Turkish street food: Top 10 foods to try

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Döner kebab is easily the best-known Turkish street food, and kebab shops sell it all over the world. However, Turkey is easily the best place to get the real deal.

A huge piece of lamb, beef, or chicken is slowly roasted on a skewer and then sliced thinly for each order. The meat is then wrapped in pita bread together with tomato, cabbage, pickles, a bit of chili, and some sauce.

It’s a really simple recipe, but due to a huge demand by tourists and locals, ingredients are always kept fresh, which results in a mouthwatering blast of flavors that keeps you coming back for more.

While the döner kebab might be the best known worldwide, simit might just be the most popular street food in Turkey. This simple circular bread, often accompanied by a cup of strong Turkish tea, is a local breakfast favorite. You can get it plain, with sesame seeds, or try various sweet and savory options.

You’ll find numerous bakeries and street food vendors selling simit in all cities and towns. You’ll even see people simply carrying bags of simit around, and you can simply stop them to get yourself a bite whenever you’re starting to feel peckish.

Turkish ice cream, also known as Maraş ice cream, has taken social media by storm over the last few years, with street vendors playing all kinds of tricks with ice cream and waffle cones. However, the sweet treat itself has been around for way longer than that.

It’s known for its resistance to melting, which comes from the use of salep (a special flour made from orchid roots) and mastic (a resin that provides chewiness). This allows tourists and locals to enjoy this ice cream in the Turkish heat without it melting all over their hands. 

The city of Kahramanmahraş is considered to be the birthplace of Turkish ice cream, and it’s where you get to taste it at its best.

Looking for something more exotic? Being surrounded by seas, Turkey gets its fair share of fresh seafood. Midye dolma, or stuffed mussels, is one of the most popular treats on Turkish streets.

Mussels are stuffed with rice, nuts, onion, black pepper, and cinnamon, then steamed. Once done, simply squeeze some lemon juice over the mussel and eat it in one bite. The flavors can range from the mildest to extremely spicy, depending on what you’re looking for. The bite-sized servings also make midye dolma a very popular bar snack.

Tavuk pilav, or Turkish pilaf, is a really simple, yet cheap and nutritious meal that combines chicken, rice, boiled corn kernels, and chickpeas.

Traditionally made with shredded chicken breast, nowadays it can be topped by any part of the chicken, from wings and thighs to liver.

Mısır is Turkish for corn, and that’s exactly what you’re getting with this street food. A cob of corn is either boiled or grilled and served whole, sometimes seasoned with local spices.

While sold all year round, it’s an essential summer staple, with the corn being at its most flavorful right after harvest.

Kestane kebap, or roasted chestnuts, is another street food staple in Turkey. Just like mısır, it’s as simple of a snack as you can possibly imagine. In fact, both corn and roasted chestnuts are often sold on the same stands.

Chestnuts are roasted over a grill and typically sold plain, without any seasoning. And it really doesn’t need anything else, with this method allowing the natural taste and aroma of chestnuts to shine through.

Kokoreç is a meal best enjoyed without knowing what’s inside of it. This juicy, savory, meaty snack will blow you away with a variety of textures. Typically made with lamb offal — a combination of internal parts such as kidneys, hearts, livers, and tongues. The offal is then  wrapped around with lamb or goat intestines before being grilled on charcoal.

The meat is typically seasoned with cumin, red pepper flakes, and oregano and served on a piece of Turkish bread. Sure, the combination of internal organs and intestines may not sound too inviting, but kokoreç is a true highlight of Turkish street food.

Pide is also often referred to as Turkish pizza because, just like pizza, it’s an oven-cooked flatbread that can be topped with pretty much anything.

The long oval shape with raised corners makes pide super easy to eat on the go. The most popular toppings are cheese, tomatoes, sausage, minced meat, and mushrooms.

There’s nothing unique or exceptional about a baked potato, which is what kumpir is. Thankfully, it doesn’t need to be unique to be incredibly delicious. Baked and buttered potatoes are cut in half and topped with carrots, olives, sausages, pickles, mushrooms, corn, and loads of grated cheese.

It might not be able to compete with food in fancy restaurants in the looks compartment, but the taste is surely up there with anything else you’ll find in Turkey.