In Romania, the soup is a staple of the national cuisine. There are so many traditional Romanian soups, each more delicious than others. Ciorba, as the Romanian soup is mostly known as, is one of the main courses of the meal, eaten pretty much every day.
History says that the ciorba has been introduced in Romania by the Ottoman Empire army. They passed through not only Romania but also Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria as well, leaving us with this important culinary heritage. Our soups share many similarities, but each country has put their own handprint on the recipes, making them their own.
In this article I want to introduce you to the Romanian soups and give you an idea on what to order on your next visit to Romania. In Bucharest we have special restaurants that only serve soup, and the selection is always plentiful.
What is Ciorba?
Most travellers who visit Romania don’t know why, that on the restaurant menus there are two types of soup: the classic soup and the ciorba. Whilst the first one is the classic familiar soup, made using different meats and vegetables, ciorba is something typical Romanian. Ciorba is a type of hearty soup that is spread all over Eastern Europe, which each country having its own variation on it. In Romania, ciorba is a dish that has the consistency of a soup, it has been made with meat and/or vegetables, and it has a sour taste.
Depending on which part of the country you are in, and also what kind of ciorba you are eating, the sourness can come from adding bors, lemon, vinegar, or pickled cabbage juice into the liquid. I prefer the bors because in my opinion it gives the most balanced sourness to the ciorba. Bors is a liquid that comes from fermenting either barley bran or wheat in water. We usually buy it fresh from the farmer’s market, or bottled from the supermarket. It is very cheap, but an essential ingredient for any good ciorba.
The Most Delicious Romanian Soups:
Ciorba de Perisoare – Meatballs Soup
I will start this list of the most delicious Romanian soups with the Ciorba de Persioare, which is one of my favourites. There is nothing better on a cold winter’s day than a bowl of hot meatballs soup, with a dollop of sour cream in it and a rustic crusty bread on the side.
As the name suggests, this Romanian soup has meatballs in it, which are juicy and full of flavour. The base of the soup is made with tomatoes and different vegetables. I usually use whatever I have in the fridge – you can add peppers, onions, green beans, even potatoes to this soup.
You can click here to see my recipe for the meatballs soup.
Ciorba de Burta – Tripe Soup
Tripe soup is one of my favourite Romanian ciorba, alongside the meatballs one. It packs so much flavour and tastes delicious when it’s done well. Whilst the recipe for this soup is not complicated, because the tripe has to be cooked for a long time to become tender, it’s a long process to make it. My mother usually makes it the day before we would eat it, and that is with pre-boiled tripe.
The tripe soup doesn’t need a lot of ingredients, allowing the key flavours to shine: the flavour of the beef bones, the garlic, the egg yolks and the sour cream. Tripe soup is soured with vinegar rather than with bors.
Tripe soup is served with extra sour cream, pickled green chilies, homemade garlic sauce and rustic bread.
Ciorba de Vacuta – Beef Soup
Another great Romanian soup that is very often made in the households from all over the country is the beef soup. The title actually translates as “little cow soup”, but contrary to this, it is made with beef and not veal.
This is a hearty red soup, with a lot of vegetables and the most tender meat. Among the vegetables in this soup you will find potatoes, carrots, celery root, as well as peppers and tomatoes. The meat is boiled until tender, then chopped in small pieces and put back into the soup. The ingredient that gives the soup its flavour is lovage, which is added in a generous quantity at the end.
The beef soup can be served on its own or alongside a dollop of sour cream.
Click here to see my beef soup recipe.
Ciorba de Legume – Vegetables Soup
Romania is a religious country, with many people respecting the fasting days before the main holidays. Some people fast every Friday as well. As ciorba is an essential staple of the Romanian cuisine, we do have a vegetarian option as well: the vegetables sour soup.
This soup can be made with any vegetables you have around the house. The base is made with onions, carrots and celeriac, to which you can add other vegetables such as green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, red peppers, and even cauliflower. If you have any leftover vegetables in the fridge, you can always make this soup.
You can check out my recipe for vegetables soup here.
Ciorba de Fasole – Bean Soup
To be fair, I never really liked the bean soup, but it is a very popular soup in Romania and many people love it. I am not a fan of beans, so I can’t be impartial when it comes to it.
The soup is made using white beans soaked overnight, tomato sauce, root vegetables, parsley and thyme. This can be a vegetarian soup, or can contain smoked meat as well.
In restaurants, traditionally bean soup is served inside bowls made from bread.
Ciorba de Miel – Lamb Soup
I love lamb soup. Maybe it’s because I only used to have it once a year. Lamb soup is traditionally cooked during the Easter holidays. Lamb is not a common meat in Romania, so as I was growing up, the only time my family would buy lamb was at Easter. We would buy half a lamb, and my mother would cook the traditional dishes that are associated with this holiday: the lamb soup, the oven baked lamb steak, the drob, or the spring onions and garlic lamb.
Usually, the ingredients for this soup include the bones and the head of the lamb, which gives it the distinctive flavour. The other ingredients include carrots, celery root and onions. This is a dressed soup, which means that at the end a mixture of egg yolks and sour cream is added to create a silky, creamy texture and enhance the flavour.
