Rumi Cheese substitute

Best substitute

Pecorino Romano

Use the same amount grated, and reduce the salt elsewhere in the dish as the rumi cheese you are replacing

Best for koshari topping

Close match

Rumi's job is salt plus concentrated savoury depth with a sharp, slightly funky bite, and it browns and blisters under heat rather than melting smoothly, which is exactly what a macarona bechamel crust needs. Pecorino Romano is the closest widely available swap, grated one to one, and it is saltier so ease off the dish's salt. Aged provolone, the piccante kind, is arguably the better flavour match because it has the same sharp, slightly pungent edge, though it melts more and browns less. Parmesan is what most people reach for and it is the least accurate of the sensible options: it is nutty and sweet where rumi is sharp and funky, so the dish comes out noticeably milder. Aged gouda or kashkaval sits in between, rounder and less punchy.

Other rumi cheese substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Aged provolone (provolone piccante)
Different texture
Use the same amount grated from cold or briefly frozen
A firm Italian cheese matured until sharp and pungent, close to rumi in flavour.
What changes
Best for
macarona bechamel, baked pasta, hawawshi and sandwiches, eating in slices with bread
In pure flavour terms this may be the closest of all, because provolone piccante has the same sharp, slightly pungent, faintly bitter edge that distinguishes rumi from Italian grating cheeses. The trade-off is behaviour under heat: it is softer and higher in moisture, so it melts and pulls into strings in a bechamel bake where rumi would brown into a firm crust. Freeze it for fifteen minutes before grating or it clogs the grater. Buy piccante, not dolce, which is mild and stretchy.
3Aged gouda or aged kashkaval
Different taste
Use the same amount plus 1 tbsp grated pecorino per cup to sharpen
Firm matured cheeses with good browning and a nutty caramel sweetness.
What changes
Best for
macarona bechamel, baked dishes, cheese-filled pastries, toasted sandwiches
Both grate and brown well, and kashkaval in particular is at home in eastern Mediterranean cooking and often sold in the same shops as rumi. The honest gap is punch: these are nutty, sweet and rounded, so a macarona bechamel made with either tastes comforting and mellow rather than sharp and salty the way an Egyptian one does. Adding a spoonful of pecorino per cup restores the bite without losing the melt, which makes this a genuinely good combination.
4Parmigiano-Reggiano or grana padano
Different taste
Use the same amount grated, ideally with 1 tbsp pecorino or crumbled aged feta per cup
Hard Italian grating cheese, the most familiar option and the least accurate.
What changes
Best for
koshari, baked pasta, soups, grating over vegetables
Included because it is what nearly everyone uses, and it deserves a straight assessment: parmesan is nutty, sweet, crystalline and complex, while rumi is sharper, saltier and funkier. A dish made with parmesan is good and noticeably milder and more Italian, missing the tangy bite Egyptian cooks are after. Blending in a little pecorino or aged feta pulls it much closer for very little effort. Grana padano is milder still, so lean on the blend if that is what you have.
5Aged manchego or Asiago d'allevo
Different taste
Use the same amount grated
Firm aged cheeses with a nutty character and a slight lanolin sharpness.
What changes
Best for
grating over cooked dishes, baked pasta, salads, sambousek
A reasonable middle ground and worth knowing about if the Italian cheeses are out. Aged manchego brings a faint sheepy lanolin note that nudges it toward rumi's funk, and aged Asiago is drier and sharper than young Asiago and grates cleanly. Both are less salty than rumi, so season the dish normally rather than holding back. Neither has rumi's bitterness, so the result reads as pleasant and slightly polite in comparison.
6Kefalotyri or Greek graviera
Different taste
Use the same amount grated
Hard salty Greek cheeses from the same eastern Mediterranean family.
What changes
Best for
koshari topping, frying and browning, baked pasta, sprinkling over lentils
Underrated for this job and often cheaper than the Italian options. Kefalotyri is hard, very salty and sharp, and it browns beautifully, which is precisely what rumi is doing on top of a macarona bechamel. Graviera is a little sweeter and nuttier. Neither reproduces rumi's specific bitter-barnyard note, so the dish is cleaner tasting, but the salt level and the way they behave in the oven are close. Look for them in Greek and Middle Eastern grocers.

