Are you a foodie and want to try Turkish cuisine? It’s amazing!
But do you know, the Turkish food list is vast? That’s why you may get confused about which Turkish cuisine dishes you’ll try.
So what do you need to do?
Just keep reading this article because I’m going to tell you about the most delicious cousin you must try.
So, let’s have a look at the top Turkish dishes.
List of Must-Try Popular Turkish Food
Here are some of the top Turkish dishes every foodie should experience:
- Piyaz
- Ezogelin corba
- Saksuka
- Kisir
- Mercimek kofte
- Yaprak dolmaTurkey.
- Inegol kofte
- Iskender kebab
- Cag kebab
- Manti
- Testi kebab
- Pide
- Su boregi
- Baklava
- Dondurma
- Lokum
1. Piyaz
Piyaz is one of the delicious and well known salad which originated from Antalya, Turkey. Piyaaz mainly consists of the ingredient called candir beans which are small and with tremendous taste. Candir beans are a type of dried beans that are produced in an inland region of Turkey specifically the Antalya province.
And for the preparation of this piyaz, candir beans are blended with tahini, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, minced garlic, flat-leafparsley and olive oil. Some people also put chopped boiled eggs for the preparation of their piyaz as well.
Piyaz is one of the delicious health beneficial salads I much prefer during the hot months of summer. This makes it also a good source of protein and a good supply of fiber in the diets.
2. Ezogelin corba
This soup is a story in its own right and goes by the name of Ezogelin soup which is said to have been prepared by a woman who wanted to please her mother in-law.
They claim that it was created by a lady called Ezo to seduce her mother in law after coming to despise her husband or it was invented to entice the same lady.
From the soup, she prepared from red lentils, tomato paste, fresh tomatoes and onions she made a tasty soup. The soup is traditionally accompanied by dried mint and flaked chili.
Ezogelin, developed by a woman called ezogelin or derived, is one of the most recommended meals for brides to be though there is no proof that it does the magic.
3. Saksuka
Saksuka which is a Turkish specialty is prepared using eggplant, zucchini, garlic, tomatoes as well as chili peppers. It is a kind of zeytinyagli yemegi ‘food cooked in olive oil’; most of the Turkish food are zeytinyagli such as beans, artichokes, and egg plants.
Saksuka is one of the traditional eggplant dishes which is quite famous and much-loved in Turkey. The egg plant is chopped into small sizes and fry together with the other vegetables. With regards to how spicy the dish is, this may vary with the amount of chili peppers used in the preparation and this depends on where in Turkey it is prepared. Football lover, some of them love the hot in the plate, while others some prefer it mild.
4. Kisir
Kisir is a very tasty and favorable salad type in the Turkish food list. It is derived from a type of cracked wheat known as bulgur. Others are tomatoes, garlic, parsley, and mint. While there is a tremendous variety of recipes for kisir, one of the most widely known recipes is the Antakya kisir. This version uses nar eksisi, which is a sour pomegranate molasses, and pul biber, which is hot red chili flakes. This is quite evident from the fact that most people in Antakya consider food that is spicy as the best.
5. Mercimek kofte
Mercimek kofte is a delicious Turkish appetizer or side dish. It is also known as belluh by the people of Diyarbakir. This dish is a great choice for vegetarians.
Mercimek kofte is made with red lentils, bulgur, salt, onion, scallions, tomato, hot red pepper paste, and cilantro. It is served in small, bite-sized pieces.
To eat mercimek kofte, you can place a piece on a lettuce leaf. Then, squeeze some lemon juice on it and roll it up. It is a tasty and healthy snack!
6. Yaprak dolma
Yaprak dolma is a tasty Turkish dish made with vine leaves. People stuff the leaves with rice or minced meat that has lots of spices.
In Isparta, they cook rice with tomatoes, parsley, onion, garlic, tomato paste, olive oil, pepper, salt, and water. Then, they put a spoonful of this mixture in a vine leaf and roll it up tightly.
You can buy vine leaves at the market, but the best ones come from trees. People often pick them at night.
Yaprak dolma is a popular dish in the Aegean region of Turkey. Sometimes, people add a little cinnamon to the mixture. This is a tradition from the Rum people, who are Greeks born in Turkey.
7. Inegol kofte
Inegol kofte are grilled meatballs that are a delicious part of Turkish cuisine. They’re made with ground beef or lamb, breadcrumbs, and onions.
These meatballs are more than just meat. In Turkish food, each kind of kofte has its own special history.
One of the most famous is Inegol kofte, created by Mustafa Efendi. He came from Bulgaria and moved to Inegol, a city in northwestern Turkey, in the 19th century.
Mustafa Efendi’s kofte are different from other Turkish kofte. They use only ground beef or lamb and breadcrumbs. He also adds onions for flavor.
8. Iskender kebab
Iskender Efendi, a Turkish chef, invented Iskender kebab.
