond store.
Thanks for the tip; someone else mentioned it too. Maybe I should put it on my wish list 🙂
Yes I did. It freezes well.
I have a few questions. 😀
Could I use a regular hand mixer rather than a blender? or would that splash all over my kitchen?
Also do you think frozen raspberries would work well with farmers cheese inside the crepes?! I just happen to have some in the freezer 😀
Thank you! I look forward to your response.
If you use a deep enough bowl, it shouldn’t splash. You could even whisk it together by hand! 🙂 You might want to thaw the raspberries and then place a few over the top of the cheese just like you would with raisins and roll it. Raspberries sound really good! I’ve tried it with pieces of peaches and pineapple; both had great results!
Hi Natasha! I am new to your site and already tried some of your recipes. I love your Web site. It’s easy to follow the directions . I made crepes with pineapple from your site and I used peaches the second time because i forgot to buy pineapple.was delicious. My 3 year old son loves them. I have a recipe for blini with evaporated milk instead of regular milk. It’s delicious as well. I make a big batch of crepes and freeze half . Whenever I have family or friends over I just pop them in the oven for an hour or more.
That’s so smart to freeze them. I wonder if this recipe freezes well. Have you tried freezing this recipe too?