Homemade Turkish Tarhana Powder Recipe

5 from 1 vote

This homemade Turkish Tarhana powder recipe is made from a blend of summer vegetables, fresh herbs, yogurt, and flour.

Prep Time5

Total Time5

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: Middle Eastern, Turkish

Diet: Vegetarian

Servings: portions

Calories: 67kcal

Start by thoroughly washing your red Romano peppers, tomatoes, peeled onions, parsley, dill, and mint. You’ll want to roughly chop them all, as they’ll be blended together later.
Place the tomatoes in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Transfer it to a large bowl.
Repeat the same with red peppers, onions, and fresh herbs, and add them together with the tomatoes.
Pour in the strained yogurt and natural yogurt, salt, yeast, and flour, and stir well until everything is fully combined.

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place to ferment for 3-4 days. During this time, the mixture will start to develop that signature tangy flavor, thanks to the yeast and yogurt.
Stir the mixture once a day to help it ferment evenly. After 3-4 days of fermentation, the tarhana mixture will be ready to dry.

Spread the mixture onto generously floured clean kitchen towels or a cloth in small, thin mounds. Leave enough space in between to speed up the drying process. You can do this on a tray or directly on a clean surface.
Leave it to dry in a sunny, warm, and dry place for a couple of days, flipping it occasionally so it dries evenly.
After 2 sunny days, the tarhana will be nearly dried. Break it into smaller pieces at this stage to speed up the drying process. Leave it dry for another day and grind it into a fine powder using a food processor or blender.
After blending the tarhana, pass it through a colander to remove any large pieces. If any remain, simply collect them and blend again until you have a fine, smooth tarhana powder.
Your tarhana powder is almost ready, but you’ll need to spread it out on a clean cloth for a couple more days until it’s fully dried. Once completely dry, you can store it in airtight containers for months.

Store completely dried tarhana powder in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. It keeps for up to 12 months.
Stir the fermenting mixture with a wooden spoon once a day to distribute the flavors and help it ferment evenly.
When spreading the fermented mixture out to dry, use small, thin mounds with space between them so it dries evenly and quickly.
Pick a warm, sunny stretch of weather to make this, it speeds up the drying stage a lot.
No sun or not enough time? Dry it in the oven at its lowest setting with the door propped open (3 to 6 hours), or in a food dehydrator at 95 to 115°F/35 to 46°C (8 to 12 hours).
If you want to speed up fermentation, some traditional methods use a chickpea yeast starter instead of relying on the yogurt alone, though the yogurt-only method here works well and needs no extra prep.
You can halve this recipe for a smaller batch, or double it for a bigger stash.
This recipe isn't vegan (it's made with yogurt) or gluten-free (it's made with wheat flour) as written.
Tarhana is naturally rich in protein and minerals like iron, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, and its yogurt fermentation gives it a natural probiotic content too.
Tarhana varies a lot by Turkish region, some versions use cracked wheat instead of flour, others add broth, cheese, or ground meat. This recipe is the common yogurt, flour, and vegetable version.