How To Make “Trahana” (Crushed Wheat Soup)

3/5
about 44 hours (plus ample time for drying in the sun if you wish)
about 45 minutes on the stove
Makes about 250g-300g of "trahana" pieces

120-130g crushed wheat
700g goat and/or sheep yogurt with live cultures (must not be pasteurized)
1 tbs salt

1. Sort through the cracked wheat and remove any red or dark pieces of wheat. (See picture above.)

2. Let the yogurt sit outside (not in the sun) for 24 hours until it goes sour. When it goes sour, it will look clumpy. I left my yogurt out of the fridge in the shade at about 25C for 24 hours.

3. Pour the soured yogurt in a saucepan on the stove. Add 1 tbs of salt (more or less to taste, I like mine salty). Bring the yogurt to a slow boil, constantly stirring to dissolve the large clumps of soured yogurt and to ensure the mixture does not stick to the pan. Once the mixture has boiled, turn down the heat to let it simmer and continue to stir for about 30 minutes, until the large clumps have mostly dissolved.

4. Add the crushed wheat. Continue to stir the mixture for about 10 to 15 more minutes on low heat. You will notice the mixture becomes thicker as the wheat begins to absorb the soured yogurt.  Take off heat and let cool. Once cool (1 to 2 hours) cover the top of the saucepan with a towel and let it rest for 18 hours.

5. The mixture should now be slightly hard on top. Knead the mixture with your hands. If the mixture is very dry, coat your hands in a little milk (in this case, not soured and pasteurised milk is OK).  Form triangular pieces (as shown in the photos above), or long and skinny rolls, and place on baking paper and leave in the sun to completely dry for approximately 8-10 days. Store in a glass container in a dry place. (Note you do not have to wait for the “trahana” to dry to eat it. You can make soup with it as soon as you have made the triangular pieces.)

6. To enjoy one portion, place about 40 grams in 2.5 cups of boiling chicken stock and/or water. Simmer for about 30 minutes, until desired level of thickness. The more you cook it, the smoother the soup is because the “pieces of “trahana” break apart. If you would like to add a little more flavour to your “trahana”, add fennel and thyme when you make your chicken stock. You can also add pieces of halloumi or grated tomato to your “trahana” as it is cooking.

“Mom, I made “trahana” … from scratch” is something I never thought I’d say until yesterday.  I could feel my mom’s thoughts wafting through the phone: a combination of excitement that I had actually learned how to make it, and total confusion. Until now, I thought making “trahana” would be very hard and not worth my time. But, in fact, it basically consists of leaving milk out to turn sour, and then boiling it with crushed wheat and leaving that outside in the sunshine to dry out. In other words: it’s do-it-yourself easy. Hypothesis: Maybe the reason that many people don’t make “trahana” is because if they knew how to make it, you might be less inclined to eat it. This is because “trahana” is literally crushed wheat mixed with soured milk. Traditionally, it is shaped into small triangle pieces and left to dry in the sun.

The dried small triangle pieces are boiled in chicken broth and enjoyed as soup. When you boil the “trahana” it forms a creamy like and salty porridge. In Cyprus, pieces of halloumi are traditionally added to the soup, but you can enjoy it different ways. You can add lemon to the broth, or – my favourite – grated tomato. It goes great with a rainy night. And it’s my fallback meal on days where I don’t feel like cooking. This week I learned how to make it from scratch. My aunt’s neighbour makes it from home and sells it, and she taught me the necessary.

“Trahana” is traditionally made with fermented unpasteurised goat and/or sheep milk. Traditionally, and we are talking very traditionally, “trahana” was made with earthenware pitchers in which the milk would sour over a period of many days. When the soured milk was boiled it was stirred with large wooden spoons that had sprigs of thyme and fennel attached.

I didn’t make my “trahana” with added thyme or fennel, but I regularly add these ingredients to my chicken stock anyway, so there are always hints of these flavours in the soup (when I make it with chicken stock, I make it with stock cubes too).  Nowadays, the process of making “trahana” has become more commercial. For one, a lot of pre-packaged “trahana” is made with milk and water, thus diluting the “soured milk” flavour. Secondly, “trahana” is sometimes dried in the freezer not left in the sun to naturally dry. You can, of course, still find people who make “trahana” in a more traditionally way.

Note that the flavour of the “trahana ” will depend on various factors, including the type of milk used, how long the milk is left to sour, and how much salt (or extra flavours) are added when making the “trahana”. There is no right or wrong in this regard, as it is simply a question of taste. One thing I noted was that to make “trahana” you need to use unpasteurised sheep and/or goat milk. If you don’t have any available, then you can use sheep and/or goat yogurt, but you need to make sure you buy traditional sheep or goat yogurt – one with live cultures in it. You can not use pasteurised milk to make “trahana”. Also you need to ensure that if you buy sheep/goat yogurt, it is good quality yogurt, i.e. made with all milk and not diluted with chemicals or water. So, next time you have some soured good quality sheep or goat yogurt with live cultures at home, don’t throw it away. Have some cracked wheat ready, and make “trahana”!

