Skip to main content

How To Grill Spicy Turkish Adana Kebabs

Turkish Adana kebab plate with grilled vegetables.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

In the Middle East, there are countless varieties of grilled and skewered meats. Many of these kebabs are made with ground meat, ranging from the parsley-rich kofta kebab of Lebanon to the soft and savory koobideh kebab of Iran. One of the most famous of these styles is the Adana kebab, a spicy Turkish lamb mince fragrant with chili peppers.

Related Guides

What is the Adana Kebab?

Turkish Adana kebabs on the grill.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Adana kebab originated from the southern Turkish city of Adana. A proper Adana kebab is serious business in Turkey — the dish is officially a protected designation of origin (PDO). Essentially, this means that a true Adana kebab can only be made in the city of Adana and only by someone who has cleared a series of rules.

First, Adana kebabs should be made from a male lamb less than one year old. The meat is hand-chopped with a crescent-shaped cleaver called a zırh and mixed with lamb tail fat. The fat content should be around 1/5 of the total mixture. This process of hand-chopping and mixing produces a texture that’s very different than mixing by machine. For seasoning, sweet red peppers,  spicy green chilis, garlic, purple sumac, and salt are added to the meat mixture. Ideally, the meat should be left overnight to fully develop all the flavors.

For grilling, Adana kebabs are kneaded onto a broad metal skewers shaped like a sword. Be sure to wet your hands beforehand — this will help the meat maintain its shape on the metal skewer. An authentic Adana kebab will be grilled over hardwood coals and turned frequently. As it grills, cooks will also periodically wipe pieces of flatbread on the meat to collect the savory fat drippings.

Read more: Best Grill Recipes

Accompaniments

Adana kebabs are usually served on a plate or in a wrap, both with Turkish flatbread. The flatbread has the added bonus of being able to soak up the salty and fatty meat drippings, enhancing the bread. Grilled vegetables like tomatoes, green and red peppers, and a salad of thinly sliced raw onions with parsley and sumac are common. These elements help balance the spicy meat of the kebab.

Turkish cuisine is all about a variety of flavors and textures. Central to this concept are the plentiful sides dishes and accompaniments called meze. These can include exciting items like a red pepper paste mixed with fruity pomegranate molasses, mint and tarragon, or a variety of pickled vegetables and chili peppers.

Turkish Style Adana Kebab

Turkish Adana kebabs over flatbread.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

(By Executive Chef Ari Bokovza of Dagon)

Dagon is a thrilling new restaurant in New York City that showcases cuisine from “somewhere in the Mediterranean.” Named for the Phoenician and Philistine god of agriculture and the earth, the food of Dagon combines modern Israeli cuisine with Levantine influences of the Middle East.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. ground lamb
  • 5 oz lamb or beef fat
  • 5 oz minced white onion
  • .5 oz minced garlic
  • .5 oz chopped parsley
  • .5 oz chopped cilantro
  • 2 oz harissa
  • Small pinch chili flake
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 oz panko breadcrumbs
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp sumac

Method:

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Cover and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. 
  2. To prepare, wet your hands and mold meat mixture into desired shape.
  3. Prepare charcoal grill and cook meat quickly over hot coals, turning often, about every 6-8 minutes depending on size of kebabs. If a grill is unavailable, a cast-iron skillet will suffice.
  4. Serve hot with rice or flatbread and grilled vegetables.

Read more: Best Dinner Recipes

Editors' Recommendations

Hunter Lu
Hunter Lu is a New York-based food and features writer, NYU graduate, and Iraq veteran. His fiction has appeared in The Line…
You should know how to make these 5 sauces
Mastering these sauces will make you look like a pro in the kitchen
il principe lasagna bolognese recipe bechamel sauce over getty images

A good sauce is a core component of culinary culture. Knowing how to make a handful of them can elevate your kitchen game to unforeseen heights. Often, a good sauce is the star of the show. After all, what would Thanksgiving turkey be without gravy? Or Eggs Benedict without hollandaise?

Now, we don't expect you to pull a Béarnaise sauce out of your hat at a moment's notice. But you should be able to whip up a solid tomato-based sauce for pasta, or a good teriyaki sauce for rice and veggies or skewered proteins. We know, there are great pre-made options out there, from complex fish sauce to throw-it-on-anything Japanese Barbecue Sauce. Yet, you know as well as we do that when you pull it off from scratch, it's more rewarding and can even taste better.

Read more
Need to Elevate Your Pasta Dishes? Learn How To Make Pesto
A long spoon holds fresh pesto above a jar of pesto.

Rich, herby, bright, and incredibly flavorful, pesto is one of the world's most popular sauces. The beautiful green mixture is the perfect accent to so many dishes, from just about every pasta dish imaginable, to steak to seafood. It also shines bright on its own, spread generously on a warm baguette, its gorgeous green color taking center stage even before the first bite. Mix a spoonful into soup for an instant upgrade. Stir a bit into mayonnaise for a deliciously earthy sandwich spread. Substitute your red sauce for a vivacious green the next time you make a pizza. The possibilities are endless, and too often, this wonderfully versatile ingredient gets labeled as nothing more than a pasta sauce. It's time to rebel.

Pesto was invented in Genoa, Italy, appearing for the first time in the mid-19th century. The lineage of this fragrant green sauce can be traced to an ancient Roman version ­­called moretum, a dip made from herbs, cheese, garlic, and olive oil. The name pesto is Genovese, meaning “to pound” or “to crush.” The Genovese are intensely proud of their invention. For the pesto connoisseur in Genoa, true pesto can only exist in its birthplace, made with the original ingredients of basil, cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino sardo), pine nuts, garlic, and olive oil.

Read more
3 Best Honey Glazed Ham Recipes to Pork up Your Holiday Menu
honey-glazed-pineapple-ham

The union of ham and honey is a loving one. Ham does the heavy lifting on the hearty, savory front while the honey keeps everything candied and mellow. What results is a timeless blend of flavors so delectably savory-sweet that it has become a quintessential holiday centerpiece. You can’t go wrong with the ol’ standby of a pineapple-glazed ham, but there are also a lot of other great ways to get your honey and ham better acquainted. To help you mix things up (or totally nail the classics), we called in the experts at the National Honey Board for three mouthwatering honey glazed ham recipes that pair well with good wine or cocktails.
Classic Honey Glazed Ham Recipe

This classic recipe is simple to prepare and tastes great. One the benefits of ham is that, unlike turkey, you don't have to worry about some of the meat being undercooked while other parts are dry. Simply heat up the ham and serve. This recipe comes from The Recipe Critic.
Ingredients:

Read more