diff --git a/docs/src/main/asciidoc/qute-reference.adoc b/docs/src/main/asciidoc/qute-reference.adoc
index 90eec6bb5e61a..c10b81f833692 100644
--- a/docs/src/main/asciidoc/qute-reference.adoc
+++ b/docs/src/main/asciidoc/qute-reference.adoc
@@ -430,6 +430,8 @@ If you need to render the unescaped value:
 <1> `title` that resolves to `Expressions & Escapes` will be rendered as `Expressions &amp;amp; Escapes`
 <2> `paragraph` that resolves to `<p>My text!</p>` will be rendered as `<p>My text!</p>`
 
+TIP: By default, a template with one of the following content types is escaped: `text/html`, `text/xml`, `application/xml` and `application/xhtml+xml`. However, it's possible to extend this list via the `quarkus.qute.escape-content-types` configuration property.
+
 [[virtual_methods]]
 ==== Virtual Methods
 
diff --git a/extensions/qute/deployment/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/deployment/EscapingTest.java b/extensions/qute/deployment/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/deployment/EscapingTest.java
index 49d8331a4c4c8..c3770401554bb 100644
--- a/extensions/qute/deployment/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/deployment/EscapingTest.java
+++ b/extensions/qute/deployment/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/deployment/EscapingTest.java
@@ -26,11 +26,13 @@ public class EscapingTest {
                     .addAsResource(new StringAsset("{text} {other} {text.raw} {text.safe} {item.foo}"),
                             "templates/foo.html")
                     .addAsResource(new StringAsset("{item} {item.raw}"),
-                            "templates/item.html")
+                            "templates/item.xhtml")
                     .addAsResource(new StringAsset("{text} {other} {text.raw} {text.safe} {item.foo}"),
                             "templates/bar.txt")
                     .addAsResource(new StringAsset("{@java.lang.String text}{text} {text.raw} {text.safe}"),
-                            "templates/validation.html"));
+                            "templates/validation.html"))
+            .overrideConfigKey("quarkus.qute.content-types.xhtml", "application/xhtml+xml")
+            .overrideConfigKey("quarkus.qute.suffixes", "qute.html,qute.txt,html,txt,xhtml");
 
     @Inject
     Template foo;
@@ -67,6 +69,13 @@ public void testEngineParse() {
         assertEquals("&lt;div&gt; <div>",
                 engine.parse("{text} {text.raw}",
                         new Variant(Locale.ENGLISH, "text/html", "UTF-8")).data("text", "<div>").render());
+        assertEquals("&lt;div&gt; <div>",
+                engine.parse("{text} {text.raw}",
+                        new Variant(Locale.ENGLISH, "application/xml", "UTF-8")).data("text", "<div>").render());
+        assertEquals("&lt;div&gt; <div>",
+                engine.parse("{text} {text.raw}",
+                        new Variant(Locale.ENGLISH, "application/xhtml+xml;charset=UTF-8", "UTF-8")).data("text", "<div>")
+                        .render());
     }
 
     @TemplateData
diff --git a/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/EngineProducer.java b/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/EngineProducer.java
index 26bc5754ad824..f01e316cdd49a 100644
--- a/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/EngineProducer.java
+++ b/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/EngineProducer.java
@@ -113,8 +113,8 @@ public EngineProducer(QuteContext context, QuteConfig config, QuteRuntimeConfig
             }
         }
 
-        // Escape some characters for HTML templates
-        builder.addResultMapper(new HtmlEscaper());
+        // Escape some characters for HTML/XML templates
+        builder.addResultMapper(new HtmlEscaper(List.copyOf(config.escapeContentTypes)));
 
         // Fallback reflection resolver
         builder.addValueResolver(new ReflectionValueResolver());
diff --git a/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/QuteConfig.java b/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/QuteConfig.java
index 416b5624646fc..28bf7ed2d4a81 100644
--- a/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/QuteConfig.java
+++ b/extensions/qute/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/runtime/QuteConfig.java
@@ -74,4 +74,11 @@ public class QuteConfig {
     @ConfigItem(defaultValue = "<alias_>")
     public String iterationMetadataPrefix;
 
