Japrak is the Albanian name for stuffed vine leaves: grape leaves rolled tightly around a filling of rice, onion and herbs, sometimes with minced meat, and simmered slowly in a pot. The word comes from Turkish yaprak dolması, “stuffed leaves” (yaprak means leaf). The Albanian dictionary also uses japrak, sarma and dollma for rolls made with cabbage leaves, and the dish belongs to a family of rolled-leaf dishes made from the Balkans to Turkey, called sarma (“wrapped”) in Turkish and dolmades in Greek. The recipe card below makes the meatless grape-leaf kind, served warm or at room temperature.
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Japrak (Albanian Stuffed Grape Leaves)
Ingredients
Method
- If using fresh grape leaves, blanch them in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain. If using jarred leaves, rinse thoroughly and pat dry.
- Rinse the rice and soak in warm water for 15 minutes, then drain.
- Mix the rice with diced onion, mint, dill, 2 tbsp olive oil, tomato paste, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
- Place a grape leaf shiny-side down on your work surface. Add about 1 tablespoon of filling near the stem end.
- Fold the bottom of the leaf over the filling, fold in the sides, then roll tightly toward the tip of the leaf.
- Line the bottom of a heavy pot with a layer of torn or imperfect grape leaves to prevent sticking.
- Arrange the rolled japrak seam-side down in tight rows. Layer them if needed.
- Drizzle with remaining olive oil. Place an inverted plate on top to keep them from unrolling.
- Pour warm water or broth over the plate until the liquid just covers the rolls.
- Cover the pot and cook on low heat for about 50-60 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed.
- Let rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature with yogurt or lemon wedges.
Notes
What Is Japrak? The Word and Its Relatives
Japrak is a loanword. A historical dictionary of Turkish words in Albanian (Bufli and Rocchi, 2021) explains it as a shortening of the Ottoman Turkish yaprak dolması, “stuffed grape leaves”, built from yaprak, “leaf”, and dolma, and dates it in Albanian writing to 1895. In Turkish, yaprak first of all means a plant leaf, and the Turkish Language Association’s dictionary also lists it as “the vine leaf used for making sarma”. In Albanian, though, the word is not limited to grape leaves: the standard Albanian dictionary defines japrak as rice, minced meat, onion and spices wrapped in fresh vine leaves or cabbage leaves, and gives japrak me mish (with meat), me oriz (with rice) and me gjizë (with curd cheese) as examples.
Three more words travel with it:
- Sarma means “wrapped” in Turkish. The Turkish Language Association defines it as a dish made by putting onion, spices, rice, bulgur or minced meat inside cabbage, chard or grape leaves and cooking them. Its other name in Turkish is yaprak sarması.
- Dolma comes from the Turkish verb dolmak, to become full or to fill. The same dictionary defines it as a dish made by filling chicken or lamb, or vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, with a prepared stuffing, made either with meat or with olive oil. The ethnobotanists cited below note that dolma is also used for grape-leaf rolls, although the word fits stuffed vegetables better, because there the filling is not completely wrapped.
- Dollma is the Albanian form of dolma. The Albanian dictionary defines it as minced meat, onion, rice and spices wrapped in cabbage or vine leaves and cooked with a little water, and gives japrak as its equivalent; it defines sarma simply as “japrak”. Bufli and Rocchi gloss dollma as “stuffed cabbage or grape leaf” and sarma as “stuffed grape/cabbage leaves”.
In everyday Albanian the names overlap. Recipe columns in Albanian newspapers title the grape-leaf dish japrakë me gjethe rrushi (“japrak with grape leaves”) and the cabbage dish sarma (dollma) me lakër turshi (“with sour cabbage”), while a recipe in the Kosovar daily Bota Sot uses one name, sarme, for rolls made “with grape leaves or sour cabbage”.
The History of Japrak in Albanian Cuisine
Japrak, Albanian stuffed grape leaves, belong to a family of stuffed leaf dishes shared across the Balkans and Turkey. Researchers have documented stuffed leaves as a festive dish in the lands of the Ottoman Empire for at least four centuries, and the Albanian version carries its own character. The name “japrak” comes from the Turkish “yaprak” (meaning leaf), reflecting the Ottoman culinary influence that shaped much of Balkan cooking.
