Mediterranean & Middle East Recipes

⏱ Char: 20–25 min 🕐Rest: 30 min 👤Makes: 2 cups 🌿Diet: Vegan, Gluten-free Baba ganoush recipe is the dip that proves eggplant has been misunderstood. Two large eggplants charred directly over a gas flame or under a broiler until the skin is completely black and the flesh collapses, then peeled, drained and stirred with tahini, fresh lemon juice, garlic and olive oil into something smoky, silky, deeply savory and unlike anything that comes out of a store-bought container. The smoke is not a flavoring, it is the recipe. Without it you have roasted eggplant dip. With it you have baba …

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⏱ Prep: 20 min 🔥Fry pita: 8 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌿Diet: Vegan option Fattoush salad recipe is the Lebanese bread salad that makes you wonder why every salad does not have fried pita in it. Crispy golden pita chips seasoned with za’atar, romaine lettuce, ripe tomatoes, Persian cucumber, radishes, red onion, fresh mint and flat-leaf parsley, tossed in a dressing of fresh lemon juice, sumac, pomegranate molasses, garlic and the best olive oil you own. The dressing is tangy, slightly sweet, deeply herby and unlike any Western salad dressing you have made before. Twenty minutes. No cooking beyond the pita …

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⏱ Prep: 45 min 🔥Cook: 30 min 👤Makes: 20–24 pieces 🌿Version: Fried or Baked Kibbeh recipe is the dish that defines Lebanese cooking more than any other Lebanon’s national dish, the food served at every celebration, every family gathering, every Sunday table from Beirut to the Lebanese diaspora worldwide. A shell of fine bulgur wheat kneaded with lean ground lamb, onion, fresh mint and warm spices shaped into a football, hollowed out and stuffed with a filling of spiced ground beef, caramelized onions and toasted pine nuts, then deep fried until shatteringly golden outside and perfectly spiced inside. Or pressed …

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⏱ Prep: 20 min 🕐Rest: 30 min minimum 👤Serves: 4–6 🌿Diet: Vegan, Gluten-free option Tabbouleh recipe is the salad that corrects every misconception you have about Middle Eastern food being heavy. A mountain of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley and fresh mint with barely a quarter cup of fine bulgur, diced ripe tomato, thinly sliced scallion, fresh lemon juice and your best olive oil. Bright, intensely herby, tangy and impossibly fresh. It is not a grain salad with herbs scattered through it. It is an herb salad with a small amount of grain to give it body. What you need Gluten-free …

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⏱ Active: 5 min 🕐Strain: 24–48 hrs 👤Makes: 2 cups 🌿Diet: Vegetarian, Gluten-free Labneh recipe is the simplest thing in this entire collection, full-fat yogurt mixed with salt, wrapped in cheesecloth and hung to drain overnight. That is the whole recipe. What comes out of the cheesecloth the next morning is something thicker than Greek yogurt and creamier than cream cheese, with a deep tangy richness that two ingredients have no right to produce. Drizzled with good olive oil, scattered with za’atar and served with warm pita, it is the Middle Eastern dip that belongs on every table, at every …

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⏱ Marinate: 2 hrs, overnight 🔥Cook: 15 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌡Heat: Medium-high Chicken shawarma recipe is the Middle Eastern street food that the entire world has fallen for, and for good reason. Chicken thighs marinated in a deeply spiced blend of cumin, cardamom, coriander, turmeric, sumac, cinnamon, paprika, lemon juice, yogurt and garlic, then cooked over high heat until the edges char and the inside stays impossibly juicy, sliced thin and stuffed into warm pita with garlic sauce, pickled vegetables, tomato and onion. The marinade takes ten minutes. The overnight rest does everything else. Traditional shawarma is cooked on a …

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⏱ Prep: 30 min 🕐Rise: 1 hour 🔥Bake: 15 min at 425°F 👤Makes: 24–28 pies Sfeeha recipe, Lebanon’s most beloved street snack is a small open-faced meat pie that you will find at every bakery in Beirut and every family gathering in the Lebanese diaspora worldwide. Soft, slightly chewy dough rolled thin and topped with a fragrant mixture of ground beef, tomato, onion, fresh parsley, sumac and seven spice, baked at high heat until the edges turn golden and crisp while the meat stays juicy and steaming underneath. They are eaten warm, straight from the tray, dipped in cold plain …

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⏱ Marinate: 1 hr, overnight 🔥Grill: 12–15 min 👤Makes: 8 skewers / Serves 4 🌡Grill: 400°F–450°F Mediterranean chicken kebabs are the dish that converts people who think they do not like chicken on skewers, because they have never had chicken marinated in Greek yogurt overnight and grilled properly over high heat. Chicken thighs coated in a marinade of Greek yogurt, lemon zest and juice, garlic, dried oregano, cumin, paprika, cinnamon and olive oil, left overnight so the yogurt works through the meat, then grilled until the outside chars and the inside stays impossibly juicy. Twelve minutes on the grill. The …

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⏱ Soak: 12–24 hours 🔥Cook: 20 min 👤Makes: 20–24 falafel 🌿Diet: Vegan, Gluten-free option Falafel recipe, real falafel, the kind with a shattering golden crust that gives way to a tender, vivid green interior packed with herbs and warm spice, is one of those dishes that is simultaneously simple in concept and genuinely different from anything you can buy pre-made. Dried chickpeas soaked overnight, blended raw with parsley, cilantro, dill, onion, garlic, cumin, coriander and cardamom into a coarse, fragrant mixture, then fried in hot oil for three minutes per batch. The overnight soak is the only planning required. Everything …

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⏱ Prep: 15 min 🔥Grill: 10 min 👤Makes: 10–12 skewers 🌡Grill: 450°F–500°F Beef kafta kebab recipe is the Middle Eastern answer to the question of what to do with ground beef that is not a burger, and the answer is so much better than the question deserves. Ground beef mixed with finely minced parsley, grated onion, garlic and a blend of warm spices, allspice, cinnamon, cumin, sumac, shaped around skewers and grilled over high heat until the outside chars and the inside stays impossibly juicy. Twenty-five minutes from bowl to table. The most flavor per minute of any recipe in …

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