Post-quake recovery planning and processes should take into consideration the wide ranging, complicated, and major social protection needs and priorities. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the recovery efforts within the social protection sector, cross-cutting with the gender sector, about 1.5 years after the 2023 February earthquakes in Türkiye. During field visits to the mostly affected five provinces, several unstructured individual interviews and focus groups with key-informants were conducted to assess the gaps in and priorities for post-quake needs and recovery efforts. The qualitative data consisted of the author's field notes taken during the interviews. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterned responses within the whole data set. The findings revealed that there are still major gaps in the needs of the affected region and that priorities have evolved into middle-to-long-term recovery planning and processes. The main challenges in post-quake recovery efforts include (1) worsening of pre-existing social and economic vulnerability conditions and deepening of social protection needs, (2) barriers concerning transition from container cities to government-backed housing, (3) difficulty of life in rural villages, and (4) decrease in presence of civil society organisations (CSOs). Drawing on the qualitative findings as well as the field observations of the author, recovery needs that are of high priority and urgency for strengthening social protection are identified and relevant recovery strategies are recommended. Major concerns include prioritizing the needs of vulnerable groups; creating livelihood opportunities for reducing assistance dependence and revitalizing rural development; investing in social risk mapping, women empowerment, and early childhood education and care centres; promoting effective mental health and psychosocial support services, and facilitating effective multilateral collaboration between the public institutions and the CSOs; and harmoniously integrating recovery across multiple sectors. Overall, community recovery is more than just reconstructing the cities and requires rebuilding the local culture and community bonding.