11 recipes
A generous cuisine of mezze, lemony salads, charred vegetables and olive oil that sets one of the freshest, most colourful tables in the eastern Mediterranean.
Read its storyVery soft chickpeas whipped with tahini, lemon and garlic into a silky Levantine dip, finished with olive oil.
A bright green Lebanese salad of finely chopped parsley and mint, tomato and a little fine bulgur, dressed with lemon and olive oil.
A colorful Lebanese salad of crisp toasted pita, fresh vegetables and purslane in a tangy sumac and pomegranate molasses dressing.
Soaked raw chickpeas ground with fresh herbs and spices, fried until crisp and brown outside and green and tender inside.
A simple, satisfying Lebanese dish of green lentils and rice cooked with cumin and crowned with deeply caramelized onions.
A smoky, creamy Lebanese dip of fire-charred eggplant mashed with tahini, lemon and garlic.
Lebanese chicken skewers marinated in yogurt, lemon and garlic, served with toum, a fluffy white garlic sauce.
Lebanon's beloved national dish: a crisp shell of fine bulgur and lean meat stuffed with spiced minced meat and pine nuts, then fried.
Soft Lebanese flatbread spread with za'atar and olive oil and baked in a very hot oven, the country's favorite breakfast.
A spreadable dip of roasted red peppers, walnuts and pomegranate molasses, balancing sweet, tangy and gently spicy flavors.
Salted yogurt strained overnight into a creamy, tangy Levantine cheese, served with olive oil and za'atar at breakfast.
Squeezed between mountains, the fertile Bekaa Valley and the sea, Lebanon packs an astonishing variety of produce into a very small area. Wheat, olives, grapes, chickpeas and lentils have been grown here since antiquity. A trading crossroads since Phoenician times, the region has carried the traces of many cultures onto its table over the centuries.
Lebanese food belongs to the wider Levantine kitchen and shares many dishes with Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian cooking. Arab traditions of spices and rice came into close exchange with Anatolia during roughly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Kebabs, stuffed vegetables, baklava and coffee culture are the traces of that shared past on the table, which is why the same dishes live on in Turkey and Lebanon under different names or with small variations. During the French Mandate after the First World War, croissants, pâtisseries and some French techniques entered city cooking.
In Beirut and the coastal towns, fish and seafood are cooked simply with lemon and garlic. In the mountain villages, preparing for winter matters: preserved meat (awarma), kishk (dried yogurt fermented with bulgur) and dried herbs fill the larder. Tripoli in the north is famous for its syrupy sweets and halawa, while the south is known for pulse dishes and village-style breads.
The staples are olive oil, lemon, garlic, parsley, mint and tahini. Sumac and dried thyme are mixed with sesame seeds to make za'atar. Fine bulgur is the base of tabbouleh and kibbeh. Mezze culture sits at the heart of the cuisine: small plates such as hummus, moutabal (smoky aubergine dip), fattoush and labneh are shared around the table. Charring over a flame, fine chopping and a bright finish of lemon are the core techniques.
Start with hummus: blending cooked chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic teaches you how to reach a silky texture. Then practise your knife skills with herb-heavy