Kjötsúpa

History

Iceland has always had more sheep than farmland, and long winters that leave little room for fresh vegetables. Kjötsúpa (literally “meat soup”) grew out of that scarcity: sheep have grazed free on volcanic pastures since the first Norwegian settlers arrived in the ninth century, their meat stretched through a whole winter by simmering it slowly alongside root vegetables that keep in a cold cellar, rutabaga and cabbage above all.

Every Icelandic household swears its version is the right one, but the bones of the recipe never change: a clear broth built on lamb, barley or rice, and root vegetables, seasoned with nothing more than the wild thyme that grows across the island. It’s still served on farms and in Reykjavik restaurants alike, the definitive comfort food for a cold Icelandic evening.

Ingredients — serves 4

• 800 g lamb shoulder, bone-in
• 1 rutabaga (swede)
• 2 carrots
• 2 potatoes
• 1 leek
• 100 g short-grain rice or pearl barley
• 1 onion
• Fresh thyme
• Salt, pepper

Kjötsúpa, step by step

1. Put the lamb pieces in a large pot and cover with cold water.
2. Bring to a boil and skim carefully as impurities rise to the surface.
3. Add the sliced onion and thyme, then let it simmer gently for 45 minutes.
4. Stir in the rutabaga, carrots, and rice or barley, and keep cooking for another 30 minutes.
5. Add the potatoes and leek last so they stay firm, and cook 15 minutes more.
6. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper before serving hot with rye bread.

Cooking method

Technique: long, gentle simmering in a big pot, an old-fashioned way of tenderizing lamb that’s spent its life roaming free outdoors.
Traditional equipment: a cast-iron pot set on the wood-fired stove of an Icelandic farmhouse.
Signs it’s ready: the broth should stay clear, never thickened; the meat should fall off the bone at a fork’s touch.

Nutrition, per serving

Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, using bone-in lamb shoulder, divided across four servings. The scarcity that shaped this dish — long winters with little fresh produce — is still legible in its nutrition profile: 38 g of protein and 47 g of carbohydrate per serving come from lamb and root vegetables that both store well through an Icelandic winter, with no fresh salad vegetable anywhere in the recipe.

Fat, at 38 g per serving including 16 g saturated, reflects the bone-in lamb shoulder simmered at length; much of that renders into the broth over the long cook, and skimming before serving — common in Icelandic kitchens — brings the figure down without needing to change the cut of meat.

Economic context

Iceland’s figure above is low relative to its overall cost of living, reflecting a country where sheep have grazed freely on volcanic pastures since the ninth century and lamb remains a genuinely everyday protein rather than a luxury; root vegetables that keep in a cold cellar over winter fill out the rest of the pot at similarly modest cost.

Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in Iceland generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.

Who this dish suits

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