Grains & starch · Bu

Bulgur

Pre-cooked · steeps in 12 min

Per 100 g

342 kcal Energy

12.3 g Protein

75.9 g Carbs

1.3 g Fat

18.3 g Fibre

Contains gluten GLUTEN

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They build structure. Starch granules swell in hot water, burst, and weave a net that traps the liquid — most of what you call body comes from here. Wheat does one extra job on top: gluten.

Where it catches you out

Starch does nothing before 62 °C, and acid cuts the chains during a long boil. Think about your thickener after the heat and before the acid.

The knack

It steeps rather than cooks: pour boiling water over, cover, and it is done in twenty minutes.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Airtight in a cool dry place for a year; once soaked, finish it within two days in the fridge.

Contains gluten

Bulgur is wheat that has been parboiled, dried and cracked; the gluten is entirely intact.

Allergen: GLUTEN

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Tomato paste →

Bulgur is parboiled and dried, so its starch is already gelatinised; it rehydrates in the paste’s own water at room temperature with no further cooking. That is why kısır and çiğ köfte work cold.

Pomegranate →

Its citric and malic acid plus astringent ellagitannins cut through an otherwise flat, starchy base, and the tannins bind loosely to surface proteins giving textural grip.

Also works with

Olive oil

Pepper

Mint

Lemon

Chickpea

Chilli flakes

What it fights with

Baking soda

Alkali degrades the surface, turns bulgur slimy and destroys the colour of any pomegranate or sumac with it.

What goes on top

Pomegranate molasses, olive oil, sumac, dried mint, chilli flakes, lemon

Key compounds

Ön jelatinleşmiş, sonra retrograde olmuş nişasta: The parboil-and-dry cycle is precisely a retrogradation step.

Nutritionally

Bulgur’s glycaemic index is about 47 — low — against medium-to-high for white rice, because parboiling raises resistant starch before you ever cook it.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

1 dishes in the database use it.

Mains 1

Small meatballs in yoghurt

Tiny bulgur-cased köfte cooked with chickpeas in a yoghurt broth. Gaziantep sources insist it is not yuvalama: yuvalama’s balls are rice flour, ufak köfte’s are bulgur.

Gaziantep