Cypriot cuisine facts for kids

Souvla – a Cypriot grill for roasting meat skewers

Cypriot cuisine is the delicious food from the island of Cyprus. It's mostly inspired by Greek and Turkish cooking. You'll also find some tasty similarities with food from Italy and France.

What Makes Cypriot Food Special?
Delicious Cypriot Dishes
Cypriot Cheeses
Refreshing Drinks
Gallery
See also

What Makes Cypriot Food Special?

Fresh Ingredients from the Island

Cypriot cooking uses lots of fresh vegetables. Think about zucchini, olives, okra, and green beans. Artichokes, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers are also very popular. They also use grape leaves and different types of beans. These include broad beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils.

Fruits and nuts are a big part of the diet too. Common fruits are pears, apples, grapes, and oranges. You'll also find peaches, figs, watermelon, and melons. Nuts like pistachios, almonds, chestnuts, and walnuts are often enjoyed.

Amazing Herbs and Spices

Spices and herbs give Cypriot food its special taste. Black pepper, parsley, celery, and fresh coriander are often used. Thyme and oregano are also very common. Cumin and coriander seeds are key flavors on the island.

Mint is a super important herb in Cyprus. It grows everywhere! People use it in many dishes, especially with ground meat. For example, the Cypriot version of pastitsio (called macaronia tou fournou) has lots of mint. Meatballs (keftedes) also often have mint for a fresh taste.

Grilled Meats and More

Meats cooked over charcoal are famous here. They are called souvla or şiş. These are usually skewers of pork, beef, lamb, or chicken. Sheftalia (a type of sausage) is also popular. Grilled halloumi cheese and mushrooms are often served too. Greek Cypriots also enjoy loukaniko (pork sausages).

These grilled items are often put into a pita bread. They come with a fresh salad of cabbage, parsley, onions, tomatoes, and cucumber. Gyros are also eaten, which are grilled meat slices. They taste different from souvlaki because of the salads and sauces added.

Bulgur and Yogurt: Daily Staples

Bulgur is a traditional grain, like a type of cracked wheat. It's often steamed with tomato and onion. Sometimes, thin pasta (vermicelli) is added for extra texture. Natural yogurt is also a very common food.

Wheat and yogurt come together in a traditional meal called tarhana. This is a way to save milk for later. Cracked wheat is steamed, mixed with sour milk, and then dried. When you want to eat it, you just add water or broth. It's especially tasty with cubes of halloumi cheese.

Bulgur is also used to make koupes. This is the Cypriot version of kibbeh. Bulgur is mixed with flour and water to make a dough. This dough is shaped like a cigar and filled with minced meat, onions, parsley, and cinnamon. Then, they are deep-fried and served with lemon juice.

Fasting Traditions

For Greek Cypriots, the Orthodox Church has many fasting days. On these days, people avoid all animal products. Instead, they eat pulses (like beans and lentils). These are often cooked in tomato sauce or simply with olive oil and lemon. Some strict fasting days even forbid olive oil.

Delicious Cypriot Dishes

Seafood Delights

Cyprus, being an island, has many popular seafood dishes. These include calamari, octopus, cuttlefish, and red mullet. Sea bass and gilt-head bream are also favorites. Octopus is often made into a stiffado, which is a stew with red wine and vegetables.

Calamari can be fried in rings or stuffed whole with rice and spices. Cuttlefish can be cooked like calamari or with red wine and onions. Sometimes, it's prepared with spinach. These seafood dishes are often part of a meze.

Salt cod used to be a very traditional fish. It was baked in outdoor ovens with potatoes and tomatoes. Gilt-head bream is popular today because it's affordable and widely farmed. Salted herring was also a staple food, and people still enjoy it.

Many fish restaurants offer a fish meze. This includes various fish dishes like fish soufflé and fish croquettes.

Wonderful Vegetables

Makarónia tou foúrnou / Fırında makarna (pasta cooked in the oven with white sauce and minced meat)

Cypriot potatoes are famous for their unique taste. People love them baked in the oven. Many Cypriots add salt, cumin, oregano, and sliced onion. When barbecuing, some put potatoes in foil directly into the charcoal. These "jacket potatoes" are served with butter or as a side dish.

Salads are eaten with almost every meal. They are usually chopped and dressed with lemon and olive oil. In summer, a common salad has celery, parsley, coriander, tomatoes, and cucumber. Wild dandelion leaves are also popular.

In early spring, artichokes are in season. Cypriots eat the fleshy base of the leaves. The stalks and heart are often braised with garden peas and a little onion. Sometimes, meat is added to this dish.

Okra is baked in the oven with tomato and oil. Cauliflower is also cooked this way. Cauliflower is also made into moungra, a sour pickle. It can also be cooked in tomato sauce with onions and minced meat.

Magarina Bulli served with salad and olives

Aubergines (eggplants) are prepared in many ways. They can be stuffed or used in moussaka. They are often fried slowly in oil to bring out their flavor. Turkish Cypriots sometimes hollow them out, fry them, and stuff them with tomatoes and garlic or minced meat. Then, they bake them and garnish with parsley.

A vegetable market in Nicosia. The root vegetable in the front is kolokasi.

