This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
These chebureki are delicious! Chebureki are very popular among Slavic people. You can compare them to a savory turnover or a less doughy version of the calzone. My aunt, Tamara, makes these for her church bake sale and they sell like hot cakes! I guess they are like hot turkey cakes… never mind.
This recipe made 38 chebureki and my siblings all stopped by to take some home. If you’re feeding a smaller crowd, you can easily cut all of the ingredients in half and make about 20.
Ingredients for the Easiest Chebureki you’ll ever make:
2 lb ground turkey
2 medium/large yellow onions
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
38-40 raw tortillas, depending on how much you fill them
How to Make Turkey Chebureki:
1. Peel and chop your onion into large pieces, then puree the onion in a food processor until it has an applesauce consistency.
2. Add 2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to the turkey and stir. Add the pureed onion. The amount of onion will frighten you and you might start crying. Don’t be scared. You can do it, just pour it over your ground turkey. Stop thinking about it and pour (I gave myself the same pep-talk). It will disappear into the meat. Amazing! Now grab a tissue and get back in the game.
3. Spread a heaping tablespoon of your meat filling over 1/2 of your raw tortilla, leaving about a 1″ border at the edges to seal.
4. Brush all the way around the edges of your tortilla with cold water. Fold the tortilla in half and seal the edges by pushing down around the edges with a fork.
5. Heat a large skillet with enough oil to just coat the bottom of the pan. Heat over medium/high heat. Once the oil is hot (the chebureki should sizzle when you put them in), add chebureki to the skillet 2 at a time and sautee 3 min per side. Adjust the temp if you notice it’s browning too quickly. You need to saute 3 minutes per side for the meat to cook through.
6. Transfer cooked turnovers onto paper towels to soak up excess oil. You should go ahead and eat a couple while you’re sautéing. Consider it your reward.
These were a hit in our house. Our son loved them too!
Turkey Chebureki (Turkey Turnover)
Ingredients
Instructions
- Peel and chop your onion into large pieces, then puree the onion in a food processor until it has an applesauce consistency.
- Add 2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to the turkey and stir. Add the pureed onion. The amount of onion will frighten you, but don't worry, it will disappear into the meat.
- Spread a heaping tablespoon of your meat filling over 1/2 of your raw tortilla, leaving about a 1" border at the edges to seal.
- Brush all the way around the edges of your tortilla with cold water. Fold the tortilla in half and seal the edges by pushing down around the edges with a fork.
- Heat a large skillet with enough oil to just coat the bottom of the pan. Heat over medium/high heat. Once the oil is hot (the chebureki should sizzle when you put them in), add chebureki to the skillet 2 at a time and sautee 3 min per side. Adjust the temp if you notice it's browning too quickly. You need to saute 3 minutes per side for the meat to cook through.
- Transfer cooked turnovers onto papertowels to soak up excess oil. Serve warm.
The most delicious three ingredient dinner ever! Thank you!
You are welcome Chistel :).
Ok. This is premature, but thanks for the information regarding uncooked tortillas. I had never heard of them. Anyway, I found them at a local Mexican grocery store and at a Hy Vee supermarket. Tonight we used them to make fajitas. Excellent! Next, Turkey Chebureki.
They do taste better than Pre cooked. I hope you love the recipe!
I made these yummy things and they were delicious! 🙂
Question: The filling was very much full of “water” so I had to cut them and drain the water out of the pocket. Is that normal?
They can be a little juicy after it is cooked, especially if you fill it more than shown in the photos. Thawed frozen turkey can also be more watery than fresh ground turkey.
I made a second batch with less filling and it was almost water-less. =)
My mother in law just last week told me about these tortilas so I went out and bought them .. trying these tonight!
I hope you love them!
oh my, reading the responses to this recipe is a cruel and unusual punishment 😉
i started making these a few months back when Natasha published the recipe. I thought the idea to use uncooked tortillas was ingenious. about a month ago, Costco stopped carrying them in any of their warehouses on the east coast. i spent hours on the web trying to find who sold them locally. No luck at all. finally, bit the bullet and ordered them from Amazon for a fortune compared to Costco’s price but the product arrived warm making me worried that it spoiled. so, having spent $40 for 2 packages, i am back to square one! you can imagine how sad i feel having read all your comments!
Oh no!! That is a major bummer. Have you checked Walmart? I know our local walmart carries them. Call your local grocery stores; one of them must have it (I hope!).
Hi Natasha, the chebureki do work with ready tortillas but like you stated they do cook up faster than raw ones. I still haven’t had any luck finding raw tortillas but I will keep looking! 🙂
How do you get them to hold together?
Can I use the ready tortillas instead of the raw once? I thought I bought the raw once but they are not raw but already baked 🙁
They will burn too quickly and you won’t be able to seal them shut. I don’t think it would work.
Do these have that raw onion smell when eating them cause I think ill attempt to saute the onion, then puree(using ur pelmeni/saute onion trick), cause we never liked pelmeni or chebureki for the onion but since I made ur version of pelmeni, my hubby and kiddos will actually eat them, cause the onion smell/taste is less pungent when onion is sofnened before hand.Also my mom sometimes made these as lil eggrolls using the chinese raw eggroll wraps when raw tortillas weren’t handy.
You can do that but they won’t be juicy as the raw onion. If you dice the onion really fine, than there is no need to purée them.
