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
Kuzu Döner
Lamb döner; pure lamb, more traditional and expensive.
Kuru Fasulye Ekmek
Turkey's national bean stew: dry white beans simmered down in a tomato-red sauce, ladled over rice in the lokanta or pushed into a soft length of ekmek for a cheap hot lunch eaten on the move.
Kumru
The loaf is baked for nothing else: a soft, sesame-rolled, dove-shaped bread raised with chickpea leaven. İzmir later heated it and filled it with sucuk and melting kaşar.
Közlenmiş Sebzeli Dürüm
Fire-roasted vegetable wrap; charred vegetables.
Közlenmiş Patlıcan Dürüm
A meatless Turkish wrap built on smoke: a whole eggplant charred black over coals, peeled, the silky scorched flesh mashed and rolled in thin lavaş on a street of grilled meat.
Köy Gözlemesi
Village gözleme stripped to a roadside table: a hand-pulled sheet of yufka, a spoon of home cheese or cellar potato, sealed on a fire-heated iron dome and sold as the larder's surplus.
Konya Etli Ekmek
Konya's meat bread: one long thin oval, often past a meter, stretched on a wooden peel, topped with finely chopped meat, wood-fired, and cut into hand-sized pieces to share.
Kokoreç
It begins with a winding: cleaned intestine wrapped tight around seasoned offal, then turned slowly until the casing crisps. Polarising by design, the technique concentrates the offal.
Kokoreç Yağlı
'Fatty' kokoreç; with extra fat from the intestines.
Kokorec Style (Regional Variations)
Not one sandwich but a method spoken in regional accents: spit-roasted lamb offal chopped fine and fierce in İzmir, coarse and mild in İstanbul, the variation itself the subject.
Kokoreç Kaşarlı
Kokoreç with melted kaşar: grated cheese scattered over the hot offal chop and run through it, binding and gentling a street food that is otherwise all crisp edges and sharp spice.
Kokoreç Ekmek
Kokoreç in quarter or half bread loaf; standard serving.
Kokoreç Dürüm
The real-offal kokoreç wrap: genuine spit-roasted lamb intestine griddle-chopped fine with oregano and chili and rolled tight in lavaş, denser and hotter per bite than the loaf.
Kokoreç Baharatlı
The dry-spice kokoreç: grilled offal chopped to order and hit hard with cumin, oregano and pul biber while the chop is still hot enough to bloom them, aromatic warmth over chili-paste cling.
Kokoreç Acılı
Say acılı and the chili goes in on the steel, fried into the fat before the bread, not dusted on after. The night-stall offal sandwich in a deep yarım ekmek, turned up past comfort.
Köfte Ekmek
Grilled Turkish köfte in a crusted loaf pressed to the grill: hand-shaped minced lamb or beef charred over coals, dropped in hot with tomato, onion, and chili, eaten upright at stadium gates.
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