Pasta Dishes

Makarónia tou foúrnou (oven macaroni) is a popular pasta dish. The meat sauce usually has pork, beef, or lamb. It's flavored with mint, parsley, or cinnamon. The top is sprinkled with grated halloumi or anari cheese. The traditional pasta for this dish is bucatini. It's also known as pastitsio.

Magarına bulli is another traditional Cypriot meal. It's made with bucatini pasta and chicken. The chicken is often boiled, and its broth is used to cook the pasta. Once cooked, the pasta is topped with lemon juice, grated halloumi cheese, and dried mint.

Meat Dishes

Moussaka

In the past, Cypriots ate fresh meat mostly on weekends. This was often boiled chicken with pasta or bulgur cooked in its juices. This helped feed the whole family. Now, fresh meat is more widely available and enjoyed often.

Afelia is a dish of pork, red wine, and coriander seeds. Psito means large chunks of meat and potatoes cooked in the oven. It's traditionally made with pig fat, but now sunflower oil is often used. Olive oil is used for salads and vegetables, not usually for cooking meat.

Souvlaki with tzatziki sauce and rice.

Preserved pork is very popular. Before refrigerators, it was a main source of red meat. Cypriot preserved meats often have a special flavor from red wine.

Lountza is made from pork tenderloin. It's brined, marinated in wine, and then smoked. It can be eaten fresh or aged. It's often grilled or fried with eggs for sandwiches or as part of a meze. Chiromeri is a stronger, smoked ham from the leg. It's similar to other smoked hams but has a unique Cypriot wine flavor.

Sausages called loukaniko are also made from pork. The meat is marinated in wine, brined, stuffed into intestines, and smoked.

Lamb and goat meat are preserved as tsamarella. This meat is made very salty to keep it fresh. Preserved beef is also popular. Whole cuts of beef are salted and spiced to make pastourma. The same meat is also used to make pastourma-loukaniko sausages.

Many Cypriots consider snails a special treat. They are in season in late autumn after the first rains. The most popular way to prepare snails is to barbecue them. Another way is to cook them with onions, garlic, and tomatoes.

Meze: A Feast of Small Dishes

Mezedes is a large selection of small dishes. They are brought to the table one after another, offering many different tastes and textures. The meal starts with olives, tahini (sesame paste dip), skordalia (potato and garlic dip), hummus, and taramosalata (fish roe dip). Tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber dip) is also served. All these come with fresh bread and a mixed salad.

Some unique meze dishes include octopus in red wine and snails in tomato sauce. You might also find samarella (salted dried meat) and quails. Fresh greens, some raw and some with lemon and salt, are always on the table.

The meal continues with grilled halloumi cheese, lountza (smoked pork), keftedes (meatballs), sheftalia (pork patties), and loukaniko (pork sausages). Hot grilled meats like kebabs, lamb chops, and chicken might be served towards the end. For dessert, there's usually fresh fruit or glyka, which are traditional sugar-preserved fruits and nuts.

Cypriot meze

Sweet Desserts

Loukoumades (fried dough balls in syrup), loukoum (Turkish delight), ravani, tulumba, and baklava are well-known local desserts. Pastiș are cookies made from ground almonds, often given to guests at weddings.

Flaounes are savory Easter pastries. They contain goat cheese (or other cheeses), eggs, spices, and herbs. This mixture is wrapped in a yeast pastry, brushed with egg yolk, and dipped in sesame seeds.

Cypriots also make many traditional sweets that are like jams. They are made from fruits like bergamot, figs, tiny aubergines, fresh walnuts, watermelon, or pumpkins. The fruit is soaked for a few weeks, then boiled with sugar until it reaches the right texture.

Sweet syrups include soumada, made from almonds. Soumada has a very old history in Cyprus, dating back to Roman times. It was even given as a special gift by a Cypriot king in 1364! Another popular sweet is mahalepi, a type of pudding made from corn flour. It's usually flavored with rose water.

Cyprus delights, or loukoumia, are a special sweet from Cyprus. They are a type of candy made from starch and sugar. They are flavored with lemon, rose water, or other fruits. Sometimes they have chopped dates, pistachios, or walnuts inside. The main places where they are made are Yeroskipou and Pano Lefkara. A similar sweet is shoushouko, made from boiled grape juice.

September 10th is considered Cypriot dessert day. On this day, friends and families share homemade desserts.

Cypriot Cheeses

Anari cheese served for breakfast in Limassol

Halloumi is a famous cheese from Cyprus. It's a semi-hard white cheese, often shaped like a rectangle. It's made from a mix of goat and sheep milk. You can eat it fresh, grilled, or fried. Older halloumi can be grated over pasta dishes. It's considered the national cheese of Cyprus.

Anari is a crumbly fresh cheese, similar to ricotta. It's made from goat or sheep milk. There are two types: dry and fresh. Dry anari is salted and harder. It's grated over pasta. Fresh anari is eaten in slices with honey or carob syrup.

Halitzia is a cheese similar to feta. It's made from goat or sheep milk and has a slightly sour taste. It's produced in the villages of the Tylliria area and is great in salads.

Refreshing Drinks

Ayran is a traditional drink made from yogurt. How it's made can be a bit different depending on the region.

Triantafyllo is a thick, dark pink syrup. It's made from the extract of the Cyprus rose. You add water or milk to it to make a refreshing sweet drink, especially in summer. It's different from rose water, which is used to sweeten desserts.