Spaetzle substitute

Best substitute

Wide or Extra-Wide Egg Noodles

Use the same amount by weight as the spaetzle you are replacing

Best for Jaegerschnitzel

Different texture

Wide or extra-wide egg noodles are the best thing you can buy, one for one by weight, and browning them in butter afterwards gets you closer still. Small potato gnocchi work for mushroom and gravy dishes. Kluski or Hungarian nokedli are essentially the same food under another name. Honestly though, spaetzle is faster to make than to find: whisk 2 cups of flour with 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of salt, push the batter through a colander into boiling water, and it is done in three minutes. Its job is to soak up gravy, and its rough porous surface is why nothing smooth does it as well.

Other spaetzle substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Homemade Spaetzle From Scratch
Close match
2 cups flour + 3 eggs + ½ cup milk + 1 tsp salt serves 4
Beat the ingredients into a thick, stretchy batter, then scrape it off a wet cutting board with a knife or push it through a colander with holes about a quarter inch across, straight into boiling salted water.
What changes
They float in two to three minutes.
Best for
everything spaetzle is for, Kaesespaetzle, Jaegerschnitzel, goulash, buttered as a side
This is the real answer and it needs no special equipment. Nothing on this list matches it, because the whole point of spaetzle is a wet batter cooked instantly rather than a dried dough. Total time from cupboard to plate is about fifteen minutes. A colander, a box grater's large holes or a potato ricer all work as a press.
3Small Potato Gnocchi
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
Vacuum-packed or fresh potato dumplings, which occupy the same soft-dumpling role on the plate and take beautifully to being browned in butter.
What changes
Best for
Jaegerschnitzel, mushroom cream sauces, goulash, beef braises
A very good stand-in for gravy dishes, and the browned-in-butter version is excellent. It is denser and distinctly potato-sweet where spaetzle is light and eggy, so the plate feels heavier. Avoid it for Kaesespaetzle: gnocchi and melted cheese turn into a gluey mass rather than the loose, stringy tangle that dish wants.
4Kluski, Nokedli or Csipetke
Close match
Use the same amount
Polish and Hungarian egg dumplings made from a nearly identical batter of flour, egg and water, sold dried or frozen in Eastern European groceries.
What changes
Best for
goulash, chicken paprikash, beef gravy, schnitzel, soups
Not so much a substitute as the same dish with a different passport, which is what happens when a food travels across Central Europe. If you find any of these, buy them without hesitation. Nokedli in particular is made by exactly the spaetzle method. Shapes and sizes vary a little between brands but the eating experience is the same.
5Egg Barley (Farfel) or Fregola
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Tiny toasted pasta pellets, egg barley in Central European and Jewish cooking and fregola in Sardinian, both of which are absorbent and hold sauce well.
What changes
Best for
goulash, gravy dishes, soups, as a side with braised meat
Genuinely absorbent and pleasantly toothsome, and the toasted flavour is nice with beef. The pieces are much smaller and considerably firmer than spaetzle, so the dish loses that soft slippery quality and eats more like a pilaf under gravy than a plate of dumplings. Toast them in butter first for the best result.
6Orzo or Small Pasta Shells
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Ordinary small pasta shapes, the least-bad thing already in most cupboards, tossed with butter and a beaten yolk to add richness.
What changes
Best for
gravy dishes, goulash, quick weeknight substitution
The size is right and the starch does soak up some sauce, but the pieces are firm and there is no egg richness at all, so the plate tastes like pasta with gravy rather than dumplings. Off the heat, toss the drained pasta with a tablespoon of butter and one beaten egg yolk per two servings; the residual heat sets the yolk into a light coating and it helps a surprising amount.

What is Spaetzle?

Spaetzle is Spaetzle, also written spatzle or with an umlaut in German and called knoepfle in Swabia, is a soft irregular egg noodle-dumpling made from a loose batter of flour, eggs, milk and salt that is scraped or pressed straight into boiling water so the pieces come out short, bumpy and tender.

