Dolma

Dolma
Whole stuffed pepper and tomato dolma
CourseAppetizer or main dish
Place of originTurkey
Region or stateEastern Mediterranean, Balkans, Anatolia, Levant, Middle East, South Caucasus, North Africa, Central Asia, Europe
Serving temperatureHot or room temperature
Main ingredientsMinced meat, rice
VariationsVegetables, leaves, seafood, fruits, meats, offal
  • Cookbook: Dolma
  •   Media: Dolma
Dolma making and sharing tradition, a marker of cultural identity
CountryAzerbaijan
Reference01188
RegionEurope and North America
Inscription history
Inscription2017 (12th session)
ListRepresentative

Dolma is a family of stuffed dishes largely associated with Ottoman cuisine. It mainly includes vegetables and leaves, and occasionally seafood, offal, fruits, and meats, that are hollowed out or wrapped, then filled with a mixture of rice, minced meat, herbs, and spices. The leaf-wrapped type can be specifically known as sarma, but colloquially dolma is used for both.

Dolma is a staple food across various countries that were once part of the Ottoman Empire as well as beyond, including Turkey, Greece, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Iran, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Moldova, Albania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden, Hungary, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, with each country having developed its own variations.