Our Favourite Turkish Egg Recipes
We like to keep it real, here! We're doing our best egg recipes!
As this weekend is Easter weekend and we have a distinct lack of any egg-shaped chocolate in the house, we're going to concentrate not on the chocolate variety, but on those protein-packed staples that are produced by the chicken.
Obviously, this is going to be a collection of egg recipes that feature in Turkish cuisine.
For some recipes, eggs will feature as the main ingredient. In others, they make a welcome guest appearance.
Our Egg Recipes Use Village Eggs
Eggs feature in many famous Turkish dishes, which isn't surprising when you see the number of chickens popping up in random places.
We've got used to this now and don't really give them a second glance.
It's still quite common in Turkey for families to keep chickens, even in urban areas.
Where we live, it's not uncommon to see a chicken or three wandering down the pathway at the side of the main road!
Real Free Range Eggs
These are the true free range chickens.
They don't carry with them any special labels such as 'corn-fed.' They're not given x amount of metres per space per chicken so they can be labelled as 'free range.'
No, they wander. They peck at the ground and eat whatever they find. And they eat whatever their owners put out for them.
And they produce the most fantastic eggs!
These are the eggs that are sold as köy yumurtası (village eggs) at your local market. And you need to keep an eye out for them.
They're likely to be in a large plastic bowl or bag. And they can appear on any stall - it just depends whose hens have laid.
Egg Price Fluctuation
Prices per egg can fluctuate massively.
But, whenever possible, these are the eggs we buy for our Turkish egg recipes.
They're sometimes difficult to find. They're certainly difficult to carry. But they're definitely worth your extra lira.
So, what do we do after we've gone to all that effort to ferry home our village eggs without ending up with a sticky yolky mess?
Well, whether we're making a delicious breakfast or easy weeknight dinners, these Turkish egg recipes never disappoint!
And, if we come across any other Turkish egg recipes in the future, we'll add the new recipes to this list.
Turkish Egg Recipes - Celebrating Local Village Eggs
Tentatively, they take a forkful and place it in their mouth. And then BAM, another menemen convert.
This Turkish brunch dish is genius and shows off the village egg perfectly.Top with chopped fresh herbs such as parsley.Some people also like to add beyaz peynir (feta cheese) or kaşar (similar to Cheddar cheese) along with the eggs.
The village breakfast trend in Fethiye continues to gain momentum.And, these days, when you order, it’s rare that you won’t be asked how you’d like your eggs; boiled or fried.Or even an omelette.Difficult to resist a little pan of fried village eggs topped with a sprinkling of red pepper chilli flakes!If you're looking for a special breakfast experience, this is the one!
So where does sucuklu yumurta (fried eggs with sucuk) fit into this gushing equation?Sucuklu yumurta with fresh, crusty bread is fabulous in its own right, especially with a runny yolk.One of our favourite Turkish egg recipes.But then you can also combine with it with a village breakfast.A double whammy of two Turkish breakfasts in one!
You can get sucuklu yumurta as a standalone brunch at places like Baba Fırın in Çalış.Or, of course, you could always use your own village eggs to make sucuklu yumurta at home.It's not what you could describe as a healthy breakfast.But it's a perfect weekend treat.And a great way to fill up after a morning run.
Served with grilled köfte - its traditional partner - it’s truly a delight!
And you might just have the same epiphany we did when we first tried ıspanaklı yumurta: that spinach is not only healthy and versatile but also damn good!The eggs and spinach cook in the same pan, over a medium heat.Combined with the other flavours, they make a tasty filling breakfast or lunch.One of our favourite Turkish vegetarian recipes! And well, a fried egg sat atop a piece of hot toast is always going to work, isn’t it?
Click the button below to try out our recipe for Ispanaklı Yumurta.And, once you’ve made that, make the most of your leftovers with these spinach stem recipes.
This eggs recipe is poached egg served the Turkish way. And, served with warm crusty bread, it is so satisfying. If you want to make this dish at home, here’s our recipe for çılbır.
If you ever get invited to someone’s home in Turkey and potato salad is placed on the table, you will often see eggs as part of the dish.And it works! They take the potato salad to the next level!Give our (eggy) potato salad recipe a try.
These are just a few of our favourite ways that eggs are used in Turkish cuisine. But there are so many more Turkish egg recipes out there.
And, obviously, lots more Turkish recipes, too.
What's your favourite meal that best celebrates the egg for you?
Wishing you and Family a Happy Easter. Grew up in Izmir in the late 60’s and 70’s and I really enjoy your news letter and great food recipes soooo much. Keep them coming.
Hi Sandra, thanks a lot for your comment! 🙂 Glad you enjoy the recipes - and the egg recipes. Will definitely keep them coming. 🙂
@ BacktoBodrum: Wow, congratulations to you in finding the mini eggs. To be honest, we've not really looked for any chocolate ones - we'll stick to the village eggs from the pazar this year. 😉
Yes! I found a box of mini chocolate eggs in Gima - Result! I can go to the egg hunt how.
@ Claudia Turgut: Happy Easter to you, too. Good to hear you're busy with your culinary walks. Well, we could have gone overboard with the eggs and started talking about cakes etc but thought we'd leave it to the visible Turkish recipes. 🙂 Köy yumurta are definitely the best.
Hi Julia! I have been so busy with the culinary walks that I have hardly had a moment for blogging! I liked your comment that eggs feature heavily in the Turkish cuisine: I had never truly taken that on board but I suppose your're right! And we LOVE those köy yumurta - the best! Happy Easter to you and Barry!
@ Suzanne: Lovely to hear from you! 🙂 Thanks for this recipe, it sounds lovely. Can just imagine the ladies itching to refill the plate but resisting that one! 🙂
@ ilke: Very true. You can not not have yumurta for breakfast. 🙂 Sucuklu yumurta is just yummy isn't it?
I love a good ol' menemen for breakfast, or sucuklu yumurta 🙂 You can not "not have" yumurta for breakfast! 🙂 Thanks for this round up.
Recipes for Eggs in a basket
Take a slice of bread and flattened if with a pastry roller to make it tin. Butter the inside of a muffin pan and press the slice of flat bread all around inside each one. Press over the bread a tin slice of ham all around or bits of diced bacon or sucuk, add a bit of spinach or cooked sliced mushroom, break one egg in the middle then cover with cheese and pepper flakes and cook in the oven until the egg is cook. With the muffin pan, you can make 6baskets of eggs and serve then in a plate with anything like a carrot salad, green salad, etc. They egg nests look nice and are delicious. Men usually eat two in my family, kids love it and women want to eat two but hesitate!!!
Suzanne from Montréal