Imagine walking around the beautiful streets of Cairo while smelling various aromas reaching you from everywhere, some are sweet, and some are sour.

Chefs barbecuing, boiling and deep frying the best food you can imagine.

Then you’ll know you’re going to taste the best flavors making your heart fall in love with Egypt’s local cuisine.

In this blog we are going to give you some advice about the type of food you should try and the best places to try it at.

Here are our 11 top picks for Egyptian Cuisine

For Breakfast:

  • Baladi Bread (Egyptian Bread or Oriental Bread).
  • Foul Medames (Fava beans), Ta’meya (Falafel).
  • Eggs with Pastrami, shakshuka and E’gga.
  • Feteer meshaltet.

For Lunch or Dinner:

  • Egyptian white rice.
  • Koshary.
  • Molokhia (Green Soup).
  • Roz Me’ammar (Rice in a traditional seasoning).
  • Besara green soup.
  • Hamam Mahshy (stuffed pigeons).
  • Stuffed Duck.
  • Kaware’.
  • Mombar.
  • Kebab and kofta.
  • Fattah.
  • Hawawshi.
  • Mahshy Warak Enab & Mahshy koromb (Stuffed Grape leaves and Stuffed cabbage leaves).
  • Kebda Eskandarani (Alexandrian beef liver) and Soujouk (oriental sausage).
  • Grilled fish.
  • Egyptian Style Shawarma.

The Egyptian cuisine is well known for its diversity including different kinds of spices and herbs.

Egyptians as a community are food lovers, they love food gatherings. It’s not that common to find people eating alone that much, they prefer sharing their meals.

So, in our blog we tried to gather most of the local Egyptian dishes that you shouldn’t miss while you’re visiting Egypt.

From the Side Dishes till the Main Course while covering a brief from the food culture.

Let’s Start with the side dishes, “they are almost included in every meal”.

1. Egyptian Bread:

A very well-known fact about Egyptians is that they know how to make great bread and the best fresh pastries ever.

You’ll immediately get pulled by the smell of a fresh baked pastry coming out of the oven.

But you’ll need to know what to ask for.

In Egypt the bakeries are divided into two categories:

Baladi Bread Bakery: Usually in the Baladi bread bakery you’ll only find the Balady bread only.

Which leads us to the best and one of the most satisfying carbohydrates you’ll ever taste. It’s addictive!

Which is always present adjacent to any meal at any time of the day.

They are circular with something called Radda on the bottom which makes it unique than any other type of bread.

Fino Bread Bakery: You’ll find the best fresh Egyptian Fino bread.

It looks like a smaller baguette bread but fluffier from the inside. It’s usually used for sandwiches, yum!

The difference here is that the Fino bakery contains a much bigger variety of fresh pastries. Also don’t forget to try the Boksomat. They are tall crispy sticks sometimes seasoned with sesame seeds or salt.

An extra tip: Egyptians are also cheese addicts, ask for Roomy Cheese or Sometimes called Turkish cheese in Alexandria.

Then stuff the Balady bead or Fino bread with cheese. Oooh yum!

2. White Rice:

Rice is usually eaten in the main meal of the day, lunch or dinner. It’s not that common to eat rice for breakfast.

Egyptian rice is different from most other types of rice, it has its own special taste that makes you want to eat it alone.

It’s usually cooked with vermicelli and seasoned with salt or the Sayadeya rice that comes next to sea food. It’s unbelievably delicious and unique for its golden-brown color, cooked with caramelized onions, cinnamon, cumin and sometimes curry powder. Holy moly that is mouthwatering!

Now let’s jump to our main dishes.

1. Koshary:

Koshary is a main dish that contains only carbs but a very famous local dish. It’s usually eaten during lunch time or dinner.

It consists of white rice, vermicelli, macaroni, black lentils, chickpeas, tomato paste, Dakka sauce (vinegar and garlic mix), With caramelized onions on top.

It’s one of the best dishes you’ll ever taste, it’s a flavor explosion.

2. Foul and Ta’ameya (Falafel):

Foul or Fava beans and Ta’ameya (Falafel) are an everyday type of a meal. Egyptians usually eat them for breakfast and dinner.

Ta’ameya is a bit different from most middle eastern cuisine. It’s cooked with peeled Fava beans, onions, shallots, scallions, and Garlic. Then it’s deep fried into balls or spheres.

3. Kebab and kofta:

Kebab is made of small cubes of meat cooked alongside Kofta, which is made of Ground meat just like meatballs but taller. They are usually cooked with lamb or beef cuts, seasoned with the Egyptian herbs and grilled on charcoal.

4. Molokhia (Green Soup):

The only way to describe Molokhia is a green heaven.

It’s cooked with chopped Molokhia leaves in a broth with Tasha (garlic and Dry Coriander).

Served next to meat, chicken, Duck or Rabbit (yes Rabbit! It’s a common dish in Egypt).

5. Mahshy:

Egypt is one of the top countries in cooking Mahshy. Mahshy is a very well-known middle eastern dish but what makes it unique is how it’s cooked in every country.

The Egyptian Mahshy is usually famous for including Khurda (a mix of Dill, Parsley and Coriander leaves) with white rice, tomato paste, Onions with our special Egyptian herbs (sometimes with ground beef).

This mixture is usually stuffed in any type of vegetables like: Cabbage, grape leaves, pepper, tomatoes, zucchini and sometimes Onions.

The same mixture is usually used to cook the Mombar (stuffed intestine).

6. Egyptian Shawarma:

Shawarma is a quite popular dish in the Middle East too, just like the Mahshy. But it is extremely unique in taste and how it is served. This dish is usually served in a Fino Bun with grilled tomatoes and some tahini sauce on top. Oh, how Juicy!

7. Grilled fish:

Egyptians are masters of cooking seafood because Egypt is located on the Mediterranean and Red Sea alongside the River Nile. In every City you’ll find a great market of fish with all its spices.

Like (Mullet fish, Tilapia fish, Mousa Fish, Waqar fish, Sea Bass fish, Sardines, Shrimp, Crabs and Octopus)

Every restaurant has its own special dish but they all share how they cook the closed grilled fish, using the Radda (the same one used in the Baladi bread) which makes the fish turn black after cooking.

On the other hand if you’re not a fan of closed grilled fish, you can ask for Sengary Grilled fish ( they are usually Grilled open with a different seasoning).

The grilled fish is usually served with brown rice (Sayadeya rice), Baladi salad and Tahini sauce.

An extra tip: ask for the creamy seafood soup and add a pinch of lime.

8. Alexandrian Kebda (liver) and Soujouk (Oriental sausages):

This is one of our favorite dishes because it’s incredibly delicious.

The Kebda is usually stir-fried beef liver cooked with the Egyptian special seasoning.

While Soujouk is like the normal hot dogs, but it differs in the herbs and the wrapping. It’s stuffed inside of the intestines. You won’t regret tasting it.

An extra tip: Ask for Egyptian tea with fresh mint Sokkar Bara (sugar out) which means “with the sugar next to it” so you can add it according to your taste.