🍢 SNACK
Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls)
Thin yufka pastry rolled tight as a cigarette around white cheese and chopped parsley, sealed with water and fried in sunflower oil until crisp and golden.
Turkish · easy · serves 6
prep 25 min · cook 15 min
~399 cal · 14g protein · 23g carbs · 28g fat · 1g fiber · 1g sugars · 11g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
Sigara böreği takes its name from its shape: sigara means cigarette, and these are slim rolls of yufka, the paper-thin Turkish pastry, wrapped tightly around a filling of white cheese and parsley. They are one of the quickest börek to make, and one of the most loved, fried at home for a weekend breakfast with tea, handed round at tea time, and served hot among the meze in the Aegean and all over Turkey.
The usual filling is lor, a soft fresh curd cheese, or crumbled beyaz peynir, the brined white cheese of the Turkish breakfast table, mashed with plenty of chopped flat-leaf parsley. Some cooks add an egg or a little mozzarella-style cheese to make it creamier, others use potato or mince instead, but cheese and parsley is the classic.
Yufka sheets are cut into triangles, the filling is laid along the wide end, the sides are folded in and the pastry rolled up tight, with a dab of water on the tip to seal it so it does not open in the oil. They are best eaten straight from the pan, while the pastry still shatters.
Saved recipes and passport stamps are kept on this device. Sign in to keep them across your devices and leave reviews.
Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- 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 6
- 250 g yufka or filo pastry sheets, 2 large yufka rounds, or 6 filo sheets stacked in twos
- 250 g lor cheese or crumbled beyaz peynir (feta)
- 1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
- a pinch black pepper
- a pinch salt, only if the cheese is mild
- 2 tbsp water (to seal)
- 500 ml sunflower oil, for frying
Instructions
- 1Mash the cheese and parsley together with a fork with the pepper. Taste, and add salt only if the cheese is mild.
- 2Lay the yufka on the counter and cut each sheet into quarters, then cut each quarter in half to make 8 long triangles per sheet. Keep them under a damp cloth.
- 3Put a triangle wide end towards you and lay a heaped tablespoon of filling in a line along it, leaving a gap at each side. Fold the wide edge over the filling, fold in both sides and roll up tightly towards the point.
- 4Dab the tip with water and press to seal. Repeat with the rest, keeping the finished rolls covered.✎ Chef’s noteSeal the tip well: an unsealed roll unwinds in the hot oil and the cheese leaks out.
- 5Heat 2 to 3 cm of sunflower oil in a deep frying pan over medium-high heat. Fry the rolls a few at a time, turning, for 3 to 4 minutes until golden and crisp all over. Drain on paper and serve hot, with tea or as part of a meze.
Turkish home, breakfast and meze tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Cooked it? Rate this dish:
No account needed. Sign in to leave a full review with a comment.
Cooked it?
Kept on this device, no account needed. Sign in to leave a review and keep your passport across your devices.
No reviews yet, be the first to cook it.
🌏 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. 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
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.
MenemenSoft eggs scrambled into a simmered base of tomato, green pepper, and pul biber.
Browse all Turkey recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Skillet or frying pan.
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
Make it a Turkey meal
AyranDrink
BaklavaDessert
Similar dishes from around the world
Pastechi (Curaçao Fried Cheese Turnovers)Curaçao
Tequeños (Venezuelan Cheese Sticks)Venezuela
Orelletes (Andorran Fried Sugar Pastries)Andorra
Gougères (Burgundy Cheese Puffs)France
Calzones Rotos (Chilean Twisted Fried Pastries)Chile
Tiropitakia (Greek Feta Cheese Phyllo Triangles)Greece
Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls)?
Thin yufka pastry rolled tight as a cigarette around white cheese and chopped parsley, sealed with water and fried in sunflower oil until crisp and golden.
Where does Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) come from?
Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) is a Turkish dish from İzmir (Aegean), Turkey.
Can Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Sigara Böreği (Turkish Crispy Cheese Rolls) take to make?
About 40 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 6.
Get the Sunday Spin
One dish from somewhere in the world, in your inbox every Sunday. No spam, just dinner inspiration you can cook that day.