Montenegrin Cheese: Njeguši, Pljevlja, Kajmak and Prices

Montenegro’s three main cheeses are Njeguši (hard, mostly sheep’s milk), Pljevlja (a white cow’s-milk cheese kept in brine) and Kolašin leaf cheese, and on any market stall you will find kajmak alongside them. At Podgorica market cheese costs €6.50–13 a kilo and kajmak €15: two surveys, in August 2025 and September 2026, found exactly the same price for kajmak.

Three Montenegrin dairy products have a protected designation of origin: Pljevlja cheese, Kolašin leaf cheese and Durmitor skorup. Njeguši cheese, the one visitors know best, has no protection at all; it is made to family recipes.

In short

• Njeguši — hard, rich, mostly sheep’s milk; matures for at least four weeks; sometimes smoked or kept in oil. A whole cheese from €10 (2022 price).
• Pljevlja — white, brined, cow’s milk, from the municipality of Pljevlja in the north. €9 a kilo at Podgorica market.
• Kolašin leaf cheese — cow’s milk, in thin layers, from Kolašin and Mojkovac; €12 a kilo.
• Kajmak — the skin from heated milk, €15 a kilo.
• Where to buy: town markets, ideally before 10:00.
• Taking it home: dairy is banned from the UK and the EU, even vacuum-packed.

Which cheeses are made in Montenegro?

Cheese	Milk	Where from	What it’s like	Protection
Njeguši	mostly sheep’s, sometimes cow’s or mixed	Njeguši, in the mountains above Kotor	hard, rich; smoked or in oil	none
Pljevlja	cow’s	Pljevlja municipality	white, brined, sold in slices	designation of origin
Kolašin leaf cheese	cow’s	Kolašin and Mojkovac	built of thin leaves	designation of origin, 2019
Durmitor skorup	as for kajmak	Žabljak, Plužine, Šavnik	sharp, matured in leather sacks	designation of origin, 2019
Kajmak	skin from heated milk	the whole country	young is fresh, aged is matured	none

The country’s official tourism website also lists masni kučki, fresh Krajina goat’s cheese and prljo.

What is Njeguši cheese like?

It is made by hand. The curd is drained in muslin, packed into a mould and pressed under a board weighted with a stone. The next day it is salted and kept for two days in a wooden box, and after that it matures for at least four weeks. It keeps for up to three months somewhere cool and airy. The official tourism website singles out smoked Njeguši cheese.

In 2022 the food website TasteAtlas ranked Njeguši cheese the second-best sheep’s cheese in the world. That is one website’s ranking, not an official mark of quality.

Cheese in oil (sir u ulju): dried cheese is cut into chunks, covered with a mixture of olive and sunflower oil and left somewhere cool for 60 days. Njeguši cheese is kept this way too.

No price per kilo could be found; in 2022 a whole cheese cost from €10. You buy it where you buy the ham, at the roadside stalls in Njeguši. The village and its shops are covered in Njeguši and Njeguši prosciutto.

What is Pljevlja cheese?

The official description of the name is strict: cow’s milk, with at least 80% of the animals’ feed coming from pasture in the municipality of Pljevlja itself. The cheese matures for at least 15 days and keeps for up to 60; fat must be at least 45% of dry matter, and salt no more than 4%. It is cut into slices 1.5–3 centimetres thick and sold in packs from 500 grams to 25 kilograms.

Pljevlja is in the far north of the country, but you don’t need to go there for the cheese: at Podgorica market in September 2026 it cost €9 a kilo.

Kolašin leaf cheese and the cheese road

You recognise it by the cut face, which is built up from thin layers, or leaves. It is made from cow’s milk in the municipalities of Kolašin and Mojkovac: 17 local communities, more than 100 farms and about 2,000 tonnes of cheese a year. The name was protected in 2019. At Podgorica market in August 2025 it cost €12 a kilo, the same as at Bar market in 2023.

The official tourism website describes a cheese road around Kolašin, through the villages of Trebaljevo, Gornji Pažanj, Blatina, Lipovo, Drijenak, Šljivovica, Štitarica, Podbišće and Tomaševo and up onto the slopes of Sinjajevina. Kolašin is on the road north, and the loop fits neatly into a day at Biogradska Gora.

What are kajmak and skorup?

The word kajmak comes from Turkic and means cream, but in the Balkans it is not cream. Milk is heated, the skin that forms on top is skimmed off in layers, collected and salted. If you know how clotted cream is made, the idea will sound familiar, but kajmak is salted and can be aged. Young kajmak (mladi) is prized fresh, in its first day or two; aged kajmak (stari) is left to mature, and one form of it is skorup. Kajmak goes into the maize porridges kačamak and cicvara, and it is served with pljeskavica.

Durmitor skorup is related to kajmak but is a different product: it matures in mješine, leather sacks, and comes out sharp. It is made only in the municipalities of Žabljak, Plužine and Šavnik, and the name was protected in 2019. Look for it in the north, in Žabljak, which fits into northern Montenegro in two days.

Where to buy cheese, and what it costs

Market and date	Cheese	Kajmak
Podgorica, August 2025	young €6.50/kg; aged and kučki €9; Kolašin €12	€15/kg
Podgorica, September 2026	Pljevlja €9/kg; goat’s €13	€15/kg
Kotor, market by the walls, 2023	€6–10/kg	€15–25/kg
Bar, 2023	€8/kg; leaf cheese €12	€13/kg

How the markets work, as checked in September 2026:

• Podgorica — Velika pijaca (Gintaš), until 16:00;
• Kotor — by the walls of the Old Town, until 16:00; dearer because of the tourists;
• Budva — the green market by the TQ Plaza shopping centre, Monday to Saturday 7:30–21:30, with cheese and meat;
• Bar — Topolica covered market, 7:00–17:00; in Stari Bar, on Fridays;
• Tivat — Magnolia Square; Herceg Novi — in the centre, 6:00–16:00.

Go before 10:00. More on the markets is in Montenegro’s markets.

Can I take Montenegrin cheese back to the UK?

No, and not into the EU either. Cheese and kajmak are dairy products, and dairy from outside the EU cannot be brought into Great Britain or EU countries; vacuum packing does not help. Undeclared products are confiscated and destroyed at the border, and you may be fined. Since 2025 Britain has not allowed dairy in from EU countries either.

The same applies by road: the border with Croatia is an EU border. If you are driving to Dubrovnik for the day, eat the cheese in the boot before you set off. What you can take home instead is in What to bring home from Montenegro.

How to fit cheese into your trip

Njeguši is on the Kotor–Lovćen road, 22 kilometres from Kotor. Without a car, the Heart of Montenegro excursion stops there to taste pršut and homemade cheese, from €73 per person from Budva; bear in mind that it runs only with Russian-speaking guides. Kolašin and Žabljak are in the north: from Budva to Žabljak is 160 kilometres, 3–3.5 hours. The cheese-road villages are easiest by car: car rental.

For everything else worth eating, see What to eat in Montenegro.

Prices checked in September 2026. Sources: Government of Montenegro (specification of Pljevlja cheese; Kolašin leaf cheese), National Tourism Organisation of Montenegro, Analitika news portal (Podgorica market prices), Radio Kotor, Barinfo, Primorski, AgroTV, Wikipedia, the EU’s Your Europe portal, GOV.UK.