Cuisine · Morocco

Moroccan cooking

Moroccan recipes tested and adapted for the home kitchen — 5 dishes from Morocco, each with step-by-step instructions and ingredient notes.

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🇲🇦MoroccoMedium

Sauces and Dips

Chermoula

Chermoula is Morocco's answer to chimichurri — a herb sauce built on cilantro and parsley, sharpened with lemon, warmed by cumin and paprika, cut through with raw garlic. It's used three ways in Moroccan cooking: as a marinade before cooking, a sauce spooned over at the end, and a condiment on the side. The fish version, where whole fish are stuffed and grilled with chermoula, is the most famous application. But it works equally well on chicken thighs, roasted cauliflower, fried eggs, grilled bread, or anything else that could use a hit of brightness. Make it in a food processor for speed, or by hand with a knife if you want more texture.

10 min140 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

Chicken Pastilla (Moroccan Sweet-Savory Pie)

🇲🇦MoroccoAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Chicken Pastilla (Moroccan Sweet-Savory Pie)

Pastilla is Morocco's most extravagant pie — a crisp, golden pastry of paper-thin warqa (or phyllo) concealing three layers: saffron-spiced shredded chicken, a soft egg-and-onion custard set in the reduced cooking juices, and a sweet crunch of fried almonds scented with orange blossom. Dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon, it plays sweet against savoury in a way few dishes dare. Born of Arab-Andalusian heritage, it's a celebration centrepiece served at weddings and feasts.

100 min610 kcal6 serves

💪High protein

🇲🇦MoroccoAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Chicken Tagine with Chermoula

Chermoula is a Moroccan marinade — raw herbs, garlic, cumin, lemon, oil — and it does more work here than the tagine itself. The chicken sits in it overnight if you have time, or two hours if you don't. Either way, something changes in the meat. Then it goes into the pot with preserved lemon, olives, and onion, and cooks low and slow until it falls off the bone. No tagine pot required. A wide, heavy pan with a lid does the same job.

90 min455 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free💪High protein🌶️Spicy

🇲🇦MoroccoAdvanced

Soups

Harira

Harira is Morocco's most important soup. The name comes from the Arabic word for silk — a reference to the velvety texture it gets from a flour-and-water slurry (tedouira) stirred in at the end. Every Moroccan family has their version, but the spine is always the same: tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils, fresh herbs, ginger, and warm spices. It is the soup that breaks the Ramadan fast every evening at iftar, served alongside dates, hard-boiled eggs, and chebakia cookies. It is also eaten through the rest of the year, as a starter or as a meal in itself. The lamb version is the most traditional, but the vegetarian version is nearly as popular.

90 min320 kcal6 serves

🇲🇦MoroccoMedium

Salads

Zaalouk

Zaalouk is a Moroccan cooked salad — eggplant and tomatoes slow-cooked together with garlic, cumin, paprika, and plenty of olive oil until they collapse into a thick, jammy paste. Not quite a dip, not quite a side dish. The Moroccan kitchen serves it alongside tagines, spooned onto bread, or as part of a mezze spread of small salads that open a meal. Charring the eggplant before cooking it is optional but does add a smoky note that the straight-cooked version lacks. It tastes better the next day, and keeps for four days in the fridge.

50 min145 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free