26 German-Inspired Recipes To Help You Celebrate Oktoberfest (2024)

Some things go perfectly together. Peanut butter and jelly. Bacon and eggs. Sausages and sauerkraut. (Seriously!) In this cozy one-pot dinner, you'll nestle beer-braised bratwurst and tender baby potatoes into sauerkraut and finish the dish with fresh herbs and spicy mustard. (If you've never beer-braised anything before, you're sure to love it. Try this technique with chicken nachos or cabbage.)

Get the Sausages and Sauerkraut recipe.

Homemade soft pretzels are better than any mall pretzel you can find. Soft and pillowy, they're a dream for dipping in mustard or nacho cheese. You could even skip the pretzel salt and toss them in a little cinnamon sugar for a sweet treat!

Get the Homemade Soft Pretzels recipe.

One of our favorite ways to prepare cabbage is to braise it. The best part about braising? You can impart a TON of flavor into your cabbage. We love pairing this sweet and sour cabbage alongside creamy mashed potatoes and a pork chop.

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Spaetzle is a traditional German pasta-like dumpling made eggs, and it's great as a side or a full meal. The joy of spaetzle lies in their irregular shapes and sizes, so have fun with it. The one thing that's mandatory: Serve spaetzle with a frosty beer.

Get the Homemade Bacon Spaetzle recipe.

Looking for an amazing dip sure to start your Oktoberfest party off right? Look no further. This beer cheese dip is calling your name. We use refrigerated biscuit dough for our pretzel ring, but feel free to use our homemade pretzel recipe for the full experience!

Get the Pretzel Ring Beer Cheese Dip recipe.

Think of this savory variety of a sweet noodle kugel as a giant latke. Grated onion and potato are combined to create a crispy, slightly sweet dish that's great on its own, but even better with a dollop of sour cream and/or applesauce.

Get the Potato Kugel recipe.

The secret to this gorgeous apple cake? After you peel and quarter the apples, you cut them hasselback-style (yep, just like in these cheesy garlic butter potatoes). That way, you don't have to worry about stacking the slices, and they stay together perfectly while baking! Dust this with powdered sugar and served with a dollop of freshly whipped cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 😉

Get the German Apple Cake recipe.

Unlike the chilled, creamy, mayo-dressed picnic staple we're familiar with, German potato salad is served warm, or even hot, with a bacon vinaigrette. I repeat, bacon vinaigrette. If you've never made a dressing with bacon fat, you're in for a treat. The best part of this is that there's no need to wait for the potatoes to get to room temperature before tossing everything together and heaping it on your plate.

Get the Hot German Potato Salad recipe.

One of our top hall of famers, this dip will get any campfire party started. The pinch of cayenne really adds that special something to this melty, creamy beer cheese. This is best served with toasted baguette, good company, and a cold beer.

Get the Skillet Beer Cheese recipe.

Don’t overlook the humble cabbage! This straight cabbage braise (without meat!) is the perfect way to experience cabbage in all its vegetal glory.

Get the Beer Braised Cabbage recipe.

There’s not much that rivals a thinly pounded piece of meat, breaded and fried until perfectly golden brown. This recipe for pork schnitzel is just that. Pounding the meat until you have a thin cutlet creates a super tender bite. If you have access to a butcher, you can also ask them to do this for you, getting you one step closer to golden brown perfection when you get home.

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German chocolate cake is a sweet chocolate cake that is filled and frosted with rich, sticky coconut, and pecan filling. Despite its name, the cake isn't German at all. In fact, it's an American creation. The cake was originally created using a specific type of chocolate that a chocolatier named Samuel German had created: German chocolate. We call for the use of German chocolate in this recipe (you can find it in most supermarkets), but any chocolate around 48% cocoa will work.

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It takes almost zero cooking skills to get perfectly charred brats topped with flavor-packed caramelized onions and peppers. First, the brats get burnished on the grill, then they finish off in a simmering beer bath alongside the veg. Use whatever beer you like to drink, but not IPAs (India Pale Ales), which are brewed to be hoppy (i.e., bitter).

Get the Grilled Beer Brats recipe.

Very similar to sugar cookies, spritz cookies are soft and buttery, and perfect for decorating. They come from the German word "spritzen", which means to squirt—a nod to the process of making these since you load these into a cookie press!

Get the Bourbon-Vanilla Spritz Cookies recipe.

Pork and sauerkraut is traditionally eaten on New Year's Eve as a good luck tradition (may we suggest alongside some black-eyed peas?!), but don't let that not inspire you to eat it throughout the year, too.

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While you won’t need a stand mixer to make this caraway- and flax-studded rye bread, you will need a bit of patience. There’s not a lot of kneading required for it, so it can be a relaxing baking project for when you’ve got a loose and flexible schedule. And worry not, there’s no need to cultivate a sourdough starter for this bread, because instant yeast will do the trick just fine.

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Why limit these latkes to just the holiday season? We love topping these with sour cream and smoked salmon for an easy weeknight meal. You also can never beat serving these with homemade applesauce for the prime latke experience.

Get the Classic Latkes recipe.

This is one of those classic summer salads that we weren't sure about until we took a bite for ourselves. Now we're hooked on the cucumber slices in a lemon juice, Greek yogurt, and dill dressing. Your BBQ guests will thank you.

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Strudel is a layered pastry with all types of gooey fillings. The most popular is apple, and this one is made even more delicious with the addition with cinnamon, lemon zest, and raisins.

Get the Apple Strudel recipe.