Turkish food is one of the most international in the world. It is clearly influenced by its Ottoman past and by Arab culture. Traditional Turkish food is characterized by its almost infinite variety. Although it varies greatly from region to region, there are some dishes that are enjoyed and known throughout Turkey. Let’s dive into 20 best Traditional Turkish food dishes!
Table of Contents
1. Kebab
Kebap means “grilled or fried meat”. There are numerous kebap variations. In restaurants, kebap is usually served with rice or bulgur and grilled tomatoes and peppers.
- Döner Kebap is the best-known version. Slices of meat seasoned with marinade are placed in layers on a rotating spit and grilled sideways. The spit rotates slowly but constantly. Little by little, the outer, browned layers are thinly sliced off. Döner Kebap can be eaten on bread or as a plate dish.
- Iskender kebab is a kebab served on flatbread, topped with yogurt, grilled peppers, and tomatoes, and topped with melted butter. Iskender kebab was originally invented in Bursa, so it is sometimes called Bursa kebab.
- Beyti Kebab is grilled minced meat wrapped in very thin, soft flatbread and served with tomato sauce and yogurt.
- Adana Kebap is minced meat grilled on a long skewer and seasoned very spicy.
- Urfa Kebap is the milder variant without spiciness
2. Meatballs
Köfte are kind of meatballs, however, kofte are smaller than meatballs. Minced meat is mixed with finely chopped onions, egg, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and powdered caraway, shaped, and then fried or grilled in oil. Grilled tomatoes and peppers are also served with it. French fries, bulgur, rice, and salad also go well with it. Each region has its own recipe.
- Inegöl Köfte are prepared without spices only from onions and minced meat and are shaped like a square.
- Izmir Köfte are cooked in the oven together with potatoes and tomatoes.
- Sulu Köfte are round meatballs that are cooked in hot water with potatoes and carrots. The dish is then refined with lemon and egg yolk.
- Ciğ Köfte – “raw kofte” are strongly seasoned raw meatballs made from chopped, lean beef. To eat, wrap them in a lettuce leaf and sprinkle lemon on them.
- Ciğ Köfte without meat: Ciğ Köfte can also be made with fine bulgur instead of minced meat. This variant has become very popular in recent years. By law, for hygiene reasons, Ciğ Köfte with raw minced meat can only be served in certain restaurants and must be eaten promptly.
3. Dolma
Dolma means “filled” in English. Dolma are vegetables or vine leaves stuffed with rice and/or minced meat. Dolma stuffed with rice are prepared with olive oil, seasoned with onions, pine nuts, cinnamon, coriander, and small dried raisins, seasoned with lemon and traditionally eaten cold. Dolma stuffed with minced meat, on the other hand, are eaten warm. Warm dolma is served with yogurt.
- Stuffed vine leaves: the stem is cut off from fresh vine leaves, the vine leaves are briefly blanched in salt water. Then some filling is placed on each vine leaf, the leaves are rolled up, covered with tomato sauce, and then cooked.
- Stuffed white cabbage leaves are prepared in the same way as stuffed vine leaves.
- Stuffed peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini: Minced meat mixed with finely chopped onions and rice is seasoned with salt, pepper, and tomato paste, filled into the previously hollowed-out vegetables, and then cooked.
All dishes can also be prepared with olive oil and eaten cold.
4. Karnıyarık
Karnıyarık means “torn belly” in English. Eggplants are peeled in strips, fried in oil, hollowed out, and filled with a mixture of minced meat, tomatoes, parsley, onions, and garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper, covered with tomato sauce, and then cooked in the oven.
The dish is eaten warm with rice.
5. Imam Bayıldı
Imam Bayıldı is the vegetarian version of Karnıyarık. Imam Bayıldı is prepared with olive oil and does not contain minced meat. It is seasoned with salt, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, and a little cinnamon.
In English, Imam Bayıldı means “The Imam fainted.” Legend has it that a prayer leader (imam) fainted with delight when he tried the dish for the first time.
Imam Bayıldı can be eaten warm with rice or cold as a starter.
6. Hünkar Beğendi
Hünkar Beğendi is made from smoked, grilled eggplants. The eggplants are pureed and then mixed with milk, melted butter, grated cheese, and flour. The mixture is topped with small cubes of stewed lamb. It is seasoned with garlic, pepper, salt and nutmeg.
