Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Menemen
Soft eggs scrambled into a simmered base of tomato, green pepper, and pul biber.
Turkish · easy · serves 2
prep 10 min · cook 20 min
~251 cal · 17g protein · 22g carbs · 12g fat · 6g fiber · 11g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Menemen is Turkey's beloved breakfast scramble, soft eggs cooked gently into a simmered base of tomatoes, green peppers, and olive oil, seasoned simply and eaten straight from the pan. Comforting and quick, it is a fixture of the leisurely Turkish breakfast.
The key is cooking the peppers and tomatoes down first into a soft, savory base, then folding in the eggs and cooking them just until barely set, so the whole thing stays lush and soft. Whether to add onion is a point of friendly debate among Turks.
Scooped up with crusty bread and eaten as part of a spread with cheese, olives, and tea, menemen is everyday breakfast food across Turkey.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, dairy-, 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 2
4 tomatoes, cut into small cubes
2 Turkish green peppers (sivri biber), or Anaheim and banana peppers, chopped
4 eggs
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp pul biber
to taste salt
1/2 onion (optional)
Instructions
1
Soften the peppers (and onion) slowly in the olive oil with a pinch of salt, 6 to 8 minutes, until they are properly soft and their juices have gone.
✎ Chef’s note
Salt in three stages: once on the onion and peppers, once on the tomatoes, once on the beaten eggs. Seasoning only at the end leaves the vegetables bland underneath seasoned eggs.
2
Add the tomatoes with more salt and the pul biber, break them down with the back of the spoon, and simmer until thick and jammy.
✎ Chef’s note
No tomato paste and no heavy spicing. Menemen is meant to taste of the vegetables themselves, which is why the peppers matter so much: the Turkish sivri biber, or a mix of Anaheim and banana peppers, gives a depth a single bell pepper cannot.
3
Lower the heat and pour in the beaten eggs (or tofu).
4
Stir gently for 2 to 3 minutes and pull the pan off the heat while the eggs are still barely set.
✎ Chef’s note
Menemen should be spoonable and loose, closer to a sauce than to scrambled eggs. Fluffy and dry means it went a minute too far.
5
Scatter with parsley and serve straight from the pan with crusty bread, white cheese and olives.
İzmir tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
İzmir (Aegean). The wild-herb culture here came with people. Migrants from Crete and the Balkans settled the Aegean coast in the population exchanges, and they brought the habit of gathering sevketibostan, radika, samphire, nettle and mallow and dressing them simply with olive oil and lemon. It is why the region eats more greens than anywhere else in Turkey.
🗺️
Turkey. Turkish cuisine sits where Ottoman palace kitchens met Anatolian village fires, spanning mezes, slow-cooked kebabs, stuffed vegetables (dolma), and an unrivaled tradition of sweets like baklava. Bread, yogurt, and tea accompany nearly every meal.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
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
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Turkey meal
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BaklavaDessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Menemen?
Soft eggs scrambled into a simmered base of tomato, green pepper, and pul biber.
Where does Menemen come from?
Menemen is a Turkish dish from İzmir (Aegean), Turkey.
Can Menemen be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Menemen 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 Menemen 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 Menemen take to make?
About 30 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 2.
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