Turkey
The country where the sandwich is meat off a turning spit or a hot griddle, wrapped tight in lavaş or stuffed into a quarter loaf, eaten standing up.
Sandwiches
Showing of 318 sandwiches
Döner Dürüm Tavuk
The chicken dürüm: lean thigh döner shaved off the cone into griddle-pressed lavaş, lifted by garlic sauce and sumac onion. The cheap everyday wrap that punishes a hasty knife.
Döner Dürüm Et
Red-meat döner shaved from the Bursa cone takes three forms: the İskender plate it was born as, the split-loaf ekmek arası, and the dürüm, the bare meat rolled into lavaş for the street.
Dil Ekmek
Tongue in bread; boiled or fried lamb/beef tongue.
Çupra Ekmek
The çupra ekmek is the Aegean's own fish-in-bread, not a borrowing from Istanbul's mackerel boats. Bodrum farms gilt-head bream by the tonne, and the loaf is what the coast keeps for itself.
Çöp Şiş Ekmek
Çöp şiş ekmek pushes thin wooden skewers of charcoal-grilled lamb off the stick and into a split somun loaf: an Aegean thrift grill from Selçuk and Germencik, seasoned at the last second.
Çöp Şiş Dürüm
'Garbage' şiş (small meat pieces threaded on wooden skewers) wrapped in lavaş; name refers to small scraps of meat.
Çoban Dürüm
'Shepherd's wrap'; with çoban salad (tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion, parsley).
Çinekop Ekmek
Baby bluefish sandwich; small çinekop fried or grilled.
Ciğer Sarma
Edirne's famous liver wrap; thinly sliced fried liver wrapped in lavaş.
Ciğer Kebab Dürüm
Cubes of lamb liver fired over charcoal at first light and rolled hot into lavaş, the breakfast wrap of Turkey's southeast, where the iron of the grilled organ meets cold sumac onion piled raw around.
Çiğ Köfte Porsiyon
Çiğ köfte served on plate with lettuce wraps.
Çiğ Köfte Ekmek
Çiğ köfte ekmek packs the raw kneaded bulgur paste into a split crusty loaf, so a crust meets the teeth before the cold spiced filling. A 2008 raw-meat ban turned it meatless and chains scaled it.
Çiğ Köfte Dürüm
Raw meatball (now usually vegan—bulgur, tomato paste, spices) wrapped in lavaş with lettuce, onion, pomegranate molasses, lemon.
Çiğ Köfte Dürüm Acılı
Spicy çiğ köfte wrap; extra hot pepper paste.
Cevizli Gözleme
Walnut gözleme is the sweet outlier of the family: crushed walnuts with sugar and cinnamon folded in thin yufka, cooked dry on a saç, then drizzled with honey or grape molasses.
Cağ Kebabı Ekmek
Erzurum's horizontal-spit lamb, shaved onto a small hand skewer called the cağ, given a last char at the coals and pushed into a split crusted loaf. Often called the wood-fired ancestor of döner.
Cağ Kebabı Dürüm
Erzurum cooks the spit on its side. Cağ kebabı turns the lamb cone horizontally so the fat circulates back into the meat, then re-skewers the cooked edge and grills it again before the lavaş dürüm.
Cacık Ekmek
Bread with cacık (yogurt-cucumber-garlic dip); simple, refreshing.
Bursa Pideli Kebap
Bursa's plated kebab: shaved döner over squares of pide soaked dark with tomato sauce, butter poured on top, yogurt alongside. The everyday, untrademarked face of İskender.
About these families
The Turkish sandwich is street food first and bread second. The defining move is not a slice and a filling but a cut and a wrap: meat shaved off a vertical spit, scraped off a flat skewer, or stir-fried on a domed griddle, then rolled tight in thin lavaş or packed into a quarter of a crusty loaf and handed over hot. The bread is the wrapper and the heat source is the argument.
The catalog of 330 sorts along those heat sources. The largest single force is the döner and the dürüm wrap built around it, the everyday fast food of every Turkish city. Around it stand the grill kebaps, Adana and Urfa and şiş and the Bursa İskender, and the griddle trio of lahmacun, pide and gözleme. The cities supply their signatures: Mersin its tantuni, Istanbul its balık ekmek pulled from boats on the water and its tripe-and-offal kokoreç, Çeşme its kumru. The bakery supplies the sesame simit and the Turkish tost pressed flat and hot, and the table supplies the ayran, the turşu and the pickled-turnip şalgam that go beside all of it.
