How To Make Trahana From Scratch At Home

Do you want to make trahana from scratch? Easy!! Read along as I answer as many questions as you may have in relation to the process. If you still have questions please leave a comment or email me 🙂

Trahana is a type of sour soup commonly eaten in Cyprus and Greece, made from kibbled wheat and fermented goat’s or sheep’s milk traditionally. However making the actual wheat pieces at home can be done easily using natural pot set yoghurt as well.

I have completed a number of different recipe testings using four kinds of yoghurt but also using bulgur and not just kibbled wheat. Depending on what is accessible to you where you live, YOU can also make trahana from scratch!

To make trahana from scratch the process is simple! Let the yoghurt ferment, become sour, by leaving it outside the fridge on your kitchen bench. It should be away from direct sunlight at room temperature ~25°C. Then you slowly boil the yoghurt with the wheat, stirring constantly until the yoghurt is absorbed. At which time you simply take it off the heat and your’re done. That’s it!!

Bulgur or Kibbled wheat

Typically trahanas is made using cracked wheat (although I’ve also seen recipes using flour and semolina) and that can be either bulgur or kibbled wheat. However kibbled wheat is traditionally used. The two key differences between them are:

1. Bulgur comes from preboiled wheat berries, whereas the later doesn’t.
2. Bulgur can be found in 4 size packs (fine, medium, coarse or very coarse), whereas the kibbled wheat has varying sizes in the one pack depending on how the wheat was crushed.

When I first started making trahana I couldn’t find kibbled wheat so I used both the medium and coarse bulgur to make it. Which one you choose to use depends on your individual taste. If you prefer a smoother texture, when eating the soup, then you might choose the medium bulgur.

Type of yoghurt used

To make trahana from scratch it is a lot easier to work with yoghurt than milk as there is a bit more involved with the milk. It is important to note that you must use pasteurized natural pot set yoghurt, which also includes live cultures. As mentioned already, traditionally goat’s or sheep’s milk/yoghurt is used.

I have used goat’s, sheep’s and cow’s yoghurt and I managed to make each of them work to produce a sour trahana. Below is a quick overview of the brands/type of yoghurts I used:

1. For the goat’s and sheep’s yoghurt I used the one available from Meredith’s dairy, which is not widely accessible but you can contact them to ask for locations. I get mine from LaManna Supermarket in Essendon or The Village Store in Yaraville.
2. For the cow’s yoghurt I opted for the Procal natural pot set yoghurt, which I got from LaManna Supermarket also. As of currently they the yoghurt is available in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. You can contact them directly for more product locations.
3. If you are in the state of Victoria (Australia) you can also find a type of cow’s yoghurt that it is made to be sour/tangy to begin with. It is the Sahara Persian natural pot set yoghurt, which you can find at Woolworths and a lot of other independent stores.

Sour or sweet trahana

To make sour trahana it is best you leave the yoghurt out of the fridge to ferment for at least a week. One of my aunties actually leaves it out for two weeks. The less time you leave the yoghurt out the sweeter it will be.

Another suggestion I got from another aunty, to produce a sourer trahana, is the addition of lemon juice. She usually leaves her yoghurt out of the fridge for 5 days. Then in the process of adding the wheat into the yoghurt she slowly adds 1/3 cup lemon juice to every 1kg of yoghurt used. That worked really well for me too when I used the Meredith’s and Procal yoghurts to get an even more tangy flavour, after a week of fermentation. But the addition of lemon was not necessary for the Sahara Persian style yoghurt.

Ways of storing of the trahana

When making trahana from scratch you have two options of storing it, you can either let it air dry completely in the sun or you can freeze it fresh.

I have tried both ways but for reasons out of my control drying is not always successful! If you have ever been to Melbourne in Australia, you would know that the weather here is anything but reliable. Although I tend to make the trahana during the summer time there is no guarantee that the weather will be hot enough for the trahana to dry up completely.

Hence freezing is my most used method. Plus it means I can easily make trahana all year round! To tell you the truth, I much prefer it when I freeze the trahana anyway as the soup turns out so much creamier! And it is less of a hassle than finding the space to lay out all the trahana you make to sun dry and keeping an eye on it for days.

Drying out the trahana

However if you do choose to air dry it, find a netting that you can lie the trahana on free standing. That way the air can also reach the bottom of the trahana and the moisture will be completely drawn out. Depending on how hot it is, you may need to turn the trahana over several times in the day over a week. The pictures above are from when I used my father’s in laws nets to try and dry a batch of trahana.

When you store it dried ensure that the container is well sealed. Some people also like to add bay leaf and unpeeled garlic cloves in the containers to avoid any microbe growth. Nonetheless, be aware that homemade dried trahana doesn’t last too long. Hence, another way to make it last longer is to store the dry trahana in the fridge or freezer as well. Check out my recipe here on how to use the frozen trahana pieces to make the soup.

Click here for more soup ideas like the Greek lemon and egg soup (Avgolemoni), Split peas soup (Louvana) or Greek lentil soup (Soupa faki).