I actually loved the onion in this…you can’t tastes/smell it but it makes the meat so juicy and good. Not sure if onion was in previous chebureki recipe…but these tasted really good 🙂 Thanks.
You are welcome Nella, You are so right, onion does makes the meat more juicy :).
Never tried it with raw tortillas but ohhh boy, what a great idea?! Brownie points go to you Natasha!! 🙂 thanks again for your amazing blog….i really have to check it daily, its like an addiction that i just cant go without 🙂
You are welcome Tina :).
These sound perfect! How do you pronounce Chebureki? Just curious, thanks! 🙂
Cheboorekee 🙂
Natasha, after brushing egg on just push sides together. I made those in deep fry version but would love to change to frying pan. Much better caloriewise:)
I use Goya brand, in frozen section…also great for making fried apple pies
Thanks for sharing Pat :).
Oh my looks so good the other day I wanted some chebureki and called my mom right away and she said she used raw tortillas from costco, went there right away bought ground turkey, tortillas and made them. So easy and so good I did everything like you did except I added some mr. Dash seasoning and instead of water to make them stick together my mom told me its better to use an egg, it is so easy and yummy recipe. Thanks for sharing.
I’ll definitely have to try the egg wash method around the edges. Thanks so much Lena. I love Dash in anything too! 🙂
I got directed to your beautiful blog after searching for Plum Jam..and aren’t I glad. Will be making this soon..looks so good.
Welcome to the site and I hope you will find many more favorites 🙂
These sound like I should have thought of them before! Perfect idea for this expectant mama. Looking high and low for quick meals that aren’t too complicated but are fun. Looking forward to playing with it. Except for that raw tortilla thing…have never seen those, not even here in California! Have to search…
Next time you are in Costco or Walmart, ask them if they carry uncooked tortillas. I hope you’ll find them :).
Wow! I’ve never seen row tortillas before! Will keep my eyes open. Thank you, Natasha.
You’re welcome. They are so much easier than making the dough and rolling it out
Finally! I found this uncooked tortillas and ready to roll! Pinned it too.
Yay!!! I hope you love the chebureki! Thanks so much for pinning!
They are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you so much!
Posted it on FB too – Iryna Boehland
Iryna, thanks so much for sharing; you’re awesome! And I’m so glad you loved the recipe 🙂
Oh, I cannot say enough thanks to you, Natasha! Everyone loved them!
Here are the pictures (not as pretty as yours) on my blog.
http://irishagold.blogspot.com/2014/04/recently.html
Thank you for the great review Iryna, I’m glad everyone loved them :).
Did you know that you can seal the edges by brushing on some egg whites instead of water? That way you don’t need to crimp the edges with the fork.
Not only are these delicious, but they are the best for fundraising, as they don’t require too much effort/time, and turn up pretty good profit. My mom and dad make these every year for youth camp fundraisers.
Oh really? That’s good to know. Do you push on the edges with your fingers or not at all?
Not at all. Just brush on the egg white and close together, making sure there are no gaps.
What a great idea! I often use uncooked empanadas to make fast пирожки. I just add any kind of traditional filling, brush them with some egg and bake (or fry) them as instructed. Thank you for this idea – I am definitely gonna try it as soon as I get hold of some uncooked tortillas.
You are welcome, let me know how they turn out :).
In the country, where I live, they don’t sell raw tortillas – what dough recipe would you suggest?
I’ve always just used the raw tortillas because it’s so easy. Anyone else have a great dough recipe?
I have a great recipe, but it takes a while to do it. I can share it, if anyone is interested..
It’d be great to see the recipe, thanks!
First of all, boil 1.3 cups of water with a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of oil. Once it is boiling, pour in the water half a cup of flour and whisk fast. Flour instantly absorbed by water and turns into something like “cottage cheese jelly”, at least it looks like to me. Wait until mixture cools of, then add an egg, a tablespoon of vodka and mix in three cups of flour (the recipe wanted 3.5, but I think that the three is perfect). Make sure dough looks like the one you would make for ravioli/pelemeni/koldunai. Leave it to stand for about an hour covered in a bowl, and then mix it again before it becomes completely elastic, and the inside does not feel like it has any clumps. The dough will not stick to hands. Tell you the truth the dough does not stick to the table or rolling pin, at least for me . Ieva, reading your name I think you are either Lithuanian or Latvian gal. Let me know if you want this recipe in your Lithuanian.
Thank you for sharing Inga :).
I do have a good recipe of chebureki dough.
http://leascooking.blogspot.com/2012/08/traditional-russian-chebureki.html
Enjoy!!!
Natasha you can try tortillas with tvorog (ricotta) filling. I love how tvorog taste with green onion.
http://leascooking.blogspot.com/2012/04/this-was-hit-at-your-house.html
Thanks for the tip!
large spring roll wraps! people love it too
Oh really? I’ll have to try that. I love those wraps. That’s such a great alternative for people who can’t find the raw tortillas. Thank you!!
OMG, Natasha, this is genius! Where do I get raw tortillas???
Me and my husband were just sitting and thinking would be nice to make chebureki but so lazy to make the dough.:) Now, since I lost all my baby weight I can eat my good old childhood foods occasionally.;)
BTW, I always puree my onions too if combining with ground meat. Love Magic Bullet for those purposes.
It really is a huge timesaver! I bought these at Costco, but they are also available at Walmart last time I checked.
Really?! In a fridge section with doors section at Costco or no doors like fresh cheese section?:)
I found them in the fridge section with doors.