Dhalle
Dhalle, written dhallë in Albanian, is a cold drink of yoghurt thinned with water and usually seasoned with a little salt. It is one of the simplest things an Albanian kitchen makes, and above all it is a drink for the hot months.
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Key facts
- Origin
- Albania
- Main ingredients
- Yoghurt (kos), cold water, salt to taste
- Served
- Cold, above all in summer
- Dictionary meaning
- Buttermilk
- Relatives
- Turkish ayran, Iranian doogh
Yoghurt, water and salt
The drink starts with kos, the Albanian word for yoghurt. The kos is thinned with water, often by blending the two for a few seconds, and salt is added to taste. The proportions are left to each household: AgroWeb, an Albanian farming and food portal, notes that many people are unsure whether thinned yoghurt should be salted at all, and suggests a little mint or a few ice cubes as optional extras.
Whatever the recipe, dhallë is served cold and drunk straight away. Wikipedia’s entry on Albanian cuisine describes it as a traditional yoghurt-based drink made by blending yoghurt with water or milk, served with salt according to taste.
A drink for the summer
Its reputation is tied to the heat. Wikipedia’s article on Albanian cuisine calls it especially popular in summer, and AgroWeb counts it among the country’s favourite drinks in every season.
The Albanian lifestyle magazine Living opened a 2016 recipe feature by pairing summer with watermelon salad and, without doubt, dhallë. The same feature described the classic version as simply yoghurt diluted with water, and presented India’s lassi, a yoghurt drink with spices and sometimes fruit, as a new twist on it.
An old word for buttermilk
In the dictionaries, dhallë has a wider meaning. Leonard Newmark’s Oxford Albanian–English Dictionary translates it as buttermilk, as does Wiktionary, and both list words built on it, among them dhallëshitës, dhallëtor and dhallanik.
Cornmeal and dhallë still meet in mountain cooking. A recipe project on the Montenegrin–Albanian border, funded by the European Union, describes boiled maza as a very old dish that combines corn flour and dhallë.
Relatives across the region
Dhallë belongs to a wide family of salted yoghurt drinks. Turkey’s ayran is made from the same three ingredients, yoghurt, water and salt, and Wikipedia’s article on ayran gives dhallë as its Albanian name. In Iran, doogh, served plain, carbonated or with dried mint, accompanies most meals, according to Saveur.
In Emblem World, dhallë sits in the Albania drink collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Ayran
- Wikipedia: Albanian cuisine
- AgroWeb: Dhalla e freskët, për shëndet të mirë dhe kocka të forta (4 May 2023)
- Living: Lasi indian, “dhalli” i ri (6 August 2016)
- Wiktionary: dhallë
- CBIB+ (EU): Taste the Balkans, old and traditional recipes of the Montenegrin–Albanian cross-border area
- Saveur: How Many of the World’s Great Yogurts Do You Know? (9 June 2017)
Checked by Emblem editorial on 9 October 2026.