Must Try Albanian Food

Albanian cuisine is the hidden gem of the Mediterranean. Albania is positioned in South East Europe, in the middle of Balkan and Mediterranean. Its cuisine is an intricate weaving of local customs & foods with Greek, Turkish, Italian and Eastern European influences. Call me biased, but Albanian food might just be the best in the world:).

Every tourist in Albania might have their favorite foods and order of favorite dishes. I see plenty of videos in social media with their top ten choices and love all of them:). I grew up in Albania and have lived half my life there and half in USA. So I’ll tell you my list of Albanian foods you have to try if you visit the country.

Another reason why I’m writing this article, it’s because the explosion of digital nomads and travelers around the world after the pandemic. While their travels and blogs sometimes shed light on countries off the beaten path, the writings and quick 30 second videos don’t really portray a culture accurately.

This is the first version of this article, but anytime I publish a new Albanian recipe I’ll edit this article too. Feel free to save it in Pinterest so you can easily access it anytime for reference or if you’re looking for one of my Albanian recipes as I’ll link them throughout the article.

Question – What is your favorite Albanian food? Feel free to comment below!!

1. Byrek

Byrek is a phyllo pie made with layers of phyllo dough and baked to that perfect golden brown color. Traditionally phyllo layers are made by using a thin rolling pin called okllai or pec. Byrek can have different fillings and shapes.

Some of the most popular fillings are meat, spinach and feta, tomato and onions etc. Some of the lesser known variations or regional variations include byrek with leek, or with potatoes or with beans.

Some of the byrek recipes in my blog:

• Byrek me Mish (Phyllo Meat Pie)
• Byrek me Spinaq (Phyllo Spinach Pie)
• Byrecka me djath (Rolled Phyllo Sticks with Feta cheese)
• Byrek me Kungull – Phyllo Pumpkin Pie

2. Fërgesë

Fërgesë is a type of Albanian dish that involves onions, garlic, herbs, peppers, feta cheese or gjiza (curdled type cheese) and it can have eggs like the version of Fërgesa e Tiranës (dish from Tirana city) or the liver version.

Whichever version of fërgese recipe you like to cook, it’s interesting to know that this dish is typically finished in a clay dish in oven or wood stove. It comes out sizzling hot and people usually dip warm bread into their fërgese and eat it straight like that!

Here’s one example of fërgese, it’s a quick one minute video but I’ll add a proper recipe to the blog soon and update this article with it!

3. Tavë Kosi

Tavë Kosi is an Albanian casserole with yogurt, eggs, garlic and lamb meat among other ingredients. When I lived in Albania, most people would say that the variation of this dish from the city of Elbasan is one of the best.

My recipe for Tavë Kosi.

4. Petulla – Fried Dough

Petulla is one of my favorite Albanian breakfasts. I have memories of my mom waking up early and making petulla for breakfast and I’d wake up from the smell of delicious, fried dough on the table.

There are slightly different recipes for petulla based on availability of products. Dough can have yeast or yogurt. Some versions have eggs and some don’t.

My recipe for Albanian petulla!

5. Albanian Street Food

I love Albanian street food, it includes different foods like kebabs, sufllaqe (souvlaki), byreçka (small phyllo pies of different fillings). I remember back in University days, when a professor wouldn’t show for class we would all run to get a triangle byrek from the local food truck. We’d all chip in our allowances to see if you could get a small coffee with it!!

Also, the burgers from food trucks were just the best burgers I have had in my life. I haven’t been in Albania for a long time now, so if you have please let me know in comments if they still sell those loaded burgers with fries and gogozhare inside? I’m drooling as I remember this!!

6. New Year’s Eve Feast

New Year’s Eve Feast – if you are visiting a friend or family over the holidays, you have to experience at least once the feast of New Year’s Eve. It’s really EPIC! Albanian moms throw the best parties and now I want to thank mine for all the work that goes in preparing that feast.

Usually we made turkey with salads, contornos, mezes, Albanian version of Russian Salad, marinated red peppers, eggs, lots and lots of sides. Some were as easy and slices of salami or slices of cheese like tapas, some others were complicated and needed a lot of cooking.