+    /**
+     * The list of content types for which the {@code '}, {@code "}, {@code <}, {@code >} and {@code &} characters are escaped
+     * if a template variant is set.
+     */
+    @ConfigItem(defaultValue = "text/html,text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml")
+    public List<String> escapeContentTypes;
+
 }
diff --git a/extensions/vertx-http/deployment/src/main/java/io/quarkus/vertx/http/deployment/devmode/console/DevConsoleProcessor.java b/extensions/vertx-http/deployment/src/main/java/io/quarkus/vertx/http/deployment/devmode/console/DevConsoleProcessor.java
index 14ceea7639254..14bd0496f5627 100644
--- a/extensions/vertx-http/deployment/src/main/java/io/quarkus/vertx/http/deployment/devmode/console/DevConsoleProcessor.java
+++ b/extensions/vertx-http/deployment/src/main/java/io/quarkus/vertx/http/deployment/devmode/console/DevConsoleProcessor.java
@@ -516,7 +516,7 @@ private Engine buildEngine(List<DevTemplatePathBuildItem> devTemplatePaths,
         EngineBuilder builder = Engine.builder().addDefaults();
 
         // Escape some characters for HTML templates
-        builder.addResultMapper(new HtmlEscaper());
+        builder.addResultMapper(new HtmlEscaper(List.of(Variant.TEXT_HTML)));
 
         builder.strictRendering(true)
                 .addValueResolver(new ReflectionValueResolver())
diff --git a/independent-projects/qute/core/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaper.java b/independent-projects/qute/core/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaper.java
index 5788c7e2656f6..f7405dc45d038 100644
--- a/independent-projects/qute/core/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaper.java
+++ b/independent-projects/qute/core/src/main/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaper.java
@@ -1,11 +1,18 @@
 package io.quarkus.qute;
 
 import io.quarkus.qute.TemplateNode.Origin;
+import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.Optional;
 
 public class HtmlEscaper implements ResultMapper {
 
+    private final List<String> escapedContentTypes;
+
+    public HtmlEscaper(List<String> escapedContentTypes) {
+        this.escapedContentTypes = escapedContentTypes;
+    }
+
     @Override
     public boolean appliesTo(Origin origin, Object result) {
         if (result instanceof RawString) {
@@ -37,10 +44,17 @@ String escape(CharSequence value) {
         return value.toString();
     }
 
-    static boolean requiresDefaultEscaping(Variant variant) {
-        return variant.getContentType() != null
-                ? (Variant.TEXT_HTML.equals(variant.getContentType()) || Variant.TEXT_XML.equals(variant.getContentType()))
-                : false;
+    private boolean requiresDefaultEscaping(Variant variant) {
+        String contentType = variant.getContentType();
+        if (contentType == null) {
+            return false;
+        }
+        for (String escaped : escapedContentTypes) {
+            if (contentType.startsWith(escaped)) {
+                return true;
+            }
+        }
+        return false;
     }
 
     private String doEscape(CharSequence value, int index, StringBuilder builder) {
diff --git a/independent-projects/qute/core/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaperTest.java b/independent-projects/qute/core/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaperTest.java
index 9f24a043e1fff..87ff040002539 100644
--- a/independent-projects/qute/core/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaperTest.java
+++ b/independent-projects/qute/core/src/test/java/io/quarkus/qute/HtmlEscaperTest.java
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 
 import io.quarkus.qute.TemplateNode.Origin;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Optional;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
@@ -14,7 +15,7 @@ public class HtmlEscaperTest {
 
     @Test
     public void testAppliesTo() {
-        HtmlEscaper html = new HtmlEscaper();
+        HtmlEscaper html = new HtmlEscaper(List.of(Variant.TEXT_HTML));
         Origin htmlOrigin = new Origin() {
 
             @Override
@@ -53,7 +54,7 @@ public int getLine() {
 
     @Test
     public void testEscaping() throws IOException {
-        HtmlEscaper html = new HtmlEscaper();
+        HtmlEscaper html = new HtmlEscaper(List.of(Variant.TEXT_HTML));
         assertEquals("Čolek", html.escape("Čolek"));
         assertEquals("&lt;strong&gt;Čolek&lt;/strong&gt;", html.escape("<strong>Čolek</strong>"));
         assertEquals("&lt;a&gt;&amp;link&quot;&#39;&lt;/a&gt;", html.escape("<a>&link\"'</a>"));