Turkish Tarhana Soup Recipe: Easy & Homemade

Tarhana soup is a tangy, fermented Turkish soup you make from dried tarhana powder. Soak the powder in warm broth, fry garlic and tomato paste in butter with spices, then whisk in hot broth until it thickens.

It is nutritious and natural, and as a result, it is one of the first foods Turkish babies start eating following breast milk. If you have tarhana powder ready at home, making tarhana soup will be very easy. It will take up to 10 minutes to prepare your nutritious and satisfying soup with few ingredients. For more bowls to cook from scratch, see our Turkish soup recipes, and for the wider table it belongs to, the Turkish recipes hub.

Please note that you need the tarhana powder for this recipe. Making traditional tarhana powder is a long process and takes days. Find a recipe for the powder here.

Alternatively, Turkish supermarkets in your town should have Tarhana powder. Amazon also sells Turkish Tarhana powder. Tarhana soup recipe needs tomato paste and it tastes better with Turkish-style tomato paste. If you are visiting a Turkish market or shopping Amazon for tarhana powder, add this Tomato paste to your basket too.

Tarhana Soup recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup of powdered tarhana
• 7.5 cups hot broth or water
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 1 teaspoon of mint
• 2 cloves of garlic

Method

1. Mix 1 cup of powder tarhana with 1.5 cups of warm broth (or water) and let it soften.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a deep saucepan. Add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 1 teaspoon of tomato paste and fry for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, pepper, paprika and 1 teaspoon of mint into the butter and mix.
4. Add the tarhana you soaked in to butter which you fried with tomato paste, garlic and spices.
5. Add the remaining 6 cups of hot water (or broth) and mix it constantly with a whisk to make the soup thicken.
6. Serve the boiling soup hot without waiting. Enjoy your meal.

Keep stirring the soup as it cooks so that the powder will dissolve completely.

Note: Since it is a soup that thickens as you cook it, you can add water when you are consuming it the next day.

If you would rather eat your way around the city than cook, our Taste of Two Continents food tour crosses from the Spice Market breakfast to Kadıköy by ferry, with a local guide and a group capped at 10. We have run food tours since 2013 and hosted more than 50,000 guests, with a 4.95/5 rating from over 7,800 reviews.