The dish is served warm.
Hünkar Beğendi means “The Sultan liked it” in English. Legend has it that Napoleon III’s wife, Princess Eugénie, fell in love with the eggplant puree during a visit to Istanbul, and it has borne this name ever since.
7. İşkembe Çorbası
İşkembe Çorbası or tripe soup is one of the national dishes in Turkey. It is often eaten as a final meal after drinking a lot of rakı and is considered a “hangover cure”.
After the tripe has been rubbed with salt for a few hours, it is washed and boiled in lemon water for several hours. Then it is cut into thin strips and cooked in the broth until it is finished. It is seasoned with a mixture of plenty of crushed garlic, vinegar, a spoonful of melted butter, and paprika.
Not everyone’s cup of tea, you either love tripe soup or you hate it…
8. Börek
Börek are filled pastries made from thin dough, usually yufka. The filling is traditionally made with minced meat, cheese, spinach, and potatoes. Böreks are baked in the oven or fried in oil in a pan, the top is covered with egg yolk or sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Here you can find some of the numerous variations:
- Su Böreği is made from boiled dough sheets which are then topped with cheese or minced meat and cooked in the oven.
- Sigara Böreği has the shape of a cigar and is filled with cheese or minced meat and fried in oil in a pan.
- Pançanga Böreği is filled with cheese and pastırma, a strongly seasoned dried beef, and fried in oil in a pan.
- Kol Böreği is made from long rolls of dough filled with cheese or minced meat, which are placed in a round baking tray and baked in the oven.
Böreks are very popular in Turkish cuisine and are often served with afternoon tea.
9. Meze
Meze actually refers to the way the appetizers are served. The small appetizer plates are placed in the middle of the table and everyone serves themselves.
In Turkey, meze refers to the appetizers themselves, of which there are over 300 different types.
Typical ingredients used to make meze are chickpeas, tahini, yogurt, eggplant, tomatoes, olives, and olive oil. It is seasoned with cumin and coriander, among other things.
The waiters often come with a huge tray with lots of small meze plates on it, and you can choose what you would like. Hummus, a porridge made from chickpeas and sesame paste, haydari, a mixture of yogurt, dill, and garlic, eggplant salad, and chicken salad with walnuts are just a few of the traditional types of meze.
Meze plays an important role in Turkish cuisine and is traditionally served with Rakı.
10. Pide
Pide is a flatbread with toppings that is baked in a stone oven. It is long and the toppings resemble an eye.
- Kaşarlı Pide is prepared with melted cheese
- Minced Meat Pide with minced meat
- Yumurtalı Pide with a fried egg
- Kuşbaşılı Pide with seasoned pieces of meat cut into tiny cubes
11. Lahmacun
Lahmacun is often referred to as Turkish pizza. A spicy mixture of minced meat, onions, and tomatoes is spread on a wafer-thin, round rolled-out yeast dough and then baked in a stone oven.
To eat, the oven-fresh Lahmacun is sprinkled with lemon, topped with finely chopped lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, and then rolled up.
12. Gözleme
Gözleme are thin flatbreads, usually filled with spicy ingredients. The dough is rolled out into a very thin flatbread, at least the size of a plate, one half is thinly covered with the filling, the flatbread is folded over and the edges are pressed firmly together. Gözleme is baked on a large, curved hotplate, the so-called saç. Before serving, Gözleme is brushed with melted butter.
Feta cheese, spinach, potatoes, and minced meat are very popular fillings.
In restaurants that serve Gözleme, you can often see women in traditional costumes preparing the food.
13. Kokorec
Kokoreç is a Turkish specialty made from finely chopped grilled lamb intestines. The intestines are wound like coils on large skewers that rotate horizontally over a special charcoal grill. It is seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, cumin, and hot paprika powder.
To serve, kokoreç is chopped into small pieces, mixed with chopped onions and tomatoes, and served either between bread or on a plate. It is often served with spicy peppers pickled in vinegar.
Kokoreç is often cooked over charcoal on a small mobile grill cart and sold directly to passers-by.
14. Balık Ekmek
Balık Ekmek means “fish bread” in English. The fried or grilled fish fillet, usually mackerel, is served with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions in a piece of Turkish white bread. It is seasoned with salt and lemon.
