The Discovery of Bulgarian Cuisine: Traditional Dishes of Bulgaria You Should Try

When you arrive in Bulgaria, you should definitely get acquainted with the national cuisine. You will discover a lot of new things. Although Bulgaria belongs to the Slavic group, the local dishes combine traditions from Turkish, Greek, and partially Romanian cuisine. Their aromatic and fragrant soups, hot dishes, salads, and exquisite desserts will leave no one indifferent.

Main dishes of Bulgarian cuisine: what a tourist should try

Traditional Bulgarian dishes are renowned worldwide for their diversity, vibrant flavors, and abundance of spices. Using familiar ingredients, chefs create unique meals. Here are the main features:

• a lot of greenery;

• a large amount of spices, which adds richness;

• satiety and calorie content;

• cooking with fresh, natural, often home-grown vegetables and fruits;

• cooking by stewing or boiling for a long time;

• serving in clay dishes;

• the addition of dairy or fermented dairy products to many dishes.

Therefore, Bulgarian cuisine is famous for its salads (milk salad, Shopska, Gavardski, Ovcharski); hot dishes (kavarma, banitsa, kyufte, moussaka, gyuvetch); soups; desserts (banana dessert, tikvenik, honey sweets). In gastronomic establishments, food is served in clay dishes.

Bulgarian salads

Fresh vegetables are used for preparation, which significantly enhances the flavor. Various cheeses are often added, and almost every recipe includes feta cheese. The ingredients are usually simple but tasty, with a predominance of vegetables, herbs, and mushrooms. Natural yogurt, sour milk, or a starter culture is used as a dressing.

Shopska salad

This dish is considered one of Bulgaria's calling cards. Many note that its color scheme resembles the national flag. This effect is achieved thanks to the ingredients:

• cucumber, tomato, and pepper;

• feta cheese

• olives;

• parsley and a little onion;

• dressing - olive oil or vinegar;

Shopska salad is served in layers and without dressing; it is placed on the table in a separate container, and you add it according to your preferences.

Potato salad

A Bulgarian-style salad with potatoes is made simply from accessible ingredients. The main components are potatoes and olives. Additionally, chopped onions, herbs, vegetable or olive oil, vinegar, and salt to taste are added. Everything needs to be chopped, dressed, and mixed together.

The best soups

The soups of this country have a spicy and unusual flavor thanks to the spices. They are different from what you have eaten back home, so they are definitely worth trying. Both hot and cold varieties are popular.

Tarator

If you love okroshka, then Bulgarian cuisine offers its own equivalent – tarator. This is a cold soup made with homemade yogurt, cucumber, dill, walnuts, and garlic. In hot weather, they may add ice cubes to the bowl.

It is eaten as a first course, or it can be used to wash down the main dish if the tarator is too runny.

Bob soup

If tarator resembles okroshka, then bean chorba is something new. This traditional soup is made with beans and is quite spicy and hearty. The recipe includes beans and other legumes, various types of meat or sausages, tomatoes and bell peppers, onions, eggplants, and potatoes. Because of the large number of ingredients, the soup turns out thick and resembles a liquid stew.

Top 7 hot dishes

Bulgaria is most famous for its meat and hot dishes. In this section, its cuisine boasts an abundance of recipes. Various types of meat are used to prepare all this food, some being fattier, others lighter, and some a mix of different kinds and sausages. There is also a significant amount of cheese involved.

Cavarma

It's quite a fatty dish, as the traditional recipe includes lamb, lamb fat, spices, and paprika.