You can check out my lamb soup recipe by clicking here.
Supa de Pui – Chicken Soup
Supa de Pui is a classic traditional Romanian soup. It’s the most traditional soup, usually believed to have healing powers when you are sick. Every mom or grandmother in Romania will make chicken soup for their children and grandchildren when they are not feeling well. To this day, when I have a cold, my mother tells me to make some chicken soup.
The chicken soup is almost sweet, soothing and warming. It is made by boiling chicken bones, wings and legs together with basic soup vegetables such as carrots, celery, parsnips and onions. To enhance the soup, many people add noodles in it as well.
You can check out my chicken soup recipe by clicking here.
Ciorba de Pui a la Grec – Greek Chicken Soup
The chicken soup a la Grec is a great upgrade of the classic chicken soup. I don’t really know where the Greek influence in the name comes from, but I can tell you that it’s delicious. This is a ciorba, which means it is sour. Usually in this soup lemon juice is used to achieve that sourness.
This is a dressed soup as well, which means that at the end a mixture of sour cream and egg yolks are added, to create that creaminess we all love. This soup also has a generous amount of freshly chopped parsley and dill in it.
You can read my chicken a la grec soup recipe here.
Ciorba Radauteana
Another traditional Romanian soup comes from Radauti city, and it bears its name. The Radauteana is a chicken soup, made in a similar way as the tripe soup.
This is a light soup, perfect as a starter as well as a quick lunch. It doesn’t take a long time to make and it is a great alternative for people who don’t like the tripe soup.
Ciorba de Loboda – Orach Soup
Orach soup is a traditional spring ciorba in Romania. I do miss this soup very much because orach is very hard to find abroad. I have tried growing it in my own garden but without any success. Orach only grows in spring, so this is the only time when you can make this soup. Sometimes, you can find it at the traditional Romanian restaurants as well, but only in spring.
Orach soup is a celebration of the first vegetables of the spring: green onions, lovage, baby carrots. What makes this soup special is the addition of an egg at the end, just before it’s ready. The egg is mixed raw inside the soup, resulting in shredded pieces, which give it a very nice texture and consistency.
Ciorba de Salata – Salad Soup
Another great Romanian soup is made using fresh salad. This is a light soup usually made in spring, with green onions, young garlic and milk. If the soup is made outside of the Easter fast, some people like to add smoked meat to it as well, for consistency.
This soup can be eaten both hot or cold.
Ciorba Ardeleneasca
This soup comes from Transylvania and it’s hearty and heavy, but warming and delightful. Perfect for a cold winter dinner. The Ciorba Ardelenasca is made with smoked pork ribs and chops, root vegetables, potatoes, tarragon, as well as fatty sour cream and egg yolks for dressing. The soup is soured with either vinegar, bors, or pickled cabbage juice.
Ciorba de Potroace – Offal Soup
This is one of the oldest traditional Romanian soups recipes and it is made using offal. This soup is associated with the morning after the wedding, and it is meant to wake anyone up from a hangover.
Offal soup is made with chicken bones, feet, as well as hearts and gizzards – no livers because they cook too fast and they would get rock hard. This is a very sour soup, taste which is achieved by adding quite a lot of pickled cabbage juice, almost 25% of the entire liquid quantity.
It is said that this soup has to be as sour enough to wake up the dead from their sleep.
Ciorba de Varza cu Costita – Smoked Pork Ribs Cabbage Soup
Cabbage is a staple of Romanian cuisine, so it was bound to have a soup in which it stars as the main ingredient. Cabbage soup This is another soup that comes from Transylvania, and it’s so easy to make, with whatever vegetables you have in the fridge.
The cabbage is first seared together with the onion, carrot and celeriac, until they all get soft. The meat is boiled separately, until it falls off the bone. The liquid in which the meat boiled is used as the stock for this soup.
This soup can be dressed or not with sour cream and egg yolks. I am used to eating it as it is. Even if it sounds like a hearty soup, it’s actually quite light and doesn’t have too many calories.
Bors de Peste
No matter how many fish restaurants are around Romania, you will find the best bors de peste in the Danube Delta. This is a very special soup that uses water from the Danube in the broth, as well as different fish that only live in this body of water.
Danube Delta fish soup is cooked in giant cauldrons, over open fires. To make the soup, firstly, different small fish are boiled together with root vegetables. When they are ready, the soup is strained, and the small fish discarded. More vegetables are added, as well as vinegar – for the acidity and the sour taste. Then, the big fish is added: carp, pickerel, catfish, zander, and even sturgeon if available. All fish from the Danube.
The fish soup is served topped with lovage and alongside homemade garlic sauce.
If you visit the Danube Delta you must try to eat the local fish soup. Even better, try to get yourself invited to a local home, it’s so much better than at the restaurant.
For more traditional Romanian dishes, check out the articles below:
- The most delicious traditional Romanian food
- The most delicious classic Romanian cakes
- The most delicious traditional Romanian desserts
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