Grape leaves are not the only wrapper. The 2015 study described below recorded cabbage, fresh and fermented, and grape vine leaves in use for rolls all over Kosovo and Albania, and notes that cabbage, grape vine and lime tree leaves are also preserved by lacto-fermentation so they are available in winter. Leaves are used raw, briefly blanched or kept in salt brine, and the ideal leaf is about the size of a palm.
The same researchers describe rolled leaves as a festive dish across the former Ottoman lands, served at palace and official tables as a main course or alongside a meat course, and also strongly tied to Orthodox feast meals, especially in Bulgaria and Romania. As a rule, rolls with meat are eaten warm and rolls without meat cold.
Tips for Perfect Albanian Japrak
Choosing grape leaves: Fresh grape leaves should be young and tender (about the size of your palm). If using jarred leaves, rinse them thoroughly to remove excess brine and pat them dry, as the card says. If they still feel stiff, a 10 minute soak in warm water is an optional extra.
The rolling technique: Place the leaf shiny-side down, which means vein-side up, with the stem toward you. Add about a tablespoon of filling near the stem end, fold the bottom up over the filling, fold both sides inward, then roll tightly away from you. The roll should be snug but not too tight, the rice needs room to expand.
Prevent sticking: Line the bottom of your pot with torn or imperfect grape leaves, as the card does, before placing the rolled japrak. Tomato slices are an optional alternative. This prevents burning and adds flavor.
Pack them tightly: Arrange japrak seam-side down in concentric circles, packing them snugly so they hold their shape during cooking. Layer them if needed.
Cooking liquid: Drizzle the rolls with the remaining olive oil, set an inverted heat-safe plate on top, then pour in warm water or broth until it just covers them. In this recipe the lemon juice goes into the filling. Cover and cook on low heat for 50 to 60 minutes, until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed.
Serving: Let japrak rest for 10 minutes before serving, as the card says. They hold together better warm than piping hot. Serve with plain yogurt or a squeeze of lemon.
Regional Variations
Japrakë me gjethe rrushi, Albania: A 2015 recipe in Balkanweb’s cooking column fills the grape leaves with rice, spring onions and a large amount of greens, including sorrel, orache, dill, parsley and mint, and tucks green plums between the rolls in the pot so the japrak take on their sourness.
Southern Albania: See below for what researchers found about the rolls there.
Japrak me mish (with meat): The recipe notes give the meat version: add 200 g of ground beef or lamb to the rice filling. Some cooks also add a pinch of cinnamon. With raw ground meat inside, cook the rolls until the filling reaches 160°F (71°C) on a food thermometer.
Sarma or dollma with sour cabbage: For the cabbage version, whole leaves from a fermented cabbage head are rinsed to remove the salt and filled with minced meat, rice and onion. Balkanweb’s 2017 recipe sets the rolls on a bed of chopped cabbage in a clay dish (tavë dheu) and bakes them at 200°C (about 390°F) for 45 to 50 minutes.
Bota Sot (Kosovo): A recipe in the Kosovar daily fries minced meat with onion, adds rice and spices, and suggests small pieces of dried meat (mish i thatë) for extra flavour, with either grape leaves or sour cabbage as the wrapper.
What Researchers Found About Stuffed Leaves in the Balkans
The most detailed study of this dish family is a 2015 paper in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, written by a team that included researchers from the University of Prishtina. Between 2011 and 2014 they visited rural communities in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and recorded every leaf that home cooks roll around a filling.
They counted 87 different plants. The most common wrappers were cabbage (fresh and fermented), grape vine, beet, dock, sorrel, horseradish, lime tree, bean and spinach leaves. The authors explain that the Turkish word sarma means “wrapped”, and that the rolls are generally eaten warm when they contain meat and cold when they do not.
The paper also gives the dish some firm dates. Stuffed leaves have been a festive dish in the lands of the Ottoman Empire for at least four centuries. The German traveler Hans Dernschwam, who stayed in Istanbul between 1552 and 1555, noted that fresh grape vine leaves were sold in many places for making sarma. One detail concerns Albania directly: the rolls of southern Albania and Turkey are typically small and cigar shaped, and adding lemon slices to the pot is a habit the authors found mainly in those two places.
