Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Ayran
A savory, frothy chilled drink of yogurt whisked with cold water and salt.
Turkish · easy · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 0 min
~73 cal · 4g protein · 6g carbs · 4g fat · 0g fiber · 6g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Ayran is Turkey's ubiquitous savory yogurt drink, yogurt whisked with cold water and a pinch of salt into a frothy, tangy, refreshing beverage. Simple and ancient, it is thought to trace back to the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia, who thinned yogurt for a portable, hydrating drink.
Unlike sweet yogurt drinks, ayran is savory and cooling, the perfect foil to grilled meats, kebabs, and spicy food. In Turkey it is often served whipped to a foam, and a version churned in a copper vessel is a specialty of roadside stops.
It is drunk with almost anything off the grill, and the salt is not optional: without it, ayran is just watered-down yogurt.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
2 cups plain yogurt
1 cup ice-cold water
1 tsp, to taste fine sea salt
a pinch dried mint (optional)
Instructions
1
Whisk the cold yogurt (or plant yogurt) with the salt until smooth.
✎ Chef’s note
Straight from the fridge, and use whole-milk yogurt with live cultures and no stabilisers. Low-fat yogurt will not foam.
2
Whisk in the ice-cold water hard for a full minute or more, until it is completely smooth and a layer of foam sits on top.
✎ Chef’s note
Roughly two parts yogurt to one of water is the standard, thinned towards one-to-one in hot weather; the exact ratio is a national argument. The foam (köpük) is the quality marker, and if you are not getting any you are either whisking too gently or using yogurt that is too lean. A blender gets closest at home to yayık ayranı, the churned village version, and Susurluk is so famous for its foam that the name is a protected geographical indication.
3
Taste and adjust the salt.
✎ Chef’s note
Err on the salty side. Ayran is meant to be noticeably savoury, more so than most people outside Turkey expect, and it is never sweetened. Unsalted, it is just watered-down yogurt.
4
Pour over ice, raising a foamy head.
5
Sprinkle with dried mint if you like and serve very cold.
İzmir tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
İzmir (Aegean). Two Izmir specifics are easy to get wrong. Izmir kofte is baked in the oven with potatoes and tomatoes rather than grilled, which is the whole point of the name; and Izmir-style kokorec is made without tomatoes, unlike the versions sold further east. Both are small distinctions locals will correct you on.
🗺️
Turkey. Baklava's origins are genuinely unsettled, argued between Greek, Arab-Persian and Central Asian Turkic ancestries, so nobody should be handed the invention. What is documented is Gaziantep: its baklava was the first Turkish product to win an EU protected geographical indication, in 2013, and the specification requires Antep pistachios.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Turkey
İmam Bayıldı (Swooning Imam’s Eggplant)Whole eggplants braised in olive oil until silken, stuffed with sweet onions, tomato, and garlic. Served cool.
LahmacunPaper-thin flatbread blistered under a spiced lamb, pepper, and parsley crust, rolled with lemon and herbs.
MantiTiny hand-pinched meat dumplings under garlic yogurt and paprika-mint butter, Kayseri’s legendary labor of love.
Browse all Turkey recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Whisk.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Turkey meal
İmam Bayıldı (Swooning Imam’s Eggplant)Dinner
BaklavaDessert
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Drinks
Frequently asked questions
What is Ayran?
A savory, frothy chilled drink of yogurt whisked with cold water and salt.
Where does Ayran come from?
Ayran is a Turkish dish from İzmir (Aegean), Turkey.
Can Ayran be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Ayran recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Ayran safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Ayran take to make?
About 5 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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