Bursa, a city in northwestern Turkey, is known for three things: silk, the Uludag ski resort, and Iskender kebab.
In 1867, Iskender Efendi first cooked this dish for workers in Bursa’s Kayhan Bazaar.
Thin slices of doner meat go on top of soft pide bread. Fresh tomato sauce covers the meat. Then, melted butter sizzles on top. The kebab comes with yogurt, grilled tomatoes, and green peppers.
9. Cag kebab
Cag kebab is a delicious dish made with lamb. To make it, we marinate lamb meat in a mixture of onions, salt, and black pepper. After marinating, we put the meat on a long skewer and cook it over a wood fire.
People in Erzurum love cag kebab so much that they’ll wait hours for a bite! It’s so good that you can eat it alone or wrapped in flat bread with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.
10. Manti
Manti, delicious Turkish dumplings, are especially popular in Kayseri, a city in Central Anatolia. The most common type of manti is small squares of dough filled with various ingredients.
In Kayseri, manti usually have a filling of minced meat. People seal the meat in small dough parcels. Other regions might use cheese instead. After boiling the manti, people serve them with yogurt and pul biber, which is a type of chili flakes.
Interestingly, there is a bit of a funny background story to manti. It stated that a good Turkish house wife can make them so small that forty of them fit a spoon!
11. Testi kebab
Kebab testi is a mouth watering cuisine from Nevsehir in Turkey. It is cooked inside a special clay pot from Avanos.
First, pot put beef, tomatoes, green pepper, garlic and butter into pot to boil. After that, it is topped with a potato and aluminium foil layer is placed on the food. Place the pot in a wood burning oven.
When the food is cooked, the cook breaks open the pot with a hammer. You need to hit the line around the pot, about three-quarters of the way up.
The inside of the pot is hot, so be careful! The food is delicious and full of flavor.
12. Pide
Pide is a delicious flatbread made with dough. We stretch the dough into a thin shape and add different fillings. Turks love pide, especially the ones from the Black Sea region.
Here, they stretch the dough into a long shape and put many different fillings inside. The most popular filling is sucuklu yumurta, which is spicy Turkish sausage and egg with kasar cheese. But ispanakli kasar, spinach with cheese, is also very tasty.
The crust of pide is what makes it so good. We cook it in a wood-fired oven. The high heat makes the crust crispy and crunchy, perfect for all kinds of fillings.
13. Su boregi
Su boregi is a delicious pastry made with layers of yufka dough and a creamy white cheese filling. Yufka is a thin, flaky dough similar to filo.
Su boregi comes from the high plateaus of central Anatolia in Turkey. Nomadic herders brought it to Turkey hundreds of years ago. Now, you can find different kinds of borek all over Turkey and in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe.
The most common type of borek is su boregi, which means “water borek.” It has a simple flavor with white cheese, butter, olive oil, and salt.
14. Baklava
Baklava is a delicious Turkish dessert made with layers of flaky pastry, chopped nuts, and a sweet syrup. It’s especially popular in the city of Gaziantep, where people have a special way of making it. They bake the pastry in a dark room with a controlled temperature to get the perfect layers.
Each layer of pastry is brushed with butter, and then people add chopped pistachios between some of the layers. After that, they pour a sweet honey syrup over the whole thing and bake it until it’s golden brown.
There are many different kinds of baklava, with fun names like “twisted turban” and “nightingale’s nest.” They all taste amazing! Baklava is often served with kaymak, a creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream.
15. Dondurma
Can you imagine an ice cream which you cannot eat with your hands, but with a knife and forker instead?
This special type of ice cream is available in Kahramanmaras place of Turkey. Interestingly, it translates as “freezing” in Turkish and it is commonly referred to as dondurma. Of course you can also say it as Turkish ice cream.
Dondurma is consist of milk, sahlep and mastic. Sahlep is a kind of flour derived from orchids which adds to the texture of the ice cream and makes it creamy. Mastic is a natural gum which contributes to chewy texture of ice cream.
Dondurma is one of the oldest and favorite Turkish sweets that has always been produced for many years. It is tasteful and also a special form of a treat in summer to overcome the summer heat.
16. Lokum
Turkish delight or Lokum which is famous worldwide has a story of its own. The Egyptian rulers were regular viewers and it wasn’t until the mid part of the 19th century that the rulers of the Ottoman empire became fans. The augmentation of cornstarch by Istanbul confectioner Haci Bekir during the mid of the nineteenth century was crutial.
This basic combination of water, starch and sugar heated to make rose water and pistachio scented delicate cubes, remains unstintingly popular.
Last Words
I know this list of Turkish food is short, but trust me, these are the dishes you absolutely must try to get a real taste of Turkey. From the sweet layers of baklava to the flavorful spices of Iskender kebab, each dish has a special taste that shows off Turkey’s rich cooking traditions. So, the next time you want to try something different, jump into these Turkish treats—you won’t be sorry!
