Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (2024)

Let’s make a famous Turkish borek recipe in a pan on the stovetop in 15 minutes! Make your tea ready and enjoy 😊

I am going to show you how you can make Turkish borek with ready yufka sheets or phyllo sheets or even make your own in an easy method. We are going to use only a rolling pin, and will cook on stove-top 5-10 of them together!

Ingredients For Turkish Borek Recipe:

  • About 300-350 gr. thick phyllo sheets, yufka sheets. (I showed you how you can make your own in the previous episode on my YT channel: https://youtu.be/G1SnO65rS48 ) Recipe follows in the article.
  • 1 egg 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • pinch of salt
  • For the filling:
  • About 200gr. Turkish white cheese or feta cheese (You can mix it with some shredded mozzarella as well)
  • about tbsp chopped parsley
  • vegetable oil or butter to cook
  • 22-24cm nonstick pan

You can double the amounts and make börek in a bigger pan about 32cm in diameter. Or triple the amounts and make it in an oven tray and bake it in the oven. Here is the one I made in a bigger pan using ready yufka sheets: https://youtu.be/jym9yvHVqMc

Prepare The Sauce And The Filling:

Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (1)
  • To make the borek sauce: In a medium size bowl crack an egg. Add milk, vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. Mix everrything well.
  • To make the filling: In a medium size bowl cruble white cheese or feta cheese. If you are using mozarella grate and add it to the mixture along with chopped parsley and mix well.
Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (2)

Assembling The Borek:

If you are using ready phyllo or yufka sheets:

  • The ready yufka / phyllo sheets are bigger in size. So for 300-350gr you will probably be using 3 yufka sheets. In a nonstick or cast iron about 22-24cm in diameter pan, place one covering the bottom and the sides of the pan and hang the rest from the sides. After we fill inside the borek we will close on top to cover it.
    Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (3)
  • Place the second one wrinkling so it can fit to the pan. This way it will create air pockets while keeping the sauce we are going to pour. Drizzle almost the half of the sauce over the yufka to dampen.
    Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (4)
  • Add the filling evenly over the wet yufka sheet. Add the third sheet wrinkling and covering the cheese filling. Drizzle from the sauce and cover the hanging yufka pieces over and lightly wet between the overlapping sheet.
    Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (5)
    Don’t use the sauce on top of the borek since it can stick while cooking. Pour the leftover sauce inside if you have and (watch the video:)

If you make it with homemade yufka sheets or frozen thick (#11?) phyllo sheets

  • Cover the bottom and the sides with 3 small sheets hanging form the sides and begin to build inside. With the same method make the first layer of your borek placing sheets wrinkled. You may use 3-4 sheets or more to build one layer. Drizzle half of the sauce and place the filling and continue to the same steps above.
Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (6)

Baking The Borek

After assembling the borek, bake in low medium heat, closing lid until bottom is golden brown. You can check after delicious smells coming from your borek 🙂 Using a flat lid or plate that can fit inside your pan flip the borek and cook the other side. IT should take at least about 15 minutes to cook, so inside can fully set.

Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (7)
Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (8)

Let the borek rest preferably on a wire cooling rock or cutting board for 10 minutes. Cut into squares traditionally or into wedges if you prefer. And serve warm with a glass of Turkish tea 😊

Making Your Own “Yufka” Precooked Phyllo Sheets

You can use these sheets in many recipes from Turkish cuisine like borek or use as a wrap, or tortilla. I explained all details in the episode. You can watch from the video down below👇🏻

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup lukewarm water (or use 1/3 cup milk + 2/3 cup water) I used cheese water in order to not waste. It is totally optional. I am experimenting to make cheese and will share it with you soon
  • 1 tsp each dry yeast (optional), vegetable oil and salt
  • about 3 cups all-purpose flour
Borek Recipe In 15 Minutes - Turkish Food Travel (2024)

FAQs

How do you make burak? ›

Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
  2. Cook and stir ground beef in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until browned and crumbly, 5 to 7 minutes; drain fat. ...
  3. Stack two sheets phyllo dough on a work surface. ...
  4. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes.
Nov 2, 2022

What is puff pastry called in Turkey? ›

puf böreği

Is borek a breakfast? ›

Borek is sometimes sprinkled with sesame or nigella seeds, and it can be served hot or cold. It is a custom of Sephardic Jews to have bourekas for their Shabbat breakfast meal on Saturday mornings. It is commonly served with ayran in Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia.