Sour flavours go back a long way in this dish. Doğan and colleagues note that in Ottoman cooking the rolls were cooked with lemon and sometimes with unripe plums, sour apples or their juice, unripe grapes, pomegranate or sumac syrups, or dried sour cherries, and Hans Dernschwam, in Istanbul in the 1550s, recorded meat-filled sarma cooked with unripe, sour plums. The Balkanweb japrakë recipe above also puts green plums in the pot for sourness.
The researchers also recorded unusual wrappers. In a few villages in north-eastern Albania and on the Macedonian side of Mount Korab, potato leaves were sometimes used, and the authors class potato leaves as a lightly toxic ingredient. They suggest the habit may have grown from scarcity after the potato arrived around the end of the nineteenth century. Potato leaves contain solanine and related alkaloids, and NC State Extension says all green parts of the potato plant are inedible, so use grape or cabbage leaves.
Japrak vs Dolmades vs Sarma, Side by Side
Doğan and colleagues define the whole family the same way: leaves rolled around a filling of rice, bulgur or minced meat, with onion and seasonings, and gently stewed or boiled in a pot. What changes from place to place is the leaf, the filling and the name.
| Place | Name | Usual leaf | What stands out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Albania | Japrak, japrakë | Grape leaves | Rice, onion and plenty of herbs, sometimes meat; one newspaper recipe adds sorrel and green plums for sourness (Balkanweb) |
| Southern Albania | Japrak | Grape leaves | Small, cigar shaped rolls, lemon slices in the pot (Doğan and colleagues, 2015) |
| Kosovo | Sarma, sarme | Grape leaves or sour cabbage | Minced meat and rice, sometimes with pieces of dried meat (one recipe in Bota Sot) |
| Turkey | Yaprak sarması | Grape, cabbage or chard leaves | The meatless olive-oil kind, made with vine leaves or vegetables, is called yalancı dolma; yalancı means “liar” or “fake” (Turkish Language Association) |
| Greece | Dolmades, dolmadakia | Grape leaves | The meatless kind, dolmadakia yalantzi, is filled with rice, onion, dill and spearmint, cooked with olive oil and lemon and served cold the next day (Mediterranean Diet UNESCO network); yalantzi echoes Turkish yalancı |
| Herzegovina | Japrak | Raštika, a local leaf cabbage | Minced beef or veal with rice, cooked slowly, sometimes with smoked meat (TasteAtlas) |
| Bulgaria | Sarma | Cabbage or vine leaves | Larger, rounder rolls, with plums tucked between them in the pot (Doğan and colleagues, 2015) |
For a cold yogurt dish to set beside a plate of japrak, see our tarator recipe. For the wider picture, our guide to popular foods in Albania covers the dishes japrak usually shares a table with.
Albanian Kitchen Words for This Recipe
- Gjethe rrushi: grape leaves. Albanian recipe sites title the dish japrak me gjethe rrushi.
- Oriz: rice. Qepë: onions. Kopër: dill. Mish: meat.
- Kos: yogurt, the usual side.
- Lakër: cabbage, the winter stand-in for grape leaves.
- Lakër turshi: sour (fermented) cabbage, used for sarma or dollma.
- Japrak: from Turkish yaprak dolması, stuffed leaves. Sarma, dollma: other Albanian words for the same rolls, in vine or cabbage leaves.
Buying and Handling Jarred Grape Leaves in the US
Jarred leaves are packed in brine and rolled into tight bundles. Pull the whole bundle out gently, unroll it in a bowl of water and separate the leaves one at a time so they do not tear. Snip off any thick stems with scissors. A 16 ounce jar generally holds enough leaves for this recipe, but counts vary by brand.
- Rinse well, as the card says. Brined leaves stay a little salty even after rinsing, so taste before you add any salt beyond the 1 teaspoon in the card.
- Save torn or oversized leaves for lining the pot. Two small leaves, overlapped, roll as well as one large one.
- If you pick fresh leaves, use only vines that have not been sprayed.
- In US measures, 300 g of long-grain rice is about 1 1/2 cups and 500 ml of liquid is about 2 cups.
To work ahead, roll the japrak the day before, pack them in the pot, cover and refrigerate, then add the liquid and cook the next day. If you use the meat variation from the recipe notes, keep that overnight limit: FoodSafety.gov gives raw ground meat only 1 to 2 days in the refrigerator.
Storing Japrak Safely, Including at Picnics
Cooked rice dishes should not sit out. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service advises refrigerating leftovers within 2 hours of cooking, or within 1 hour when the temperature is above 90°F (32°C), which matters for summer picnics. On a buffet, keep cold japrak at 40°F (4°C) or below by nesting the platter in a bowl of ice.
