Kishk (Fermented Wheat and Yogurt Soup)
A warming mountain soup made by simmering kishk — dried fermented bulgur and yogurt powder — into a tangy, creamy base, finished with golden garlic butter. Rustic, savory, and deeply comforting on a cold day.
Servings
Ingredients
Nutrition
Per serving
Steps
Dissolve the kishk
Put the powder in a large bowl and whisk in about 500 ml of the cold water, a splash at a time, until you have a completely smooth paste with no lumps. This is the step that decides the soup: any lump that survives here will never dissolve once the pot is on the heat.
- 300 g powder
- 500 ml cold water
✅ Done when: the paste is smooth and pourable, with no dry crumbs left
Thin and pour
Whisk in the remaining cold water until fully smooth, then pour everything into a heavy-bottomed pot.
- 1 litre cold water, remaining
Cook, stirring constantly
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Make the garlic butter
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Finish the soup
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Serve hot
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Dissolve the kishk
Put the powder in a large bowl and whisk in about 500 ml of the cold water, a splash at a time, until you have a completely smooth paste with no lumps. This is the step that decides the soup: any lump that survives here will never dissolve once the pot is on the heat.
- 300 g powder
- 500 ml cold water
✅ Done when: the paste is smooth and pourable, with no dry crumbs left
Thin and pour
Whisk in the remaining cold water until fully smooth, then pour everything into a heavy-bottomed pot.
- 1 litre cold water, remaining
Cook, stirring constantly
This step is part of Foodie Premium. Subscribe to unlock the full method, cooking mode and every recipe in the library.
Make the garlic butter
This step is part of Foodie Premium. Subscribe to unlock the full method, cooking mode and every recipe in the library.
Finish the soup
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Serve hot
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The Story Behind the Dish
Kishk began as a way to carry the richness of summer milk through the cold mountain winter. Each autumn, families fermented yogurt with bulgur wheat for days, then spread it in the sun to dry before grinding it into a tangy, shelf-stable powder that could last for months without spoiling.
Turned back into food, kishk became soup: just stir the powder with water and simmer. It thickens into something between a porridge and a soup, savory and faintly sour, and a spoonful of garlic sizzled in butter on top is what makes it unmistakably Lebanese.
⭐ Why It's Famous
Tangy, warming and deeply savory, kishk soup tastes of thrift and ingenuity — the dish mountain families built to survive winter, now kept alive for its flavour alone.
💡 Fun Fact
Making kishk was traditionally a communal autumn task: neighbours and family would gather for days to ferment, dry and grind the batch together before the first snow.
Mountain villages of northern Lebanon and Mount Lebanon
34.25°N, 36.00°E
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