1,165 articles
Jiaozi (饺子)
Jiaozi (饺子, 餃子) are Chinese dumplings of thin unleavened wheat wrappers around meat or vegetable filling, boiled, steamed, or pan-fried (guotie). Known by Han times as huntun, central to Lunar New Year, source of Japanese gyoza.
Johnnycake
Johnnycake (journey cake, hoecake) is a cornmeal flatbread of Indigenous North American origin, griddle-fried from cornmeal, water or milk, and salt; Rhode Island's white flint corn version and Caribbean wheat-flour johnny cakes are distinct traditions under one disputed name.
Jucy Lucy
Jucy Lucy (Juicy Lucy): Minneapolis cheese-stuffed burger, cheese sealed inside two griddled beef patties. Invented in 1950s south Minneapolis; Matt's Bar ("Jucy") and 5-8 Club ("Juicy") both claim it; Minnesota's signature dish.
Junk food
Junk food: informal term for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods high in sugar, salt, or fat; term coined by Michael Jacobson (CSPI) in 1972; no accepted legal definition; regulators use HFSS or ultra-processed food categories instead.
Kabsa (كبسة)
Kabsa (كبسة), also called Makbous or Machboos in GCC states, is Saudi Arabia's spiced one-pot rice-and-meat dish, named from kabs (pressure), served communally with loomi, raisins, and nuts.
Kaiseki
Kaiseki (懐石料理/会席料理) is Japan's traditional multi-course haute cuisine, originating in tea-ceremony meals perfected by Sen no Rikyu and codified in the Edo period; served at ryotei and ryokan with seasonal courses, it differs from omakase service.
Kaiser roll
Kaiser roll (Kaisersemmel, Vienna roll, hard roll, kajzerka): a crusty round Austrian white bread roll with a five-part star top, minimum 46 g baked weight, codex-defined, most-eaten in Austria; in the US the default NY/NJ breakfast-sandwich roll.
Kaiserschmarrn
Kaiserschmarrn (Kaiserschmarren, császármorzsa) is Austria's torn, caramelized shredded pancake dusted with powdered sugar and served with plum compote; a 16th-century rural dish later tied to Emperor Franz Joseph I by legend.
Kapsalon
Kapsalon: a Dutch takeaway dish invented in Rotterdam in 2003, fries topped with shoarma or döner meat, melted Gouda, salad, garlic sauce, and sambal in an aluminium tray, named after hairdresser Nataniël Gomes.
Katsu-sando
Katsu-sando (カツサンド), also katsu sando, is a Japanese cutlet sandwich: panko-fried tonkatsu in shokupan milk bread with tonkatsu sauce and cabbage. Attributed to Isen in Ueno, Tokyo, in 1935, devised so geisha could eat without smearing lipstick; now a konbini staple and global restaurant item.
Katsudon (かつ丼)
Katsudon (かつ丼) is a Japanese rice-bowl dish of breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet over rice, most often simmered with onion in dashi broth and bound in beaten egg.
Kaymak
Kaymak (kajmak, eishta, geymar) is a Turkish and Balkan clotted cream made by simmering and cooling milk, traditionally buffalo milk, with at least 60% milk fat; Afyon Kaymağı holds EU PDO status.
Kebab
Kebab (Persian kabāb, grilled meat): family of skewered, grilled, or spit-roasted meat dishes from Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and South Asian cuisines, including shish, adana, and döner; the Berlin döner sandwich dates to 1972.
Ketchup
Ketchup (also historically spelled catsup) is a sweet-and-tangy tomato condiment of tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices, derived from the Hokkien fish sauce kê-tsiap, defined by US FDA standard 21 CFR 155.194 and graded by USDA total-solids standards.
Key lime pie
Key lime pie: Florida's official state pie (2006) from the Florida Keys, made with Key lime juice, egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and a graham cracker crust, set by acid rather than baking, always yellow, never green.
KFC Original Recipe
KFC Original Recipe is KFC's signature fried chicken coated in Colonel Harland Sanders' secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, perfected around 1939-1940, split between two spice suppliers, and kept in a guarded vault at Louisville headquarters since 1970.
Khachapuri (ხაჭაპური)
Khachapuri (ხაჭაპური) is Georgian cheese-filled bread, from khacho (curd) and puri (bread), with about 40 regional varieties. Main types: Imeruli, Megruli, Adjaruli (boat with egg), penovani; heritage-listed 2019; ISET Khachapuri Index tracks its cost.
Khoa (खोया)
Khoa (खोया), also called khoya or mawa, is the Indian heat-desiccated whole-milk product with 55-65% total solids, made in Pindi, Danedar, and Dhap varieties and used as the base of burfi, peda, and gulab jamun.
Kibbeh (كبة)
Kibbeh (كبة), also kubba, is a Middle Eastern dish family of bulgur-meat paste eaten raw, fried as stuffed torpedoes, baked in trays, or simmered; Aleppo alone claims over 70 types, with variants across Iraq, Turkey, and Cyprus.
Kielbasa
Kielbasa (kiełbasa) is the Polish word for sausage and a family of Polish meat products, usually smoked pork with marjoram and garlic; in American English it names one smoked U-shaped sausage, unlike the broad Polish category.
Kimchi (김치)
Kimchi (김치), Korea's fermented cabbage and radish dish seasoned with red pepper, garlic, and jeotgal; Codex-standardized since 2001, kimjang inscribed by UNESCO in 2013; distinguished from sauerkraut by lower acidity and carbonation.
Kinder Joy
Kinder Joy is a Ferrero candy sold in a plastic egg with one half holding a treat and the other a surprise toy, launched in Italy in 2001.
King cake
King cake (galette des rois, gâteau des rois) is a ring-shaped cinnamon or brioche pastry eaten from Epiphany (January 6) to Mardi Gras, famous in New Orleans with a hidden plastic baby, purple, green, and gold sugar, and over 500,000 cakes sold per Carnival season.
Kipper
A kipper, also called kippered herring, is a whole herring gutted, split along the back, lightly brined, and cold smoked below 30 °C, a traditional British breakfast food.
Kissel
Kissel (kisel, kisiel, kiisseli; кисель) is a viscous Eastern European dessert or drink of fruit or berry juice thickened with starch, descended from ancient fermented oat gruels; served warm or cold across Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Finland.
Knafeh
Knafeh, also spelled kunafa or kanafeh and known in Turkey as künefe, is a Middle Eastern dessert made with pastry, a cheese or cream filling, and sugar syrup. Versions occur across Palestine,.
Knickerbocker glory
Knickerbocker glory: a British layered ice cream sundae in a tall glass, first recorded in a 1915 US soda fountain handbook, named from Washington Irving's Knickerbocker, famous at Fortnum & Mason since 1956.
Knish
Knish (Yiddish קניש), Ashkenazi Jewish baked or fried dough pastry filled with mashed potato, kasha, or onion; New York street food since about 1900, first knish bakery 1910.
Knödel
Knödel are boiled or steamed dumplings of Alpine cuisine, called Klöße in northern Germany, made from potato, bread, flour, semolina or meat, with Neolithic Mondsee evidence and a 13th-century Hocheppan fresco.
Kobe beef
Kobe beef (神戸ビーフ, KOBE BEEF) is certified wagyu from purebred Tajima cattle raised and slaughtered in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, meeting BMS 6+, meat quality 4+, yield A/B, and carcass weight limits; defined in 1983, GI Registration No. 3, under 0.2% of Japan's beef market.