Then there are dips and sauces to serve with all these sides and mezes. My family made this dip with walnuts and garlic with strained yogurt. Initially I wrote the recipe with sour cream since I couldn’t find strained yogurt in the market.

I can’t forget about olives from Albanian Riviera and oranges too since these two ingredients are part of many salads and mezes during the end of the year.

Everything is placed on the table family style and you serve on your plate a little of everything!

And of course you have to have some bakllava at the end of it all, even if you can’t eat anymore:).

7. Hashure

Hashure is a grain pudding, usually wheat. I usually make mine with farro here in US since it’s the closest I can find to Albanian ‘grurë’. Hashure is a dessert that Albanians inherited from the Ottoman Empire. While the current versions of the Albanian hashure and Turkish ashura (asure) or Noah’s Pudding are slightly different, the origins are the same.

The Albanian version sometimes might have less ingredients since the economical difficulties of communism regime reduced access to certain goods. Here’s how I remember my mom making Hashure. Current versions might have more garnishes:).

Read more about Albanian Hashure from my article and recipe.

8. Revani Cake

Revani cake is a spongy cake soaked in syrup that has many variations across Mediterranean and Middle East. The Albanian version of this cake doesn’t have semolina, it’s made with regular flour.

My recipe of Revani!

9. Albanian Bakllava with homemade phyllo layers

Bakllava or Baklava is made across Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries to celebrate big events and religious events. In Albania we made Bakllava mostly late December to celebrate the New Year. However, times have changed and you’ll be able to find baklava in many places when you visit.

My Recipe for Homemade Baklava!

10. Sheqerpare Cookies

Sheqerpare are cookies that in Albanian mean (Sheqer -sugar and Pare – money) sweet money or sweet coins. These cookies are similar to shortbread or butter cookies, garnished with walnuts and soaked in sweet syrup.

Usually in Albania these cookies are served to guests with coffee and maybe raki or homemade liqueur.

My recipe for Sheqerpare!

11. Tarator

Albanians like many other Mediterranean countries enjoy cold soups during summer time. The most famous Albanian cold soup is made with yogurt and cucumber, it’s almost like a tzatziki soup instead of a dip.

There’s also a lesser known version of this cold soup made with fried zucchini. There’s nothing more refreshing than these two cold soups on a hot summer evening.

• Cold soup with yogurt and cucumber (Tarator me kastravec)
• Cold soup with fried or baked zucchini slices (Tarator me kungull)

12. Fish and other Seafood

Grilled, Baked or Fried Fish is very common not only in the coastline of Albania but also in other cities. There’s variety of fish not only in the Adriatic and Ion Seas (part of the Mediterranean) but also in lakes and rivers.

You’ll find fish not only in the menus of the local restaurants but also as part of regular cooking in Albanian households. It’s not uncommon for people to know how to clean a fish from head to tail because in most fish markets, you’d get fresh fish that was caught that morning.

Something that might make an impression on you if you visit Albania, especially if you come from US is that a lot of times fish is served whole. It can be grilled, fried or baked but people favor whole fish because it preserves flavor so much better.

See an example below of how I cook branzino at home or snapper, inspired by how we used to cook it back home.

13. Grilled Meat or Lamb Platters

Grilled meat or lamb platters are very common in Albanian cuisine. Different restaurants might roast or grill large amounts of grass fed beef or lamb. They’ll usually have a spit roast in the backyard visible from the restaurant. The roasting becomes part of the experience.

Usually grilled meat or lamb is served with potatoes, salads, dips or sauces and more fresh ingredients to compliment the meal. In most households, these dishes are achieved by baking beef or lamb together with the vegetables.

This baked lamb and rice dish is inspired by my memories of a similar dish my mom used to cook.

14. Albanian Fasule – Navy Beans Soup

Fasule might be that Albanian dish that is the most cooked out of all this list. It has a winter version and a summer (less heavy and with more vegetables) version. Most Albanian families cooked fasule on Mondays when I lived in Albania. I’m curious if the tradition continues.

