Cuisine · Lebanon

Lebanese cooking

Lebanese recipes tested and adapted for the home kitchen — 8 dishes from Lebanon, each with step-by-step instructions and ingredient notes.

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Kabob / Skewers (Kofta & Shish Kebab) with ground lamb, onion and parsley — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Meat Dishes

Kabob / Skewers (Kofta & Shish Kebab)

Kebab (from Arabic كَبَاب, also spelled kabob or kabab) is one of the oldest cooked meat preparations in the world, found in some form across the entire stretch from Morocco to Central Asia. This recipe covers the two foundational types: kofta kebab (ground meat mixed with onion, parsley, and spices, moulded onto flat metal skewers) and shish kebab (cubes of marinated whole meat threaded onto skewers). Both are grilled over direct high heat — ideally charcoal, which contributes a smoky dimension that gas cannot fully replicate. The key technical difference between good and mediocre kofta is the handling of the meat mixture: it must be kneaded until it becomes cohesive and almost paste-like, and the onion must be squeezed completely dry — wet onion releases steam during grilling and causes the meat to fall off the skewer. The 7-spice blend (baharat) is the foundation of the flavor.

60 min380 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

Knafeh with Pistachios and Orange Blossom with kataifi, akkawi cheese and pistachios — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Knafeh with Pistachios and Orange Blossom

Knafeh is the great sweet of the Levant: a layer of mild, stretchy cheese buried between two layers of buttered kataifi pastry, baked until the shredded strands turn deep gold, then drenched in cold orange blossom syrup the moment it leaves the oven. Salty and sweet, crisp and molten at once, it's eaten warm while the cheese still pulls, scattered with green pistachios. In Lebanon it's as much a breakfast, tucked into sesame bread, as a dessert.

90 min610 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Labneh with Sizzled Tomatoes with yogurt, tomato and garlic — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Sauces and Dips

Labneh with Sizzled Tomatoes

Labneh is strained yogurt — drained overnight until it's thick, tangy, and spreadable. The tomatoes are the opposite: cooked fast in very hot oil with garlic and cumin until they blister and burst, then poured while still sizzling over the cold labneh. The contrast is the point. Cold and creamy against hot and jammy. You can buy labneh at most Middle Eastern grocery stores and save the overnight step, but making it yourself takes nothing except time.

30 min180 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Lebanese Falafel with dried chickpeas, flat leaf parsley and fresh cilantro — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Lebanese Falafel

Good falafel cracks under the teeth, then gives way to a moist, coarse green centre that tastes of chickpeas, parsley and warm cumin. This Lebanese-style version starts with dried chickpeas and needs no flour or egg. Eat it straight from the fryer with tahini, pickles and warm flatbread.

1540 min395 kcal4 serves

🌱Vegan💪High protein🌾Gluten-free

Muhammara with roasted red peppers, walnuts and pomegranate molasses — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Sauces and Dips

Muhammara

Muhammara comes from Aleppo, Syria, and the name is Arabic for 'reddened'. It's a roasted red pepper and walnut dip with a flavor unlike anything else in the mezze world: sweet from the peppers, tangy from pomegranate molasses, earthy from toasted walnuts, with a slow heat from Aleppo pepper. Breadcrumbs give it body and a slightly grainy texture that holds up on pita. The dip improves overnight — the flavors round out and the texture firms slightly. Unlike hummus, which can be polarising, muhammara tends to win over everyone who tries it.

20 min195 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan⚡Quick

Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma with boneless chicken thighs, garlic and lemon juice — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma

This home-oven shawarma trades the vertical spit for a fiercely hot sheet pan and a final pass under the broiler. The chicken thighs stay juicy while their thin edges blister and char, which gives the platter the roasted spice flavor people expect from shawarma. Serve it with warm pita, toum, pickles and chopped vegetables, or turn the same chicken into a rice bowl.

300 min515 kcal6 serves

💪High protein

Pita Bread with bread flour, yeast and olive oil — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Pita Bread

Pita (from the Greek πίτα) is the ancient leavened flatbread of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean — one of the oldest breads in recorded history, dating to at least 2500 BCE in the ancient Near East. Its defining characteristic is the hollow pocket that forms during baking: when a thin disc of well-hydrated yeast dough hits an extremely hot baking surface, the water in the dough converts instantly to steam, inflating the two layers of dough apart like a balloon. As the bread cools, the steam escapes and the pocket collapses — but the internal separation remains, creating the pocket that makes pita the ideal vehicle for falafel, shawarma, hummus, and mezze. The technique is simple but precise: the right dough hydration, the correct thickness (4 to 5 mm), and a screaming-hot baking surface are the three variables that determine whether a pita puffs completely or bakes flat.

90 min165 kcal8 serves

🌱Vegan🌿Vegetarian

Tabbouleh with bulgur, parsley and tomato — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonMedium

Salads

Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a Lebanese herb salad — not, as many Western recipes would have it, a grain salad with herbs in it. The correct ratio is roughly four parts chopped parsley to one part bulgur by volume. The bulgur is present for texture and a gentle nuttiness, but the parsley is the point: the salad should be intensely green, assertively flavoured, and taste like fresh herbs dressed with lemon rather than wheat dressed with garnish. Fine bulgur (#1) soaks directly in the lemon-olive oil dressing without any cooking, which keeps the texture light. The tomatoes are salted and drained before going in so they don't flood the salad with watery juice. Everything is finely chopped by hand — a knife, not a food processor, which turns the parsley to paste.

30 min165 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan⚡Quick