All About The Turkish Breakfast
A traditional Turkish breakfast is the perfect start to the day. Turkish people are lucky enough to have the ideal climate for growing delicious, fresh produce that makes it straight to the table from its source in a few hours. So, every mealtime in Turkey lasts for hours, and breakfast is a staple of Turkish cuisine.
Foreigners understand the word 'Kahvaltı' to mean breakfast, but the literal translation is 'before coffee'. Hence, Kahvaltı is the first meal of the day before consuming coffee. This buffet-style meal will whet your appetite and leave you wanting more. Even if you don’t like Turkish cuisine, drag yourself out of bed for this celebration of Turkish food. The çay will be plentiful, and the wait will be short.
How to Enjoy a Traditional Turkish Breakfast
Wide Range of Foods for Breakfast
Essential dishes include bread, butter, plum jams and preserves, honey, black or green olives, tomatoes, green pepper, cucumbers, cheeses, creamy yoghurt, fruit juices and lashings of Turkish tea to name but a few! Wow, what an array of dishes. There is no limit to the classic breakfast preparation.
Most places across Turkey will accompany your breakfast foods with eggs, either hard-boiled, fried or as an omelette. Don't think twice if 'Menemen' is on your menu. This Turkish breakfast recipe is scrambled egg mixed with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. On other occasions, expect 'suckle yumurta', spicy sausages of ground meat, pork-free, combined with various spices like fenugreek, cumin, garlic, salt, and red pepper.
They also serve ground beef sucuk Turkish sausage on their own. Savoury Gozleme (somewhere between a pancake and a flatbread), pastries and 'kavut' (roasted and crushed cereal flour mixed with milk-like porridge) may appear at traditional breakfasts.
The Turkish breakfast plate is all about the freshness of ingredients. Whether they are shopping for their families, guests, or hotel visitors, local markets and bakeries are an absolute must, as this is where to find fresh, local ingredients.
Buy juicy tomatoes and plump olives alongside freshly baked bread and pastries like "börek" cheese and herb-filled filo, which are still warm when served. Whatever is on your Turkish breakfast table, the produce will be the best.
Regional Varieties of Food Items
There are regional differences when looking at Turkish breakfast ideas, from freshly milled olive oil-covered tomatoes, yellow cheese, and eggs with sausage of the Aegean and Mediterranean coastal villages to delicate and flaky pastries of Gaziantep, filled with cream sprinkled with pistachios and known as 'later'.
Also expect kebabs for breakfast in Gaziantep and nearby Diyarbakir, where liver appears on breakfast menus. Another firm favourite of the spice-loving East is 'beyran çorbası', a spicy lamb-based soup served with white bread, which wards off common colds.
The Black Sea region excels in dairy products, specifically cow milk. Experience the world’s most delicious butter from well-fed milk cows. However, they are most famous for a dish with a different name in every city on the northeast coast called muhlama. The dish blends local cheeses, melted with coarsely ground cornmeal, and scooped onto crusty bread. It is a simple breakfast but hardy.
Delicious Types of Cheese
There are over 30 different types of fresh cheese, and the variety depends on certain factors: cultural habits, the species of animals that provide the milk, and production methods. The standard Turkish cheese, called 'beyaz peynir', is a full-fat, creamy white feta cheese with some saltiness.
Other white cheeses are famous, some from sheep's milk, some from cow's milk, and the traditional Ezine cheese. The chosen milk is curdled, strained, and then salted in brine before being tinned. White cheese is also used in omelettes and pastries.
'Kaşar peyniri', produced from sheep's or cow's milk, is boiled in salt water after curdling, giving it a mozzarella-like texture. 'Tulum peyniri' is crumblier as the water is removed. It is an aged, salty cheese often used in pastries.
'Dil peyniri,' a string cheese made with cow's milk, is boiled like 'kaşar' but is stretched while being cooked. Lastly, 'mihaliç peyniri', the most like 'beyaz peynir', is an aged sheep's milk cheese whose curds are placed in hot water and then left to harden.