Leftover fasule soup with rice might be the ultimate winter food when you’re coming back home hungry and cold!!

Usually fasule soup is vegetarian, but there are versions where people add anything from meat with bone, sausages (usually suxhuk) or some dried meat (pastërma) to add more flavor and some natural source of fat to this dish.

See my recipe for Fasule! I have added beef shanks to mine but you can definitely make it vegetarian!

15. Qofte

Qoftes are simply meatballs. The traditional Albanian qofte can have ground beef or ground lamb or a mix of both. Other ingredients include onion, garlic, herbs, egg and a soaked slice of bread in water or milk.

Usually qoftes or meatballs are fried in a pan but I tend to bake mine so I can save some time. Here’s my recipe for Albanian Qofte.

16. Raki and Homemade Liqueurs

Raki and homemade liqueurs a lot of times are homemade in Albania. My mom and my uncles often made raki at home by fermenting grapes and then distilling them.

My grandfather used to make a sweet plum or berry liqueur to serve to guests as we hosted a lot of people. It was traditional to serve raki to men and sweet liqueur to ladies, alongside a spoon sweet (for example Cherry Gliko) or llokum and Turkish coffee.

As some of the homemade versions of these drinks are becoming more industrialized, I hope the tradition goes forward:).

My mom brings me some raki anytime she visits from Albania and the drink is actually too strong for me to consume, but I made a cocktail with it which makes it perfect and brings the alcohol level down. Pomegranate Raki Cocktail – enjoy responsibly:). Cheers!

17. Albanian wine

Albania has the perfect weather for wineries. Wine production in Albania it’s said to go back thousands of years based on archeological discoveries of wine clay pots.

When I lived in Albania I remember wine Kallmet, Shesh etc. Both Kallmet and Shesh are local grape varieties that produce great quality wines.

I hear the production of wine is going up and several brands are even exporting wine now. If you have a chance to try Albanian wine when visiting the country, please do and let me know which one was your favorite. Thank you:).

18. Albanian beer

There are many Albanian breweries that make local beers in Albania. I clearly remember birra Korça from when I lived in Albania. This brewery traces its origins back to 1928.

There’s Birra Tirana, Birra Stela, Birra Peja from Kosovo and many more. I got to try birra Stela when I went to visit family in Tirana few years ago.

I remember when I was younger, my parents would send me to buy beer from the local grocery store. It’s not uncommon for local grocery stores to sell draft beer and you provide the container. Most Albanian households at the time, would store clean Coca-Cola bottles and use those to go buy cold draft beer on a hot summer day. That way it had a fixed price since you knew how much volume fit in those bottles:).

19. Dallë or dhalla

Dhallë or dhalla is refreshing drink that is mostly homemade but you can find it in street food type setting like food trucks or ‘qebabtore’. This drink has very few ingredients, mostly homemade yogurt and water and some people add some salt to it when shaking the drink.

This drink replenishes electrolytes and gives you some strength on hot summer days. Dhalla is similar to Turkish Ayran drink.

20. Caj Mali or Mountain Tea

Caj (çaj) mali or Mountain Tea is a wild tea that grows naturally on the mountainside of both South and Northern region of Albania. Different varieties will have different flower type which distinguishes which tea came from what region of Albania.

This tea is also known in Greece (in USA is known as Greek tea), Macedonia and Kosovo. Read more about Albanian çaj mali in my article.

21. Vegetable casseroles

Turli with vegetables or tave me perime are vegetable casseroles typical in many regions of Albania. If you were to look for a recipe, it would be hard to find one or better said it’s hard to find two recipes that resemble each other.

The idea of these casseroles is to bake together vegetables like onions, peppers, potatoes, okra, leeks, eggplants and many more with a tomato base and herbs. Sometimes these dishes have ground beef, chicken, lamb or beef chunks and sometimes they’re vegetarian.