Cooking tips

The batter should be thick enough to fall slowly off a spoon in a ribbon, not pour like a pancake batter. Too thin and you get shreds and cloudy water; add flour a tablespoon at a time until it drops reluctantly.
Beat the batter hard for a minute or two, until it looks stretchy and pulls into strands when you lift the spoon. That gluten development is what stops the pieces disintegrating in the pot, and it is the step most first-timers skip.
Work in batches and do not crowd the pot. The pieces need room to float free, and a pot packed with batter drops the water temperature and gives you a single dumpling mass.
For the version served with Jaegerschnitzel, drain the boiled spaetzle and fry it in butter for three or four minutes until the edges catch and brown. For Kaesespaetzle, layer it straight out of the water with grated Emmental or Gruyere and a heap of fried onions.
Leftover spaetzle reheats badly in liquid but fries beautifully. Crisp it in a pan with butter, bacon and a beaten egg the next morning; that is a standard German breakfast rather than a compromise.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good substitute for spaetzle?

Wide or extra-wide egg noodles are the closest thing to buy, since they share the flour-and-egg makeup and the soft texture, and they improve a lot if you drain them and brown them in butter. Small potato gnocchi work well for anything with a mushroom or beef gravy. Kluski or Hungarian nokedli, if your shop has them, are effectively the same food. The best answer, though, is to make it: spaetzle is a fifteen-minute batter, not a project, and no substitute really matches the way its bumpy surface holds gravy.

Can I use regular pasta instead of spaetzle?

You can, and it will make a perfectly good dinner, but expect a different plate. Dried pasta is firm and non-eggy, and its smooth surface sheds gravy where spaetzle's rough porous one grabs it, so a Jaegerschnitzel with pasta reads as schnitzel with pasta rather than as one dish. Wide egg noodles are much closer than spaghetti or penne. If you are using plain pasta, cook it a minute past al dente and toss it off the heat with butter and a beaten egg yolk to add back some of the softness and richness.

Do I need a spaetzle maker?

No. A colander or metal sieve with holes about a quarter inch across works perfectly: hold it over the boiling water and push the batter through with a rubber spatula. The large holes of a box grater work too, and so does a potato ricer. The oldest method is to spread the batter on a wet cutting board and shave thin strips off the edge into the water with a wet knife, which gives longer, more irregular pieces and is what Swabian cooks traditionally do. None of these are compromises; a spaetzle press is a convenience, not a requirement.

Can I just leave the spaetzle out?

Yes, as long as something else on the plate soaks up the sauce. Boiled or mashed potatoes, buttered new potatoes, rice or good bread all do that job, and potatoes are just as traditional alongside schnitzel and goulash as spaetzle is. What does not work is serving a rich gravy-heavy dish with nothing starchy, because the sauce is deliberately intense and needs something bland to balance it. If the recipe is Kaesespaetzle itself, then the spaetzle is the dish, and wide egg noodles are your substitute rather than an omission.

Is spaetzle the same as egg noodles?

They are close relatives, not the same thing. Both are flour and egg, but egg noodles are made from a stiff dough that is rolled, cut and usually dried, while spaetzle is a loose wet batter cooked immediately, which is why it comes out soft, irregular and knobbly rather than as neat ribbons. Practically, spaetzle is softer, more absorbent and holds far more gravy per spoonful. That makes wide egg noodles the best supermarket substitute for spaetzle, while spaetzle is arguably an upgrade rather than a substitute when a recipe calls for egg noodles.

Related substitutes

More pasta & noodles substitutes

Spaetzle substitute

Other spaetzle substitutes

2Homemade Spaetzle From Scratch

3Small Potato Gnocchi

4Kluski, Nokedli or Csipetke

5Egg Barley (Farfel) or Fregola

6Orzo or Small Pasta Shells