Turkish Dishes

Kızartma

A Turkish home-style dish of fried vegetables — typically potatoes, eggplants, zucchini, and peppers — served with a thick tomato-garlic-parsley sauce and olive oil.

Lahmacun

A thin crispy flatbread spread with a layer of spiced minced lamb or beef, onion, tomato, and peppers, baked in a very hot oven. Often rolled up with parsley and lemon juice.

Lokma

Bite-sized balls of deep-fried dough soaked in honey or sweet syrup, sometimes sprinkled with cinnamon, pistachios, or walnuts. A traditional celebratory sweet.

Lokum

Iconic Turkish confection of soft, chewy gel cubes made from starch and sugar, traditionally flavored with rosewater, mastic, or lemon, and often filled with pistachios or hazelnuts. Dusted with powdered sugar.

Mantı

Tiny Turkish dumplings filled with spiced ground meat and onions, served with garlic yogurt sauce and drizzled with spiced butter and sumac. Kayseri is famous for making them especially small.

Menemen

A traditional Turkish breakfast dish of scrambled eggs cooked in a copper pan with tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and spices. Served sizzling hot with crusty bread on the side.

Mercimek Çorbası

Turkey's most beloved soup, made with red lentils, onions, and carrots, blended smooth and seasoned with cumin and red pepper flakes. Served in virtually every lokanta across the country.

Midye Dolma

A popular Istanbul street food of mussels stuffed with spiced rice, pine nuts, and currants, served with a squeeze of lemon. Sold from carts and stalls across the city.

Muhlama

A rich Black Sea region dish of cornmeal cooked with aged local cheeses and butter until the cheese becomes stringy and molten. Sometimes enriched with kaymak (clotted cream).

Mücver

Pan-fried Turkish zucchini fritters made with grated zucchini, flour, eggs, and white cheese, with herbs like dill, parsley, and mint. Served with yogurt on the side.

Orman Kebabı

A hearty stew from Bolu called 'forest kebab,' made with lamb or beef cubes, carrots, potatoes, peas, and onions slowly simmered with thyme and tomato paste.

Pastırma

A highly spiced, air-dried cured beef from Kayseri, coated in a thick paste of fenugreek, garlic, and red pepper called çemen. Served thinly sliced as a meze or used in börek and pide.

Paçanga Böreği

A fried börek from Istanbul's Sephardic Jewish culinary tradition, stuffed with pastırma (cured beef), kaşar cheese, and sometimes peppers and tomatoes.

Pide

A boat-shaped Turkish flatbread with a soft, chewy base and various toppings, often including cheese, meat, egg, or vegetables. It originates from the Black Sea region.

Piyaz

A Turkish white bean salad with onions, parsley, and sumac. The Antalya version is distinguished by a tahini-based dressing with lemon juice. Often served alongside köfte.

Shish Kebab

Şiş Kebap

One of the world's most famous kebab varieties, featuring marinated chunks of lamb or beef threaded onto skewers with vegetables and grilled over charcoal.

Sigara Böreği

Crispy cigar-shaped rolls of thin yufka dough stuffed with white cheese and parsley, then deep-fried. A classic Turkish appetizer and breakfast item found everywhere.

Simit

Turkey's ubiquitous circular bread ring encrusted with sesame seeds, with a crispy exterior and soft chewy interior. A breakfast staple sold by street vendors everywhere, often paired with tea or ayran.

Su Böreği

A layered börek made by boiling sheets of dough then layering them with butter and a cheese-parsley filling before baking. Called 'water börek' because the dough is boiled. One of Turkey's most iconic pastries.

Sucuk

A dry-cured spiced beef sausage seasoned with cumin, garlic, sumac, and red pepper. Often pan-fried and served at breakfast (sucuklu yumurta), in pide, or on its own as a meze.

Sulu Köfte

Turkish meatballs simmered in a thin tomato-based broth with potatoes and carrots. The name means 'watery köfte,' referring to the soupy sauce. A comforting home-style dish.

Tantuni

A street food from Mersin made with thinly sliced beef or lamb quickly cooked with Turkish spices and onions on a hot griddle, then stuffed into lavash or bread with tomatoes and parsley.

Tas Kebabı

A Turkish meat stew made with lamb, beef, or veal cubes simmered with onions, tomatoes, garlic, and spices like cumin and allspice. Served with rice, mashed potatoes, or fried potatoes.

Tavuk Göğsü

A unique Turkish milk pudding made with finely shredded chicken breast, milk, sugar, rice flour, and cornstarch. Despite the chicken, it tastes like a creamy vanilla pudding, not savory.