This borek takes just 10 minutes to prepare and even less to finish. The trick is adding sparkling spring water. This helps the borek rise more and become crispy. This easy Turkish Cheese Borek is delicious!
Ingredients
You will need only a few ingredients for this borek:
- Baklava filo sheets can be found easily now, search for “Baklava Filo Pastry” and make sure that there are baklava pictures on the packaging to be sure. You will need tissue like thin sheets of dough. Phyllo, filo or yufka are also used to describe these sheets. It is not the same as puff pastry or the basic yufka.
- Then you need cheese. Traditionally Turkish white cheese is needed. Beyaz peynir in Turkish, white cheese is a semi-soft cheese made from milk. If you cannot find any, mozzarella works just as good. I used a combination of Turkish white cheese and mozzarella. You can add chopped parsley to the cheese, but as I wanted this recipe to be a basic one, I even skipped adding parsley.
- For the spread mixture you will also need the following:
- 2 eggs.
- Sunflower oil. Do not prefer olive oil, olive oil in boreks just makes the boreks more oily – even when you use the same amount.
- Sparkling spring water
- For the garnish, I always use nigella seeds and sesame seeds. Nigella seeds are a natural remedy for many health issues, so never miss an opportunity to use them.
Preparing the cheese borek
One thing to pay attention to is the baklava filo sheets get dry very quickly. So as soon as you open the packaging make sure to cover the sheets with a clean kitchen cloth to make sure they don’t turn into dry, crumbling, paper-like sheets.
- First, start with preparing the spread mixture. Mix eggs, sprinkling mineral water, oil and yogurt.
- Then spreading open a baklava filo sheet on your worktop and using an egg brush sprinkle with sunflower oil.
- Repeat with the second baklava filo sheet.
- Then on the third baklava sheet sprinkle with the spread mixture.
- Do the same on the fourth and fifth baklava sheets.
- On the fifth sheet also add the cheese.
- Place the cheese on the narrow end of the baklava filo in a line and leave some empty space in the middle, as you will cut it later on.
- Roll towards the other end.
- Cut in the middle. Make 3 diagonal surface cuts on top.
- Continue to roll until all the sheets and the cheese is finished.
- Place the make sure it is wet and oily all around with the spread mixture. Then lay another sheet on top of the first one and again spread the mixture. Continue until you have 5 sheets on top of each other. Then put about twotable spoons of grated cheese as a line in one of the corners and curl towards the other side. You will achieve a long borek looking like a garden hose. Continue until all the material is finished.
- Garnish with nigella and sesame seeds and enjoy with friends and family at breakfast, coffee or tea time.
You can watch the video below.
If you enjoyed this recipe, check my other borek recipes too. Oops, there are plenty, I could not include them all. I just love a good borek.
Served Borek with Meat 
Potato Borek 
Sariyer Borek 
Borek with Spinach 
Water Borek – Su böreği 
Cigarette Borek
Easy Turkish Cheese Borek Recipe
A different borek with baklava phyllo, cheese and sprinkling mineral water.
Servings 9 pieces
Calories 435kcal
Ingredients
- 500 grams ready baklava filo sheets
- 2 eggs
- 150 millilitres sparkling spring water
- 150 grams yogurt
- 125 millilitres sunflower oil divided
- 150 grams mozzarella and/or white cheese grated
- 1 teaspoon nigella seeds
- 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Instructions
Preparing the Borek
- Once you open the ready baklava sheets you will notice a nylon sheet that is wrapped around the filos. Open it on your worktop.
- On the nylon sheet lay the first filo.
- Sprinkle with sunflower oil lightly. And using an egg brush spread the oil all around.
- Lay the second filo sheet on top.
- Repeat sprinkling and spreading the sunflower oil.
- Lay down the third layer of filo.
- This time pour about a tablespoon of the spread mix and spread all around the filo with an egg brush.
- Add the fourth layer of filo.
- Again pour about a tablespoon of the spread mix and spread all around the filo with an egg brush.
- Add the fifth layer of filo as the last layer.
- Again pour about a tablespoon of the spread mix and spread all around the filo with an egg brush.
- Then on the narrow side place two tablespoons of grated cheese in a line, leaving about 4 centimetres (1.5 inches) empty in between. Because you will be cutting in half later on, if you do not keep it empty in the middle the cheese might fall off.
- Then gently curl towards the other side. If you slide the nylon sheet, the filo will easily curl.
- The filo will be looking like a garden hose, not too thin or thick. Then cut into half. And make 3 diagonal surface cuts on top of each half with a sharp knife.
- Repeat until all filo and the cheese is finished.
- If the spread mix tends to finish add more sunflower oil.
- Place the curled filo pieces onto a baking dish.
- Continue until all the material is finished.
- Pour the remaining spread mixture on top of each mix, especially on the corners.
- Garnish with nigella seeds and sesame seeds.
- Cook until crispy and golden on all sides, for about 30 minutes, in a pre-heated oven at 200° Celsius (400° F) minutes.
Spread Mixture
- Break the eggs into a measuring jug. Mix well with a wire whisk.
- Add the mineral water and mix again.
- Add 100 milliltres of the sunflower oil and mix again.
- Add the yogurt and mix again. The mixture is ready.
Notes
Once you open the phyllo sheet package always keep the phyllo covered with a clean damp cloth, they become dry very quickly. The cuts on the top serve for decoration and helping the cheese cook better. You can prepare this borek with different fillings such as spinach, mushrooms, ground meat and potato. If there is too much spread mixture on the baking tray, you can either drain it away or go on bake as it is. You can just scrape the baked spread mixture away. The bottom of the borek pieces will brown and be crispy anyway.
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