• Leeks Casserole
• Okra Casserole
• Summer Vegetable Casserole
• Spinach Rice Casserole with Eggs (burani)

22. Trahana

Trahana it’s a way of preserving wheat and milk for winter months. Once dough is made, it is separated in balls and dried. Then further separated in smaller pieces and dried again.

The process can take several days until the whole dough is dried. Some variations include peppers or tomatoes in the dough.

Once everything is dried, it’s grated and stored for winter months in flour sacks. It’s cooked similarly to how you’d cook oatmeal. My family would serve it with bread, feta cheese and some paprika olive oil. There are people who serve green onions with trahana.

While I still plan to write a whole article on Albanian trahana, here’s a short Tiktok video on how I made a bowl of trahana with trahana my mom brought from Albania.

23. Turkish Coffee

One of Albanian traditions is to make Turkish coffee at home. This tradition is inherited from the Ottoman Empire centuries of occupation. This is something that all Albanian households do. This coffee is served when socializing, it’s served when having people over, it’s served for funerals and it’s served as comfort throughout the day.

This coffee is made in a special pot called xhezve, it’s boiled and then poured over the cup without filtering the coffee out. The coffee will naturally fall at the bottom of the cup as it sits.

24. Kackavall Cheese

Kaçkavall cheese is a traditional Albanian hard cheese. It was not easily available when I was growing up but I remember it being part of our family celebrations. Usually we serve it as a side dish, as a meze style type cheese.

It’s made with cow’s milk or sheep’s milk and different brands might have different flavor profiles. It’s hard for me to recommend a specific brand since I don’t live in Albania anymore.

25. Qifqi

Qifqi is a special recipe from the South of Albania , specifically city of Gjirokaster. Qifqi are rice balls, mixed with herbs and fried in a special pan. My grandparents used to make qifqi with homegrown nenexhik (mint herb) and other ingredients.

My mom recently brought me the pan to fry qifqi so I hope to bring you pictures and a recipe soon.

26. Shendetlie

Shendetlie is an Albanian dessert soaked in syrup, it’s a cake with honey and nuts recipe. The word Shendet in Albanian means Health and I suppose since the dessert is loaded with eggs, nuts, honey etc the dessert is supposed to be healthy. I guess the definition of health changes through centuries.

27. Shapkat & Pispili

Shapkat & pispili are corn pies filled with spinach or leek and feta cheese. There are variations in both name, filling as well as how the dish is mixed together before baking in different regions of Albania.

My paternal grandparent were from the city of Gjirokastra and we made shapkat like I did in this recipe.

28. Flija or Fli

Flija or fli is a dish made in Kosovo and Northern part of Albania. It’s a very traditional dish made with few ingredients. This dish involves layers of dough spread on a round baking dish, topped with a cream filling, then more layers of dough are added.

Flija is usually baked in outdoors ovens and unlike byrek where you layer everything at once and then you bake, with flija you bake and you add more layers so it’s a slow build and time consuming but it’s totally worth it!!

Flija is usually shared with family and friend over celebrations like weddings.

29. Ballakume

Ballakume are traditional cookies from the city of Elbasan made for Summer Day celebrations (Dita e Veres). These cookies are made usually in a copper mixing bowl and it takes some patience to get the dough right.

These cookies are simple to make with not too many ingredients but the process of mixing the dough is very specific. As well as you need some ashes from burnt wood in the fireplace or grill. It’s very interesting and hope to be able to take my kids one day to see first day of summer celebrations in Albania.

While most of the ingredients for these cookies are very simple, in the city of Elbasan they include water from ashes in the recipe. You get some ashes from a wood stove or wood based grill. You soak the ashes in water for a while, they strain the water and use few tablespoons in the recipe.

30. Stuffed Vegetables

Stuffed vegetables – stuffed peppers, stuffed eggplants, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage rolls and stuffed zucchini are among some of the most famous stuffed vegetable dishes in Albania.

• Stuffed peppers
• Stuffed zucchini and squash
• Stuffed eggplants
• Stuffed grape leaves

31. Variety of Stews (gjellë) and Soups

Variety of stews (gjellë) is just what makes everyday Albanian cooking healthy. If I can summarize it what these stews are, I would say it’s a mix of seasonal vegetables, fresh herbs and sometimes protein. These stews are cooked for a long time on slow heat to make delicious meals.

