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Cuisine · Azerbaijan

From plov to beshbarmak: the dishes, drinks and sweets of Turkic cuisine.

DishPlov (Azerbaijani pilaf)The king of the Azerbaijani table: the rice is steamed separately from the gara — meat, chestnuts and dried fruit — and there are more than forty kinds.Read more →
DishDolmaMinced filling wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves or stuffed into aubergines, tomatoes and peppers. The tradition of making and sharing it has been UNESCO heritage since 2017.Read more →
DishQutabA thin half-moon flatbread filled with herbs, meat or pumpkin and cooked on a saj griddle.Read more →
DishDushbaraTiny meat dumplings cooked in lamb broth — they say a good spoonful should hold ten or twelve.Read more →
DishPitiShaki's famous stew of lamb, chickpeas, chestnuts and saffron, cooked in a clay pot and eaten in two stages.Read more →
DishGanja dovgaThe pride of Ganja's kitchen: dovga cooked with rich buffalo yogurt and six kinds of herbs, drunk cold in summer and hot in winter.Read more →
DishGanja tandir breadBread baked on the hot wall of a clay tandir — the staple of Ganja's table. Tandir craftsmanship and bread baking became UNESCO heritage in 2024.Read more →
DishNakhchivan lavashPaper-thin bread baked in the tandir and kept for three to four months as "winter bread". Lavash culture has been UNESCO heritage since 2016.Read more →
DishKebabsAzerbaijan's charcoal-grilled kebabs — lula, tika, basdirma and ribs — served with lavash, sumac onions, pomegranate and herbs.Read more →
DishShakarburaThe main Nowruz sweet: a crescent-shaped pastry filled with nuts and sugar and patterned with tweezers.Read more →
DishPakhlavaLayers of thin pastry with walnuts and sugar, cut into diamonds and soaked in honey or syrup.Read more →
DishBadamburaA Nowruz pastry of flaky layers filled with almonds, sugar and cardamom; its name comes from badam, "almond".Read more →
DishShorgoghalA round, flaky Nowruz pastry that stands for the sun: filled with spices and glazed bright yellow with saffron.Read more →
DishShaki halvaShaki's sweet of rice-flour lattice layers filled with hazelnuts and baked in syrup.Read more →
DishAzerbaijani tea culturePear-shaped armudu glasses, samovars and jam — a symbol of hospitality, inscribed by UNESCO in 2022 together with Türkiye.Read more →
DishPomegranate and the Nar Bayrami festivalThe autumn Pomegranate Festival in Goychay and the culture around the fruit have been UNESCO heritage since 2020.Read more →

Did you know?

There are more than forty kinds of Azerbaijani plov.
Plov (Azerbaijani pilaf) →