Turkish Recipe Measurements Conversion Guide
A clear, reliable reference to help you convert traditional Turkish recipe measurements into the standards you use at home.
Our Approach
Turkish recipes typically use measurement tool found in most Turkish kitchens: Tea cup, coffee cup, water cup, dessert spoon, (tiny) tea spoon, and a good measure of eyeballing because most Turkish home cooks learn to recognize the right texture and consistency via exposure.
This guide translates those everyday kitchen utensils into standard North American cups, spoons, and metric measurements to reliably use for most traditional Turkish recipes you’ll find online.
Şimdiden ellerinize sağlık!
Recipe Conversion Guide
Silme & Tepeleme
You’ll notice that some Turkish recipes describe silme [sihl-meh] or tepeleme [teh-peh-leh-meh] when giving spoon measurements.
Silme derives from ‘wipe’ (i.e. with a flat edge, across the top of the measuring tool) and refers to levelling the ingredient on a cup or spoon.
Tepeleme means ‘heaping’, as in a heaping spoonful.
For example:
If the recipe calls for a silme spoon of flour, use the exact spoon/cup measure.
If it calls for a tepeleme spoon of flour, use 1.25-1.5x the level amount for good measure.
UPDATE: We’ve been hearing that many of you are frustrated with butter measurements in grams in Turkish recipes. The typical butter sticks you find in Türkiye have gram lines (instead of cup lines) for measurement, which is why most Turkish recipes provide butter in grams. But, it can be annoying to have to take out your scale every time a recipe calls for butter, not to mention how annoying it is trying to eyeball exactly how much you need. Especially if you’re trying a new recipe.
We were going to leave it at utensils but butter deserves a chart of its own! So, here it is:
Butter Conversion Guide
* Density of Butter is 0.91 gr/mL. So, measurements in grams are often considered equivalent to mL.
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