🇹🇷 Türkiye · Anatolia (shared with Greece, Cyprus, Balkans, Middle East)
Tarhana soupTurkish fermented grain soup
A soup made by dissolving tarhana, a dried and crumbled ferment of grain (wheat flour or cracked wheat) with yogurt and often vegetables, in water or stock. The sour, savoury taste comes from the fermented dried base, not from the cooking.
Origin and history
Tarhana is made almost everywhere in Turkey: a fermented dough of flour, yogurt and cooked vegetables, dried and crumbled so it keeps through winter. Making it was a communal late-summer job, the pieces spread on cloths to dry. Dissolved in water, it gives one of the country's most common soups, usually finished with butter, mint and red pepper. Some regional tarhanas, such as Uşak's, are registered, and related dried ferments exist in Greece, Cyprus and the Balkans.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4–6 servings
- Total time
- 35 min
- Hands-on
- 15 min
Ingredients
- 75 g1/2 cup dry tarhana (powdered or crumbled), homemade or shop-bought Turkish tarhana
- 1.5 L6 cups water, or meat or chicken stock, cold; 250 ml (1 cup) of it set aside for soaking
- 1 tbsp butter, for the base
- 1 tbsp domates salçası (tomato paste) or biber salçası (red pepper paste)
- salt, to taste; tarhana is often already salted
- 3 tbsp (40 g)3 tbsp butter, for the topping
- 1 tbsp dried mint (kuru nane)
- 1/2 tsp pul biber (Aleppo-style red pepper flakes) or sweet paprika
Method
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1. Stir the tarhana into the 250 ml (1 cup) of cold water or stock and leave it for 10–15 minutes, until it has softened into a thick paste.
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2. Whisk the paste until no dry lumps remain.
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3. Melt 1 tbsp butter in a saucepan over medium heat and fry the tomato or pepper paste for about 1 minute, until it smells sweet and darkens slightly.
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4. Pour in the rest of the water or stock and bring it to a simmer.
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5. Whisk the tarhana paste into the pot.
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6. Keep stirring as the soup comes back to the boil, because tarhana sticks to the bottom and forms lumps if left alone.
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7. Simmer gently for 10–15 minutes, stirring often, until the soup has thickened to a pouring cream and no longer tastes of raw flour.
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8. Taste and add salt only if needed; thin with a little hot water if it has become too thick.
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9. Just before serving, melt the 3 tbsp butter in a small pan until it foams, take it off the heat and stir in the mint and pepper flakes.
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10. Ladle the soup into bowls and spoon the sizzling mint butter over each one.
Notes
- Tarhana itself is a winter store made in late summer: flour (often with semolina or cracked wheat) is kneaded with yogurt and a purée of cooked onion, tomato and red pepper, left to ferment for several days, dried in pieces, rubbed into crumbs and dried again. The sourness of the soup comes from that fermentation.
- Regional cooks add cooked chickpeas, cooked white beans, or minced meat browned with green peppers; others finish the soup with garlic yogurt.
- Registered regional tarhanas include Uşak tarhanası; Muğla's göce tarhanası is made with cracked wheat and strained yogurt.
- Greece has its own trahanas, and Cyprus makes a cracked-wheat and sour-milk trahanas cooked in chicken broth with halloumi, which has its own page (Cypriot trahanas).
- The recipe here is the everyday Turkish home version; it thickens as it stands, so loosen leftovers with water when reheating.
Adapted from Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism: Tarhana Soup, Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism: Preparing Dried Tarhana, and Sözcü: Geleneksel lezzet tarhana çorbası.
Variants
At the festivals
Served at 2 festivals in Türkiye and Belgium.
Earlier editions
- October 18, 2026
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December 07, 2025
🇧🇪 Lommel, Belgium
16th Internationaal Soepenfestival
On the menu as Trahanas met halloumi uit Cyprus