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Mercimek çorbası is a beloved Turkish soup made with red lentils, chicken stock, onions, and carrots. It is often seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, or paprika. Easy to prepare, filling, and warming, the soup is consumed for breakfast, lunch, or dinner in rural parts of Turkey, especially in local eateries known as lokantas.
MOST ICONIC Mercimek çorbası
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Domates çorbası is a typical Turkish tomato soup featuring simple and fresh flavors. It consists of cooked or roasted tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, flour, and water. The soup is often seasoned with salt and ground pepper, and it is traditionally garnished with a few fresh basil leaves.
This light meal is typically prepared during hot summer days, acting as a refreshment. It can be served either hot or cold.
MOST ICONIC Domates çorbası
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Beyran çorbası is a traditional soup originating from Gaziantep, where it's served for breakfast. It consists of rendered lamb fat that's topped with rice and shredded lamb meat. The combination is then cooked with the addition of garlic, pepper paste, and lamb broth.
This soup is notorious for its spiciness, making it a pretty unusual way to start the day. If desired, the soup can be served with lemon wedges and fresh Turkish bread on the side.
MOST ICONIC Beyran çorbası
Found in various forms throughout cuisines of Southeast Europe and the Middle East, cacık is a refreshing Turkish dip made with strained or diluted yogurt mixed with finely chopped cucumbers and minced garlic. It is traditionally flavored with olive oil, dill weed, mint, either lemon juice or vinegar, and sometimes even oregano, thyme, sumac, and paprika.
Cacık is served chilled and it is used for virtually everything from various appetizers to main dishes. It pairs especially well with classic Turkish meat fare such as köfte and kebabs of all kinds. As a side dish, cacık is typically enjoyed in place of a salad, diluted with water and eaten with a spoon, like soup.
MOST ICONIC Cacık
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Kelle paça çorbası is a traditional soup made with offal as the key ingredient. Sheep's or goat's head are placed into a pot with water, onions, and salt, and the soup is then slowly cooked until the meat falls off the bones. Some people like to add a roux of butter and flour to the soup, followed by a beaten egg, garlic, and lemon juice.
Lamb neck, tongue, and brain can also be included in the soup. It's recommended to serve the soup with greens and lots of crusty bread on the side.
MOST ICONIC Kelle paça çorbası
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This almost forgotten Turkish dish was described in an 11th-century lexicon as a soup made with noodles, lentils, and yogurt—a common combination in both Türkiye and Kazakhstan, a Turkish-speaking Asian country where this soup is called kespe.
Today, tutmaç çorbası is typically made using homemade, square-cut egg noodles and it is most often prepared with the addition of lamb or mutton, but sometimes also beef, or even horsemeat. The soup is traditionally served in special bowls and it is typically accompanied by katık, a type of Turkish sour yogurt.
MOST ICONIC Tutmaç çorbası
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Yayla çorbası is one of the most popular Turkish soups, made with long grain white rice, butter, yogurt, egg yolks, mint, and red pepper flakes. Just like chicken soup, it is especially popular when fighting a cold due to the nutritious ingredients used in it.
The soup is named after yaylalar – mountain meadows of northern Turkey, where the best-quality yogurt is produced. Creamy, light, and mild-flavored, yayla çorbası is typically served hot, preferably with extra red pepper flakes on top.
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A great example of Turkish regional cuisine, Ezogelin çorbası is a hearty, mint-flavored soup made with red lentils, bulgur, pepper paste, and various Turkish spices. The origins of this classic Turkish winter dish are attributed to an unhappily married woman named Ezo who lived in the village of Dokuzyol near Gaziantep in the early 20th century.
It is believed that Ezo used to make this soul-warming soup in a desperate effort to win over her mother-in-law's cold heart. Ezo's story was often depicted in films and lamented in folksongs, and her name still lives on in this flavorful dish. Today, apart from being served as a warm starter or even as a breakfast meal, Ezogelin çorbası is traditionally prepared as soul food for the young brides-to-be in order to sustain them for the marital journey that lies ahead.
MOST ICONIC Ezogelin çorbası
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Düğün çorbası is a Turkish wedding soup that is traditionally cooked in big cauldrons over an open fire before, during, and after a wedding. It is made with chunks of lamb (sometimes substituted with beef), carrots, onions, egg yolks, lemon juice, butter, and paprika.
The soup is slowly cooked until the meat starts to fall apart, and it is then often thickened with flour. When served, a drizzle of melted butter combined with Turkish spices is spooned over each plate. The final result should be a soup with a rich lamb flavor and a slight tanginess coming from lemon juice.
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Arguably the most laborious Turkish soup and one of Gaziantep's favorites, yuvarlama çorbası is made with spiced meatballs, chickpeas, yogurt broth, olive oil, and other optional ingredients. The soup is traditionally prepared for the three-day celebration of the fast-breaking Ramazan Bayramı, and it is served in virtually every Anatolian home.
The preparation of this festive soup is a time-consuming process, and everyone is involved, as often both family members and neighbors get together to share the work and joy of rolling hundreds of tiny yuvarlama köfte. These spiced meatballs are typically made with lean beef mince, and either rice or bulgur flour, but they can also be made without meat.
MOST ICONIC Yuvarlama çorbası
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TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “Top 16 Turkish Soups” list until February 13, 2025, 2,497 ratings were recorded, of which 1,039 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.