The categories below capture how the catalog actually sorts. The two giants are the döner-and-dürüm family and the grill kebaps; the pide, gözleme and ekmek-arası anchors carry the everyday lunch. Below the anchors, the full filterable catalog lets you browse every entry by name or category.
Browse by family
İskender Kebap
Bursa's signature: thin döner over cubed pide bread, drenched in tomato sauce and melted butter, with yogurt alongside. A knife-and-fork plate as much as a sandwich. · 9 sandwiches
Çiğ Köfte
Şanlıurfa's bulgur-and-pepper-paste köfte, kneaded for hours and now mostly meatless, wrapped in lavaş with lettuce, lemon and pomegranate molasses. · 5 sandwiches
Döner: dürüm & ekmek arası
Turkey's everyday fast food: meat stacked on a vertical spit, shaved to order, rolled tight in lavaş or packed into a quarter loaf with salad and sauce. · 23 sandwiches
Tantuni
Mersin's signature: beef or lamb chopped fine and stir-fried fast on a domed sac with water and spice, rolled in lavaş with sumac onion and tomato. · 12 sandwiches
Kokoreç
Seasoned lamb offal wrapped in intestine, grilled on a turning spit, chopped fine with oregano and pul biber and packed into bread. · 14 sandwiches
Lahmacun
A thin crisp flatbread spread with minced meat, tomato, onion and pepper, baked fast and hot, then rolled around fresh salad and lemon. · 15 sandwiches
Köfte Ekmek
Hand-shaped grilled meatballs of minced lamb or beef in bread with onion, tomato and pickled pepper: the charcoal-grill staple of every köfteci. · 16 sandwiches
Kebap & ızgara
The skewer grill: Adana and Urfa minced-lamb kebabs, şiş, Beyti, cağ and çöp şiş, scraped off the skewer into lavaş with grilled tomato and pepper. · 18 sandwiches
Pide
Boat-shaped Turkish flatbread with raised, pinched edges and a topping baked into it: cheese, minced meat, sucuk, egg, baked hot and eaten in strips. · 27 sandwiches
Gözleme
Hand-rolled yufka folded over a thin filling of cheese, spinach, potato or meat and cooked on a domed griddle until blistered, then brushed with butter. · 23 sandwiches
Tost & Ayvalık tostu
The Turkish pressed toast: kaşar cheese, often sucuk or sausage, flattened in a hot press until the bread crisps and the cheese melts, Ayvalık style loaded. · 17 sandwiches
Balık Ekmek
Istanbul's fish-bread: grilled or fried mackerel in a split quarter loaf with onion, lettuce and lemon, eaten standing by the water at Eminönü. · 22 sandwiches
Kumru
Çeşme's signature: a special slightly sweet sesame roll filled with sucuk, sausage, kaşar and tomato, then pressed hot until the cheese melts. · 6 sandwiches
Simit & simit sandviç
The sesame-encrusted ring bread sold from every cart, eaten plain or split and filled with white cheese, tomato, sucuk or, the sweet way, kaymak and honey. · 15 sandwiches
Burger & ıslak hamburger
The patty-in-a-bun imports and Taksim's steamed ıslak hamburger held in a garlicky tomato sauce under glass, kept soft and wet on purpose. · 7 sandwiches
Dürüm: lavaş & yufka
The general wrap: anything rolled tight in thin lavaş or yufka, from grilled vegetables and falafel to liver, halloumi, potato and the leaf-wrapped sarma. · 35 sandwiches
Ekmek arası
The Turkish loaf with one thing in it: liver, menemen, beans, cheese, eggs, fries, tomato, eaten in a quarter or half of crusty ekmek as a quick meal. · 36 sandwiches
Sandviç (uluslararası)
The imported and deli-style sandwiches: tuna, roast beef, turkey, omelette, salami, hot dog and the submarine, made with Turkish bread but kept their own form. · 18 sandwiches
Türk sofrası: ekmek, turşu & yanında
The Turkish table that frames the sandwich: the breads themselves, the pickles and turşu, the sauces, ayran and şalgam, and the things eaten alongside. · 12 sandwiches