50 Easy Turkish Food Recipes To Cook At Home
If you are into Turkish cuisine and don't know where to start, here is a guide for basic Turkish food recipes. Of course these 50 recipes are just the basic recipes. Turkish cuisine is one of the largest cuisines of the world and has over two thousands different recipes.
Let's start with the soup recipes.
Turkish Soup Recipes
Easy Yellow Lentil Soup Recipe
Turkish cuisine has tens of different lentil soups and one of the basic ones is easy yellow lentil soup.
Chicken Vermicelli Soup Recipe
Vermicelli is another common ingredient in Turkish soup recipes. There are again tens of vermicelli soups. Chicken vermicelli soup is one of the most known vermicelli soup.
Ezogelin soup is another lentil soup. It's both delicious and hearty.
Beyran soup is a popular soup of Gaziantep cuisine. It's generally eaten in restaurants, but you can cook it at home as well. But if you will ever visit Gaziantep, add it on your to do list.
Chicken broth soups are also very common in Turkish cuisine. This creamy chicken broth soup is the most popular one.
Turkish Main Dish Recipes
Traditional Turkish Kofte Recipe
Almost all of the countries have their own meatballs. Köfte is the meatball of Turkish cuisine. It has lots of different types and this is the most popular and basic one.
Sarma is rolled vine leaves filled with a delicious rice mixture. It's one of the essential recipes of special celebration tables of special days in Turkey.
Pide is a type of flat bread with different types and versions. The ground beef pide is one of the most preferred ones.
Every country has its own bean and rice recipes. This dried white bean stew with tomato paste is the bean on Turkish cuisine.
Rice filled mussels, midye dolma, are one of the most popular night dishes in Turkey. Heavy drinking nights generally end with midye dolma.
Hunkar beğendi is a special dish from Ottoman palace cuisine and has a very special story. You can read it in the recipe.
İçli köfte belongs to South Eastern region of Turkey. It is another type of köfte with a ground beef filling and crispy bulgur mixture crust.
Artichoke Hearths With Olive Oil Recipe
Artichoke is generally eaten as artichoke hearts in Turkey. The artichoke hearts are sometimes filled with vegetables, meat or chicken mixtures. This is a vegan version of artichoke hearts.
Lahmacun is another flat bread recipe. It's generally known as Turkish pizza but it's nothing to do with pizza. It has a different dough that doesn't contain yeast. It's thinner than pizza and has a crispy texture, it is not soft as pizza. It has a spicy ground beef mixture. You should try it to see the differences.
Keşkek is a hearty and delicious dish with a hundreds years of background. It has been made all around Turkey with slight differences. It is made with wheat berries and chicken or meat.
Kumpir is both a snack and main dish. It's also a common dish of touristic "What to eat in Turkey" lists. You can make and eat kumpir at home even if you can!t visit Turkey.
Karnıyarık is a popular eggplant dish made with a ground beef filling.
Stewed kidney beans, barbunya pilaki is a delicious vegan dish that you will love. It can be served cold, warm or hot.
Anchovy is a common fish that is catched in Black Sea, so it's cooked in different ways in Black Sea Region. Hamsili pilav, baked anchovy pilaf is one of the best ones.
Salad And Meze Recipes
I'm not sure if I have to say anything about hummus. It's a world wide known dish. Try it with this recipe.
Hummus and muhammara are generaly mentioned together. Another delicious meze made with roasted red peppers.
Antalya piyazı is a traditional dish which has a geographical indication. It is made with boiled white beans and plenty of tahini.
Kısır is a traditional salad recipe generally prapared for tea parties. But it can also be eaten as a main dish.
In Turkish cuisine you can make salads with any ingredients by mixing it with yogurt and garlic. Carrot salad with yogurt is one of these yogurt salads.
Even if it's more commonly known as belonging to Greek cuisine, Turkish cuisine has its own cacık as well. It has a different consistency though.
Çiğ köfte is originally made with raw meat, but after some regulation changes it was banned to be selled. Now all çiğ köftes you can find at restaurants and çiğ köfte shops. This recipe is also vegan. But if you can stand spicy food, beware of çiğ köfte. It's one of the most spicy food of Turkish cuisine.
Turkish Pastry Recipes
Yufka is the base of börek and gözleme. It's not a dish actually, it's an ingredient. If you want to make börek or gözleme from scratch, you have to make yufka first.
Simit is the most common street food in Turkey. It's has a crispy crust covered with sesame seeds and is soft inside. It's generally preferred for breakfast but can be eaten at any time of the day.
Bazlama is a type of flat bread soft as cloud. You don't need oven to prepare bazlam as they are cooked in the pan.
Açma is another breakfast pastry like simit. It is soft both inside and outside.
Katmer is a flaky bread. It can be made with different fillings. This is the most basic and simple katmer recipe.
Poğaça is the name of a pastry category. There are tens of poğaças. This one has cheese and parsley filling.
Leek Borek With Home Made Phyllo
As poğaça, there are tens of different börek recipes. You can make böreks with yufka or as this one you can hand roll it. This has a leek filling.
Tahinli çörek is a flaky pastry with tahini filling. It's prepared like börek, but as it's sweet it's not börek, but called çörek.
Boyoz is another flaky pastry special to İzmir city. It has a sephardic background. If you are curious about it's story, just click on the link.
Turkish Breakfast Recipes
I'm sure you have heard of Turkish breakfast before. It has plenty of different ingredients. There are lots of different types of eggs you can serve at Turkish breakfast. Menemen is one of the common eggs recipes. It's scrambled eggs with pepper and tomatoes and sometimes onions.
Kaymak (together with honey) is an indispensable ingredient of Turkish cuisine. It's generally spread on bread but also can be used in some dessert recipes.
Çılbır is another eggs recipe. It's becoming popular worldwide recently. It's simply poched eggs on top of garlic yogurt.
Mıhlama a cheesy roasted cornmeal recipe. It's a hearty breakfast recipe makes you eat plenty of bread.
Sucuk is beef chorizo that can be eaten for any meal but generally preferred for breakfast especially with eggs.
Turkish Dessert Recipes
Baklava is the most famous dessert of Turkish cuisine. It's home town is Gaziantep and Gaziantep has the geographical indication for Turkish baklava.
Kazandibi is a unique milk dessert which has a special method of preparation. You can see how it's prepared on the video.
Pumpkin is a softly sweet vegetable and Turkish cuisine makes use of this sweetness very often. Pumpkin dessert is the most common dessert prepared with pumpkin.
Sütlaç, rice pudding is another popular milk desserts in Turkish cusine. There are lots of different rice puddings in the world. What makes Turkish rice pudding unique is it's consistency.
Ekmek kadayıfı means bread kadayıf word by word. It has a special bread dried in the oven. Ypu can keep the bread years without spoiling. The bread is soaked and caramelised with simple syrup and served with kaymak.
Peynir helvası is a popular dessert that is prepared with fresh cheese. It has a unique texture and consistency.
Zerde is a vegan dessert flavoured with saffron. It may be described as vegan rice pudding.
Turkish Cookie Recipes
Un kurabiyesi is Turkish shortbread cookies. They have a few simple ingredients and plenty of flavour.
Tuzlu Kuru Pasta (Traditional Savory Cookies) Recipe
Tuzlu kuru pasta is the savory butter cookies of Turkish cuisine.
Bakery Style Butter Cookies Recipe
These butter cookies are very popular patisserie cookies. They are generally bought from patisseries while visiting friends and family at their homes.
Turkish almond paste differs from marzipan in terms of ingredients. You can taste the almond flavor up to the end in Turkish almond paste.