burrata

noun

bur·​ra·​ta bu̇-ˈrä-tə 

variants or less commonly burrata cheese

plural burratas also burrata cheeses

: mozzarella formed into a ball-shaped casing that contains curds and cream

… give us a single ball of burrata with some olive oil and crackers, and we'll be more than happy.

—Olivia Harvey

It was not one of those petite, tennis-ball-size burratas. … Nearly as big as a cantaloupe, the wobbly burrata … was bursting on the plate, the oozing cream pooled around it.

—Melissa Clark

Roughly spread some creamy burrata … on the bread, then add some cherry tomatoes …

—Geoff Last

… Perry plates a dollop of soft, delicately flavored burrata cheese and dusts it in black pepper.

—Brenna Houck

Examples of burrata in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Restaurant Week menus run from 10 AM to 4 PM for brunch with dishes like burrata with apple and radicchio, orecchiette with broccoli and sausage, and pistachio panna cotta. —Kimberly Wilson, Essence, 21 Jan. 2026

The restaurant provides cuisine from pan-seared steelhead to a creamy burrata salad. —Veronica Fernandez-Alvarado january 21, Sacbee.com, 21 Jan. 2026

Skip the bread service, but do order the burrata and little gem salad to start. —Devorah Lev-Tov, Condé Nast Traveler, 19 Jan. 2026

Use a sharp knife to make a crosswise incision on top of burratas. —C.w. Cameron, AJC.com, 11 Jan. 2026

Entrees include short ribs, wild king salmon and casarecce pasta with pistachio pesto, burrata and raw sushi-grade shrimp. —Laura Ness, Mercury News, 22 Dec. 2025

The first course offers a choice of carrot soup, Caesar salad or pomegranate burrata salad. —Elaine Rewolinski, jsonline.com, 11 Dec. 2025

The cheese mix was a solid balance of mozzarella to cover it and burrata and ricotta to add variety to each bite. —Carolyn Burt, Oc Register, 1 Dec. 2025

Since then, fine-dining restaurants like Santa Chicória, run by chefs Ilca Carmo and Paulo Anijar, have expanded the city’s culinary lexicon to include dishes like filhote and rice with jambú pesto and a crisp cassava gratin served with burrata from Marajó. —Michael Snyder, Travel + Leisure, 5 Nov. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Italian, originally southern regional, noun derivative from feminine of burrato "flavored or spread with butter," from burra "butter" (borrowed from Old French bure, going back to Late Latin būtrum, by syncope from Latin būtyrum, variant of būtȳrum, būtūrum butter entry 1) + -ato -ate entry 3

Note: An early occurrence of burrata and description of the product is in Guida gastronomica d'Italia (Milan: Touring Club Italiano, 1931), p. 395, in a list of dishes typical of the city of Andria in Puglia: "Oltre i communi latticini, è prodotto tipico locale la burrata, sfera di pasta di caciocavallo contenente del latte di bufala con panna i filacci di pasta di provola o di mozzarella" ("Beside the common dairy items, a typical local product is burrata, a ball of caciocavallo [a cheese made from stretching fresh curds in hot water] containing buffalo milk with cream and strands of provola [another cheese made from stretched curds] or mozzarella"). The first maker of the cheese was allegedly one Lorenzo Bianchino Chieppa, who, perhaps in the 1920's, worked at the Piana Padula farm near Castel del Monte, a medieval castle in the Andria commune. The farm already produced balls of stretched-curd cheese stuffed with butter—as an innovation it was decided to fill the balls instead with strands of leftover mozzarella and cream. The innovation met with unexpected success, first in Andria, and eventually far beyond it. The traditional name for the butter-filled cheese containers was manteca. (An illustration of the product can be found at the Italian Wikepedia entry for manteca.) Presumably burrata was another name for this or a similar product, and it was transferred to the mozzarella-and-cream filled containers, despite their lack of butter. For references see the article "La burrata. Un prodotto made in Puglia" by Debora di Fazio in Peccati di lingua: le 100 parole italiane del Gusto (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2015), pp. 51-53. See also Lessico etimologico italiano, vol. 8, column 499.

First Known Use

1981, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for burrata

• agata
• bharata
• cantata
• costata
• ephrata
• errata
• falcata
• mahratta
• regatta
• serrata
• sonata
• stigmata