Golden Turkish Honey
Honey is big business in Turkey. Add it to yoghurt, scoop it with bread, or dip your cheese in it. There are dozens of honey varieties in Turkey; some demand an incredible amount of money!
Pine honey, harvested in Muğla, Marmaris, Aydin, Kusadasi, and the smaller towns of the Mediterranean region, comes from honey bees that collect honeydew from scale insects living on Indigenous pine trees.
Turkey also produces the world's most expensive honey, Elvish honey. This type, worth way more than its weight in gold, comes from an 1,800-metre-deep cave in the Saricayir Valley of Artvin City in northeastern Turkey. Professional climbers have to reach it. The first kilogram of Elvish honey, sold at the French stock exchange in 2009 for an eye-watering €45,000. You are unlikely to find Elvish honey unless you are prepared to sell your car for it!
Watch out for the northern 'Mad Honey'. Although the hallucinogenic honey initially came from, Turkey’s Black Sea, it is now harvested in other areas. To produce this honey, bees collect nectar from specific types of rhododendron flowers. This ingredient gives the consumer a fantastic buzz when they eat the honey.
Where to Find the Best Breakfast in Turkey
Van city in the east, is Turkey’s top breakfast spot. Van even dedicates a street to the first meal 'Kahvaltı Caddesi', with many Turkish restaurants selling it. However, Van's iconic 'Kahvaltı' includes some twists.
'Otlu peyniri' is the most popular cheese. This firm, off-white, salty block blends local cheeses with wild herbs like fennel, garlic shoots, thyme and mint soaked in salt brine. 'Otlu peyniri' is so popular that the city annually exports 5,000 tons of cheese to other parts of Turkey.
Sütçü Fevzi restaurant serves cucumber, black olives, tomatoes sprinkled with red pepper flakes and chilli peppers, cacik (chopped cucumber and parsley mixed with strained yoghurt), 'only peyniri' and kaymak (cheesy clotted cream) served with local honey, chopped walnuts, and freshly baked flatbread. Two years ago, Van became globally famous when it broke the Guinness world record for the "World's most crowded breakfast table."
Village Breakfasts - Serpme Kahvaltı
At weekends, Turks leave behind their city cafes and decadent breakfasts and instead head to outskirt districts for traditional, village-style dishes. Also called a Serpme kahvaltı, this type of village breakfast focuses on organic and homemade ingredients in scenic surroundings, finished with fruit platters to finish the meal.
On the Aegean coast, near Altinkum, Kusadasi or Bodrum, Turkish breakfast restaurants surrounding Bafa Lake serve good spreads with organic breakfast ingredients, including fresh fruits.
Otherwise, in Bursa, Cumalikizik village serves local ingredients that keep people coming back. On the Bodrum peninsula, try Limon Cafe or Havva Ana in Gokcebel, which puts immense work into its breakfast preparation.
Best places in Istanbul for Turkish Breakfast Spreads
Istanbul is a great place to taste variations of Turkish breakfasts. Sütiş Emirgan, one of the best places to have classic breakfasts in Istanbul, sits on the banks of the Bosphorus in the Emirgan district. Yigit Sofram adds extra items, like fresh ground black pepper; and many say, Yigit Sofram is Istanbul's best breakfast spot. In the Beyoglu district, they serve huge spreads or mini breakfasts for one person. They earn fame with locals and travellers for their eggs at breakfast.
Mangere Bebek, in the Bebek neighbourhood overlooking the sea, often hosts Turkish celebrities. It has a laid-back atmosphere, and the breakfast food is excellent. Plus, you get that fantastic sea view. In Beşiktaş, look out for 'pişi', breakfast doughnuts filled with cheese or chocolate.
Lastly, Van Kahvaltı in trendy Beyoğlu pays homage to the van area. The owner is from Van, so he samples various flavours. This is about much more than your typical type of breakfast.
More About Turkish Foods
So, we hope you are all ready to try and enjoy your first traditional Turkish breakfast. Our blog about more food dishes and ethnic cuisine will tempt you to go beyond and try lunch, dinner, snacks, appetisers, and sweet desserts.
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