Traditional Norwegian food
Norway has a lot of interesting traditional food, and any travelers visiting Norway would do well to sample some of the local cuisines. Culinary traditions in Norway have been dominated by meat, fish, and seafood that could be hunted or caught. These days the Norwegian food space represents an interesting mix of old and new due to culinary influences from all over the world.
2 min readUpdated: Jan 20, 2026By: The Fjord Tours team
What is traditional Norwegian food?
Traditionally, Norwegian food has revolved around meat or fish, potatoes, and vegetables. Since fishing and hunting have always been fairly common in Norway, many Norwegians have historically caught their own dinner to serve at mealtimes.
With Norway’s extensive coastline, fish and seafood have long been an important source of sustenance. Seafood remains a big part of Norwegian cuisine, and no matter which region of Norway you visit, you’re likely to be able to sample locally sourced fish and shellfish.
This is especially true in Bergen, a city that has historically relied on fishing as an important source of income. Norwegian food traditions share many similarities with those of other Nordic countries, but there are also several uniquely Norwegian dishes that travelers may be interested in trying.
What are some typically Norwegian dishes?
Over the last 100 years or so, traditional Norwegian dinner dishes have commonly included meatballs (made with beef, pork, lamb, or reindeer meat), lapskaus (a stew made with potatoes, vegetables, and leftover meat), and fårikål (a hearty stew made with mutton, this is considered by many to be Norway’s national dish).
Other traditional dishes include lutefisk (dried and salted cod), sodd (mutton soup), and pølse med lompe — a hot dog wrapped in lompe, a traditional potato flatbread.
While travelers usually enjoy sampling local cuisine in Norway, some Norwegian foods are more controversial. Norway is well known for smalahove, a dish that many travelers make a point of trying despite finding it off-putting. It consists of a boiled or steamed sheep’s head served with potatoes and rutabaga. Today it is considered a local delicacy, but historically it was eaten by people who could not afford to waste any part of the animal.
Discover Norwegian food on guided food tours
Norway also has a strong tradition of eating bread with pålegg — open-faced sandwiches made with a single slice of bread and various toppings. Norwegians commonly eat bread or crispbread with toppings for breakfast and lunch.
Typical toppings include brunost (delicious brown cheese from Gudbrandsdalen), other cheeses, sursild (pickled herring), cured meats, and smoked salmon.
If you’d like to sample some of Norway’s most unique and traditional foods, joining a guided food experience is a great way to do so.
A longer journey — with local food in Flåm
Norway in a Nutshell®
Looking for more than a standalone food tour? On Norway in a Nutshell®, you can add a food experience in Flåm while traveling through some of Norway’s most iconic scenery.
Norwegian food tours
Many of the food experiences below can be added to longer journeys through Norway.
What foods are most popular in Norway now?
Historical food trends in Norway have centered around meat/fish paired with potatoes and local vegetables. However, Norway is a modern, multicultural society, and contemporary food trends are fairly different from traditional Norwegian eating habits.
Over the past few decades, international food influences have become increasingly popular. Tex-Mex–inspired dishes are especially common, with tacos now considered one of Norway’s most popular meals. Pasta and sushi are widely eaten, and American-style burgers and pizza are staples when dining out.
At the same time, traditional dishes such as meatballs, lapskaus, and fårikål remain firmly rooted in Norwegian homes and restaurants. Some places prepare these dishes according to old family recipes, while others serve them with a modern twist.
An inside look at traditional Arctic cuisine
In Norway's Arctic regions, a lot of the typical food that most people eat is either not available or is wildly expensive. Therefore, the Arctic lifestyle involves eating a lot of regional dishes that use ingredients that are more commonly found in the area. Here is a detailed look inside the world of Arctic cuisine.
Lots and Lots of Meat
It should come as no surprise that there are not a ton of fruits and vegetables that can be successfully grown in the frigid Arctic temperatures. Therefore, people living in this part of the world need to resort to other sources of food.
That is why meat plays such a big role in Arctic cuisine, with some of the most popular types of meat being reindeer, sheep, and snow hares. While Arctic residents used to hunt and eat polar bears as well, this practice has been outlawed in Norway since 1973.
Luckily, there is an abundant source of meat in the Arctic residents that visitors can enjoy. And this abundance doesn’t begin and end on land. In fact, a large portion of the meat that Norway is famous for is found in the sea.
Seafood
As mentioned above, seafood is also a big part of the Arctic diet because there are so many different sources of meat in the ocean. Some of the most common ones that you are likely to find served on Arctic dinner tables are snow crab, seifilet fersk (pollock, salmon, mackerel, or haddock), tørrfisk (dried cod), and, occasionally, seal.
Not only do Norwegians eat a ton of fish, they are also usually responsible for fishing it out of the sea, rather than just taking a stroll down to the local fish market. This is not something that is usually done with other sources of meat such as reindeer and sheep since they are often much harder to kill and prepare.
Herbs and berries
In order to try and avoid the adverse health effects of eating only meat, people living in the Arctic also tend to include a lot of herbs and berries in their dishes. This is especially true during the summer months when locals can find and pick an abundance of edible berries such as bilberries and cloudberries.
This also allows them to consume a lot of vitamins that they are missing out on due to the dark and sometimes extreme winter conditions in the Arctic that keep them indoors for long periods of time.
Arctic & Norwegian cuisine
It is hard to find a dish served in the Arctic that does not involve at least one of the ingredients mentioned above. Together, they make up a traditional Arctic cuisine that thousands of people living throughout northern Norway consume every day.
If you would like to delve deeper into the Norwegian cuisine and sample the diverse and exciting food on offer in Norway, we highly recommend checking out one of our Norwegian Food Tours.