- Refrigerator: the USDA gives cooked leftovers 3 to 4 days.
- Freezer: 3 to 4 months for best quality. Freeze the rolls in a single layer with a little of their cooking liquid, then thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Reheating: warm them covered, with a splash of water, until they reach 165°F (74°C). Japrak eaten cold should go straight from the refrigerator to the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make japrak vegetarian?
Yes. The recipe card above is already meatless: rice, onion, tomato paste, fresh mint, dill, lemon juice, and olive oil. Serve it warm or at room temperature, as the card says. Parsley is an optional extra herb, and for a vegan pot, cook the rolls in water or vegetable broth.
How do I store leftover japrak?
Refrigerate in an airtight container within 2 hours of cooking, and eat them within 3 to 4 days. Japrak actually taste better the next day as the flavors develop. Reheat in a covered pan with a splash of water until they reach 165°F (74°C), or enjoy them cold, straight from the refrigerator. They are delicious either way.
Where can I find grape leaves?
Look for jarred grape leaves at Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or international grocery stores. In the US, the Orlando brand is widely available. Fresh leaves can be harvested from grapevines in late spring.
What is the difference between japrak and dolma?
Mostly the word. Dolma comes from the Turkish for “to fill” and properly means stuffed vegetables such as peppers or tomatoes, but it is also used for grape-leaf rolls. In Albanian, dollma is used for the rolls too, for example in sarma (dollma) me lakër turshi, the sour-cabbage version. Japrak, from Turkish yaprak dolması, “stuffed leaves”, most often means the grape-leaf rolls, but the dictionary also applies it to cabbage rolls.
What does japrak mean?
It is a shortening of Turkish yaprak dolması, “stuffed grape leaves”; yaprak means leaf. A historical dictionary of Turkish words in Albanian first records japrak in 1895. In Albanian it means rice and meat or other fillings wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves.
Is japrak the same as sarma?
They are the same family of dish. Sarma, Turkish for “wrapped”, covers rolls made with cabbage, chard or grape leaves. The standard Albanian dictionary treats sarma as another word for japrak. The Albanian newspaper recipes cited on this page say japrak for grape leaves and sarma or dollma for sour cabbage, while the Kosovar one uses sarme for both.
Is japrak served hot or cold?
Both. Researchers who studied these dishes across the Balkans and Turkey found that rolls with meat are generally eaten warm and rolls without meat cold. The meatless recipe on this page is served warm or at room temperature.
Related Albanian Recipes
Explore more traditional Albanian dishes:
- Speca me Gjizë, Stuffed peppers with cottage cheese, another Albanian stuffed dish
- Bamje, Albanian okra stew, a beloved side dish
- Fasule, Traditional Albanian white bean soup
- Tavë Dheu, Albanian baked meat and rice casserole
- What is Albanian Food?, Complete guide to Albanian cuisine
Sources
- Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine: Of the importance of a leaf, the ethnobotany of sarma in Turkey and the Balkans (Doğan et al., 2015)
- Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Association), Güncel Türkçe Sözlük: yaprak, sarma, dolma, yalancı dolma
- Bufli, G. and Rocchi, L. (2021), A Historical-Etymological Dictionary of Turkisms in Albanian (1555-1954), Edizioni Università di Trieste
- Fjalë, Albanian dictionary (based on FGJSH): japrak
- Fjalë: sarma
- Fjalë: dollma
- Balkanweb: Japrakë me gjethe rrushi
- Balkanweb: Sarma (dollma) me lakër turshi në tavë dheu
- Bota Sot: Sarme me gjethe rrushi ose lakra turshi
- Mediterranean Diet UNESCO network: Vine leaves stuffed with rice (Dolmadakia yalantzi)
- NC State Extension Plant Toolbox: Solanum tuberosum (potato)
- TasteAtlas: Japrak
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service: Leftovers and Food Safety
- FoodSafety.gov: Cold Food Storage Chart
Author: Dardanë Halimi
Dardanë Halimi is a writer and communications professional with an M.A. in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication from James Madison University. Her work focuses on storytelling, digital content, higher education, and strategic communication, with experience writing for academic, nonprofit, and marketing organizations in both the United States and Kosovo.