14 Comments

  1. I think I would love to make Trahana.

    Do you know if this dish can be made with cultured buttermilk?

    I adore cracked wheat and like to make a dish of it with stirred fried onions and golden raisins.

    When I make many of my breads from pizza dough to artisan loaves, I ferment the dough for anywhere from 8 to 16 hours or so. Fermented foods are the greatest especially yogurt, buttermilk and lacto fermented veggies and breads.
    I make my own yogurt as well. Perhaps Fage yogurt would work well for those who don’t make their own. It works magnificently as a starter as well.
    Even though there is just the two of us, I bake every week.
    Thanks for this recipe!

    1. Hello! Trahana is such a pleasure. It is often a soup that people love or hate in Cyprus. But if you like cracked wheat, I think there is a big change you will like trahana! And – wow – your combination of cracked wheated, stir fried onions and golden raisons – left me drooling. I definitely want to give that a shot, as I think the bulgur wheat we have over here would go nicely with it. We actually have a recipe in Cyprus where we combine those ingredients plus butternut squash in a handheld pie called “kolokotes” (it’s on the website). So you might enjoy that too. You have to make sure with the yogurt (and the buttermilk) you use though that is unpasteurised! I know in Canada, we can’t find unpasteurised yogurt. Please do let me know how it goes. One of the reasons I published this recipe was because I love trahana so much and couldn’t find it in Canada. So I thought I’d learn how to make it. I’d be so great to hear that you enjoy it. Thanks for reading and leaving a comment – lovely to hear from you and so neat that you are reading this all the way from Texas! Christina xx

  2. I don’t know if this recipe works but if it does and I sure will try it, I would like to announce that I love you hahaha. We could only ever get trachana from my yiayia in Cyprus. My dad would literally cry if I could pull this off!!!! Thank you!!!

    1. Let me know how it goes for you Stavroulla, I do hope it comes out tasting good! Your message made me laugh out loud! Remember to use unpasteurized yogurt – otherwise it will not work!!

  3. I am so glad I found this post. I give guided tours in London and next week I am dedicating one food tour to Cypriot cuisine. Its fantastic to now know exactly how to make it at home. If you do not mind I will point my attendees to your site. Thank you! And, keep up the great work. The site looks fantastic. x

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words Penelope; I am so happy you left a comment! Congrats, Fox&Squirrel is incredible. How unique, interesting, educational and fun. I will be recommending it to my friends. I am also very happy to hear that you are dedicating one food tour to Cypriot cuisine. I really believe that there are a lot of little details that make Cypriot cuisine unique. Of course, I would love it if you pointed attendees to my site – thank you. If there are any questions I can answer, please do let me know. I look forward to keeping up with Fox&Squirrel. x

  4. Efharisto!!! wonderful recipe! I have unpasturised, raw milk to use. Pls could you let me know how much milk I would use instead of the yogurt? Can I put lemon in the milk to make it sour faster?
    x

    1. Hi Irene, sorry for my belated reply, been traveling at the moment. I wouldn’t add lemon in it. I know the process when using raw milk in the old days was to store it in big clay canisters in the dark during the summer months, and keep adding fresh milk until it turned sour. I have only taken the easier road so to speak at home with the yogurt, so would have to ask my aunt about this but I will be in Canada until the beginning of March. So if you want I can let you know then?

  5. I vaguely remember my mum putting yoghurt and milk in a large jar , the jar in water and every so often she would add milk and stir and I think she did this for about 2 weeks. Also she would cover top of jar with a cloth with a few added holes. Does this sound familiar to you.

    1. Hi Sonia, yes it does sound familiar. The one thing I learned when making it was that it was unpasteurized milk/yogurt that is needed. In Canada it’s difficult to find that unless you own a farm yourself, but in Cyprus it seems you can still buy fresh milk and yogurt from people who own goats/sheep, etc. Your mum’s method sounds similar to what I saw, except just longer than what I saw – but perhaps that was because I learned from someone who made it to sell and so she made it in a faster way.

  6. Thanks for posting this recipe…we always seem to run out of trahana before the next person comes back from their travels to Cyprus to bring us more 🙂

    Can bulgur wheat be used instead of cracked wheat?
    I just can’t find a place that sells cracked wheat in Toronto…

  7. I was just looking for this info for a while. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, finally I got it in your web site. I wonder what’s the lack of Google strategy that do not rank this type of informative websites in top of the list. Generally the top web sites are full of garbage.

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Cyprus Cuisine

“Cyprus Cuisine”, published by Whitecap Books in 2021, is now available for purchase. Christina Loucas shares over 80 recipes that showcase the very best of Cypriot cooking.

Cyprus Cuisine