Karakalpakstan national cuisine is famous for its farine and grain dishes, such as besh-barmak – white durra flour dumplings with meat.
The dough for besh-barmak is made of white durra flour, salt and hot boiled water. The dough is made into oblong dumplings with fingerprint ornaments. They are cooked in a meat broth. The finished dumplings are served with meat and an onion sauce.
Flat traditional breads (non) are made of wheat flour. The dough is kneaded in a large bowl and rolled out with a rolling pin. The same dough is used for cooking bauirsak (thinly rolled and sliced rectangular pieces of dough fried in oil) and sozban (large fried flat cakes). Dough for sozban is stretched by hand. Wheat flour is also used to make traditional Karakalpak noodles – kespas and kaysas. Kespas is very thin flat bread rolled into a tube and chopped into noodles. It is dressed with milk and sour milk. Kaysas is cooked in the same manner but seasoned with oil.
Another famous traditional Karakalpak dish – ak saulak (thin flat cakes of wheat flour) – is baked in a large cauldron. It is dressed with sour milk or butter. For special occasions ak saulak is prepared in advance, dried and served with broth and meat.
Karakalpak cuisine is also very famous for another unusual dish called mayek borek. Rolled dough squares are formed into envelopes and filled with whipped eggs and melted butter. The ready-made mayek boreks are cooked in a mixture of boiling water and fried onion in a large cauldron.
In coastal areas almost all dishes are made with fish. For example, a fish soup with dumplings from white durra or millet flour, as well as fried and dried fish.
Melons, watermelons and pumpkins are dried and eaten as sweets.