You can serve them with rice, salads, and most typically with warm, freshly baked bread.

• Mashurka (Green Bean or Wax Beans Stew)
• Potato and Beef Stew
• Green Peas Stew with Beef
• Braised cabbage (gjellë me laker)

32. Paçe

Paçe is an Albanian slow cooked soup with sheep’s head. The process can be intricate and long but the result is an amazing soup that warms your soul on a cold day. You don’t need many ingredients to make this soup but you do need trusted a butcher to provide the main ingredient.

This is not something I’d be able to cook myself, but I have tried the soup and it is really amazing! I have heard that there are several Farm to Table style restaurants in Albania that serve this soup. So if you’re visiting Albania, definitely look for paçe in the menu!

If you tried paçe already, feel free to let me know in comments where you tried it and how you like the soup:).

33. Kulac bread (soda bread)

Kulaç is the Albanian version of the soda bread. We used to make it in the old days because it’s easy to make with so few ingredients. But we also make it for New Year’s to make turkey stuffing (pershesh).

Here’s my recipe for Kulaç!

34. Qumështor

Qumështor is a sweet phyllo dessert made with about 12 phyllo layers and lots of milk. The phyllo layers are split in half on a baking dish and the middle is filled with a delicious custard like cream made with milk. The upper phyllo layers are then added on top of the cream and the dessert is baked how you’d bake any phyllo pie. Once out of the oven, you add a sweet syrup so the dessert can soak it up. It’s just fantastic!

The dessert takes the name from the word qumësht which in Albanian means milk.

35. Sultjash (rice pudding)

Sultjash is the Albanian version of rice pudding. It’s a very simple dessert that will bring most people of my age memories of their childhood. It’s a simple dessert with very few ingredients (mostly rice, milk and sugar) garnished with cinnamon (kanelle).

36. Pasta Shu (eclairs)

Pasta Shu (eclairs) is not a dessert that originated in Albania but these delicious bites are very famous in the local bakeries. My mom loves them and even tried several times to make them at home.

37. Tullumba

Albanian tullumba are somehow similar to churros in shape but the Albanian version is soaked in syrup.

38. Zupa

Zupa – I always wondered how come this dessert came to be called zupa. Most Albanians speak Italian because of the proximity to Italy and our love for Italian TV and entertainment. But in Italian, zupa means soup. So I’m curious how come in Albanian it means a dessert!

Other than the name confusion, this is a mouthwatering dessert! It’s a light dessert with custard consistency served with layers of crushed biscottis and topped with whipped cream and chopped walnuts.

Additional Notable Mentions

Additional notable mentions – you’ll be able to find the first two items of the below foods almost anywhere in Albania. However, the last ones in the list are usually just homemade!

• Trileçe (trileche) – this dessert has taken the Albanian market by storm. It’s very famous nowadays but it wasn’t when I was still living in Albania as its origins are not Albanian. I see many tourists mentioning this dessert because of the popularity but this is not an Albanian dessert. It’s just something people in Albania really enjoy! I hope to bring a recipe for trileçe soon to my blog:).
• Boza – boza is a fermented summer drink with Turkish origins.
• Hasude – hasude is a dessert made with few ingredients: oil/butter, cornstarch, sugar and water. This dessert is an old fashioned type dessert that is something grandmas used to make. I’m not sure how common it is to make hasude nowaways, but if it is, it’s usually homemade.
• Hallva – hallva similar to hasude has very few ingredients but instead of cornstarch it’s made with flour. It’s not difficult to make but it requires some technique and patience.
• Home Bread (bukë shtepie) – Albanian make lots of types of breads at home but the one we made a lot in my house was this soft bread baked in individual rolls, like bread rolls.

My name is Sonila and I am an Albanian born food blogger living in USA. I hope that by documenting my recipes in English I get to preserve a little bit of my family’s heritage for my kids, as well as raise awareness for my native country!