What is Rumi Cheese?

Rumi Cheese is a firm pale-yellow cow's milk cheese aged for months or years until it is salty, sharp and faintly bitter, also spelled roumy or romy and known in Egypt as gibna rumi, hard enough to grate, and its job over koshari or macarona bechamel is a concentrated salty punch rather than a melt.

Cooking tips

Rumi is graded by age in Egypt, and the two ends behave very differently. Young rumi is sliceable and used in sandwiches; old rumi is dry, hard and used for grating. If your recipe grates it, pick an aged substitute rather than a semi-firm one, or the topping will melt into a slick rather than crisping.
On koshari and macarona bechamel, rumi's real job is to form a salty crust that browns under heat. That should drive your choice more than flavour does: pecorino, kefalotyri and kashkaval brown well, while soft melters like mozzarella and mild provolone just go glossy and flat.
It is a very salty cheese, so grate first, taste, and then salt the dish. Bechamel is the classic trap here, because it tastes underseasoned before the cheese goes in and can be inedibly salty afterwards. Season it lightly and adjust at the end.
Any hard aged cheese grates far more cleanly after fifteen minutes in the freezer, which matters especially for koshari, where you want fine dry shreds rather than clumps. This is the single most useful trick with aged provolone and gouda, both of which are gummy at room temperature.
Rumi's rind is edible but tough and not pleasant to eat. Save it and simmer it in a lentil soup or a pot of beans the way you would a parmesan rind, then fish it out; it gives a savoury depth that is very hard to get any other way.

Frequently asked questions

What does rumi cheese taste like?

Salty and sharp with a distinctly tangy, slightly barnyard funk and a faint bitterness on the finish, on a firm dry body that crumbles as you grate it. Younger rumi is milder and more buttery; a cheese aged two or three years is genuinely pungent. It sits in the same family as Italian pressed hard cheeses, which its name reflects, since rumi means Roman or Byzantine, but it is sharper and less sweet than parmesan.

Can I just leave rumi out?

In koshari, yes, since the cheese is an optional topping in many versions and the dish is defined by the rice, lentils, pasta, tomato sauce and fried onions. In macarona bechamel it is doing real work, contributing salt and the browned crust, so omitting it leaves a pale, bland bake, and any hard salty cheese is better than none. In a sambousek or hawawshi filling it is the flavour, so replace it rather than skip it.

Is rumi cheese the same as parmesan or romano?

No, though the names invite the confusion. Romano-style cheeses are Italian and made from sheep's milk in the case of Pecorino Romano, and parmesan is a specific cow's milk cheese from northern Italy. Rumi is Egyptian, cow's milk, and aged differently, giving a sharper and funkier result than parmesan and a different kind of sharpness from pecorino. Pecorino Romano is the better substitute of the two despite parmesan being the more common choice.

How do I spell it, and why can I not find recipes for it?

Rumi, roumy, romy, roumi and gibna rumi are all the same cheese, transliterated inconsistently from Arabic, and you will also see it described simply as Egyptian hard cheese or Egyptian old cheese. That inconsistency is why searches turn up so little. If a recipe for koshari, macarona bechamel, hawawshi or Egyptian sambousek mentions any of these spellings, it means this cheese.

Where can I buy rumi cheese?

Egyptian and larger Middle Eastern grocers sometimes carry it, usually in wedges cut from a large wheel, and it is not widely exported. Outside cities with an Egyptian community you are unlikely to find it, which is why substitution comes up. Pecorino Romano is in nearly every supermarket, and Greek kefalotyri or Bulgarian and Turkish kashkaval, both stocked in the same Middle Eastern shops you would be searching in anyway, are closer than most people expect.

Related substitutes

More cheese substitutes

Rumi Cheese substitute

Other rumi cheese substitutes

2Aged provolone (provolone piccante)

3Aged gouda or aged kashkaval

4Parmigiano-Reggiano or grana padano

5Aged manchego or Asiago d'allevo

6Kefalotyri or Greek graviera