15. Simit
Simit is a ring-shaped yeast pastry with sesame seeds on the crust. The sesame ring is mainly sold by street vendors in small mobile handcarts. You can also see vendors carrying mountains of simit artfully stacked on a tray on their heads along the beach.
It is served with Ayran, a drink made from yogurt that is reminiscent of buttermilk.
Simits are also sold in bakeries, but it is said that those sold by street vendors are crispier.
Simits can be eaten at any time of the day when you are a little hungry. At breakfast, they are eaten with olives and feta cheese.
16. Aşure
Legend has it that Noah prepared Aşure for the first time after the great flood, using the last remnants of his provisions. He shared it with the survivors of the Ark as a feast.
Today, Aşure is a dessert made from white beans, chickpeas, wheat, rice, raisins, and chopped walnuts. The ingredients are cooked individually and then mixed with sugar. It is decorated with pomegranate seeds. For the European palate, Aşure is relatively sweet.
17. Baklava
Baklava is a sweet from Turkey. The small pastry is a puff pastry soaked in honey or sugar syrup, and filled with walnuts or pistachios, depending on the region in Turkey. Between each layer of the wafer-thin yeast dough is a thin layer of the filling. Finally, after baking in the oven, syrup made from boiled sugar water is poured over the finished baklava.
18. Maraş Dondurma
Street vendors dressed in traditional clothing sell the ice cream from their mobile carts. In contrast to the types of ice cream known in Europe, Maraş Dondurma has a viscous, sticky consistency due to the addition of salep powder. It is made from the tubers of terrestrial orchids. This is why real salep is rare and expensive. Another advantage of adding salep is that the ice cream melts more slowly.
The sellers constantly stir the ice cream, which ensures that it retains its elastic consistency.
When handing over the ice cream to the customer, the sellers often joke around, pull the ice cream away again, and show the customer how elastic the ice cream is and how far it can be stretched.
19. Raki
Among alcoholic beverages, Rakı is the Turkish national drink par excellence. It is made from ripe grapes that are fermented and distilled. Anise is then added and distilled again. The drink has a licorice-like taste.
The clear liquor has an alcohol content of 40 to 50%. The most popular varieties are Yeni Rakı and Tekirdağ Rakı. There are also Izmir, Altınbaş, Burgaz, Efe, and Beylerbeyi Rakı, among others.
Rakı is served in rakı glasses, slim, tall, thin glasses that resemble long drink glasses. Usually, two to three fingers of rakı are poured into the glasses, followed by the same amount of water. When it comes into contact with water, the anise precipitates, and the drink turns milky white. After each sip of rakı, drink a sip of water.
At a traditional Rakı sofrası, a Rakı table, there are countless hot and cold meze on the table and people eat and drink for hours, often accompanied by Turkish folk music.
Drinking Rakı alone is not common in Turkey and is considered a sign of loneliness.
20. Tea
Turkish tea is prepared in two pots stacked on top of each other, called Çaydanlık. Water is boiled in the lower pot and then poured onto the tea leaves in the upper pot. After the tea has been brewed, the strong tea brew is first poured from the upper pot into the glasses, and then water from the lower pot is added.
This allows you to decide for yourself whether you prefer a strong or weak tea. Tea is drunk in small glasses that are narrowed in the middle so that the tea stays hot longer.
Turkish tea is drunk everywhere and at all times. Don’t be surprised if you are offered tea when shopping for souvenirs. This is a matter of course for Turkish hospitality.
21. Turkish Coffee
The method of preparing Turkish coffee has been part of UNESCO’s Intangible World Cultural Heritage since 2013. A characteristic feature is that the coffee grounds are poured into the cup.
Finely ground coffee powder is mixed with water in a small copper or brass pot and boiled over low heat until it almost boils over. The resulting foam is evenly distributed among the coffee cups. The coffee is then boiled again and then poured into the cups.
It is drunk from small cups that are similar in size to espresso cups.
Due to its special preparation method, Turkish coffee contains small suspended particles of coffee grounds, which give it a thick consistency.
When ordering, you must specify whether you would like the coffee without sugar – şekersiz – with little sugar – orta şekerli – or sweet – şekerli.
In some cafes, you can turn your coffee cup over with the coffee grounds on the saucer and then have your future predicted…
Read also: 12 Traditional Turkish Drinks To Discover