Is borek savory or sweet? ›

Borek, a type of savory pastry that originated during the Ottoman era, is a highly customizable and versatile dish that is commonly enjoyed both at meals and for snacks.

Is borek Turkish or Greek? ›

What is Borek? Crisp and rich, borek is a savory Turkish pastry often served at breakfast and brunch. It's made by layering ultra-thin dough, an egg mixture, and various fillings. Borek also comes in many shapes and sizes, ranging from cigarette-shaped rolls to large trays.

What is borek in english? ›

The centrepiece of the whole meal, however, was börek – a savoury pastry made from yufka (a delicate, filo-like dough) and filled with feta cheese, parsley, chicken, minced meat and, occasionally, a few vegetables, such as potato, spinach, leek or courgette.

What is baklava called in Turkey? ›

Fıstıklı Baklava

This is the most common in Türkiye, it simply means pistachio baklava. It's usually cut into squares or small rectangles and sprinkled with pistachio as well as featuring chopped pistachios inside the layers of dough.

What is Turkish dessert called? ›

List of Turkish desserts
Name of dessertTypeDescription
KalburabastıPastrySyrup-drenched pastries often served during the Islamic holidays
KaysefeFruitStewed dried fruits topped with melted butter and chopped nuts
KazandibiPuddingCaramelized milk pudding
Kemalpaşa tatlısıPastry
50 more rows

How long does burek last? ›

How long do the bureks keep for? All of the bureks are made fresh and must be eaten within 3 days but they also freeze well! De-frost your pies before heating them up again, same instructions as when they are fresh.

What is the difference between a borek and a Boreka? ›

Two main things differentiate a borek from a boureka: Size: Borek are significantly larger, often 9-12 inches in size. Sometimes they will be cut into pieces, sliced lengthwise for sauces to be added. Dough: Borek typically use yufka; bourekas an oily short dough, similar to empanadas.

What is the other name for borek? ›

Flaky filo pastry is wrapped around a spiced lamb filling dotted with pine nuts and currants, then curled into a charming spiral. Borek is found in different guises and goes by various names – burek, bourekas, byrek etc.

Is borek good for you? ›

Borek also known as Burek can be described as a meal that should be consumed in moderation because it is a hefty source of calories from fats as well as carbs.

What is the difference between baklava and borek? ›

The big difference is the thickness of the dough. If you look carefully at a box of filo dough and a box of borek dough, you will notice a number in one of the corners. For baklava dough, the thinness of the dough is a #4. Borek dough is just about twice as thick with a #9 thickness.

Do you eat burek hot or cold? ›

Both! Some people like to eat burek hot, just as it comes out of the oven. Others love it best the following day when it's cold. And then there are those that like it in between.

Which country food is borek? ›

Their shape, combined with the fact that they're fried, means they're very crisp with the pastry shattering to reveal the filling, which is usually cheese but sometimes minced meat. Laz börek: a sweet börek which is a regional speciality of Rize in the Black Sea Region of Turkey.

What is borek made of? ›

Borek is made with filo pastry, the paper thin pastry that is mostly used layered to get the signature flakiness. Also known as phyllo pastry, it is used to make both savoury and sweet pastries in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines, such as Baklava and Spanakopita.

What is burek made of? ›

Burek in particular is a Serbian delicacy made with a spiced ground meat and potato filling that is wrapped in phyllo dough and shaped into a spiral. There are variations of this recipe found in eastern Europe, Turkey, Greece, and North Africa.

How is Turkish meat cooked? ›

Large lumps of meat are placed in a woodfired oven to cook extremely slowly. It takes 8 hours or more before it is considered ready to serve.

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