Middle Eastern Recipes
307 recipes found

Cashew & Date Coffee Creamer
This Coffee Creamer recipe taste luxuriously rich and sweet, but is made from ultra healthy ingredients like cashews and Dates! Easy to make! Enjoy.

Zahav's Hummus Tehina
The secret to a great Zahav's hummus is an obscene amount of tehina, half of the recipe by weight, so it's important to use the best quality you can find.

Baked Halva
The last time I was in Istanbul, my friend took us to this amazing restaurant on the Asian side of the city. We ate mezzes and drank raki, and at the end of the meal we split a huge dish of baked halva. This is my very un-authentic yet delicious version of baked halva. It is also simply made vegan by using plant milk instead of the standard variety.

Homemade Hummus
This is an easy recipe for a homemade hummus. Once you make it you’ll want to do it again, and again, and again.

Tara Duggan's Chard Stalk Hummus
An ingredient you've been throwing away is actually the key to this smooth Swiss Chard Hummus recipe. Serve at room temperature with a nice rustic bread.
Chard Stalk Hummus
Looking for a resourceful way to use up the stalks from your swiss or rainbow chard bounty? The use of chard stalks as a hummus is somewhat common in mediterranean cooking. I came across the idea in Root-to-Stalk Cooking by Tara Duggan. Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Eastern Mediterranean and Clifford Wright's Mediterranean Vegetables also provide variations, among others. I adapted this dip using my favorite hummus recipe, heavy on the tahini and garlic. I was pleasantly awed by the texture - it perfectly captures the creaminess of hummus, and I'm still rapt in the memory of the garlicky lemon flavor. This dip is pink because I used rainbow chard stalks as that's what I had on hand, but for a beige-colored dip, use swiss chard stalks.

Cashew Hummus
This is a raw cashew hummus recipe that everybody will love. It is great served next to a salad and some falafel, it's the perfect spread on a slice of bread.

Renee Erickson's Sautéed Dates
Though these sautéed dates are a sound match for a bubbly drink (Erickson serves them next to a pile of ricotta), Molly Wizenberg also likes to eat the dates over yogurt for breakfast. You could also pit them first and add them to salad or even scrambled or fried eggs, a comforting Middle Eastern breakfast. But my favorite riff is how my friend Nozlee Samadzadeh served them at a dinner party celebrating the recipes celebrated by Wizenberg on Orangette. Nozlee pitted the dates before sautéing them, then spilled them and their oil over a pool of Greek yogurt that had been thinned with more olive oil. It was a thing of beauty, cool yogurt against warm dates and everywhere good oil and salt, that we were able to sweep up all together with slices of baguette. Adapted slightly from A Boat, A Whale, and A Walrus (Sasquatch Books, 2014).
Kimchi Hummus
This is a great to introduce Kimchi to the unadventurous eater.

Carrot Salad with Feta + Nigella Seeds
This gorgeous middle-eastern inspired carrot salad is an impressive way to use up that half-bag of carrots languishing in the vegetable drawer.
![Chargrilled Artichokes Hummus [vegan]](https://images.food52.com/Evwc4qDMYSo6sT3atm7NLOsf6VU=/1200x1200/a375e35a-7b1f-4649-916c-8f5694b9a8ca--Chargrilled_Artichoke_Hummus_v600.jpg)
Chargrilled Artichokes Hummus [vegan]
A delicious twist on hummus with the addition of Kalamata olives. Great with pitta bread, breadstick etc..

Muhammara / Roasted Bell Pepper and Walnut Dip
Roasted bell pepper and walnut dip -specialty from Middle East

The Best and Smoothest Hummus
The secret to the best hummus? Peel the chickpea skins! Yes, you may have heard this before, but have you tried it?

A Different Guacamole
This recipe is based on a version of guacamole I was once served at a Middle Eastern restaurant. It's become a staple ever since.

Garlicky Leeks in Olive Oil
This recipe lets the leek shine with other savory flavors that are meant to enhance. They are prepared here with olive oil and a garlicky herbal undertone.

Martha Rose Shulman's Harissa
Harissa is that fiery paste used in Tunisian cuisine. You can get it in tubes, but the homemade version tastes much fresher. Make a note on the label to top up with olive oil whenever the harissa is used so that it will keep for a long time.

Lebanese Potatoes With Cilantro Sauce (Batata Harra)
Batata Harra is a Lebanese dish of twice-fried potatoes. The crisp, golden cubes are served with a sauce of cilantro, garlic, and olive oil. Philippe G. Massoud, the executive chef and co-owner of Ilili in New York, says it’s “a poor man’s dinner, eaten with eggs, or with tomatoes and scallions.”

Red Bell Pepper-Walnut Dip (Muhammara)
PALLAPPAM (Crisp Laced Rice Pancakes)
These Pallappams are light & have a delicate yet yielding crispy crunch. The coconut milk in the recipe confers a mild nutty aroma that balances the dish.

Winter Squash Puree With Tahini
This popular appetizer from the Middle East is a sort of sweet-tasting hummus, in which winter squash substitutes for chickpeas. This recipe is an adaptation of one by the cookbook author Clifford A. Wright.

Baba Ghanouj
Baba ghanouj is a signature grilled eggplant purée found across the Middle East, enriched with tahini and seasoned with lemon juice and lots of garlic. The dish has a smoky, pungent flavor. Don’t forget to pierce the eggplant before you put it on the grill or over a gas flame on the stove. If you can, for the best consistency, use a sesame tahini that's slightly runny. Also, as tahini sits, the oil separates, so the mixture should be stirred before it’s used.

Reconstituted Steamed Couscous
Unlike pasta, couscous should never be boiled (pay no attention to the instructions on most boxes), just reconstituted and steamed. The couscous dishes I’ll be presenting this week make perfect winter dinner party fare; the vegetable and bean dishes will be particularly welcome if there are vegans at your table.

Rawia Bishara's Vegetarian Musaqa

Stuck-Pot Rice With Yogurt and Spices
Rice isn’t actually “ruined” when it sticks to the bottom of the pot. Indeed, in a lot of places and across the Middle East, stuck-pot rice is encouraged for its sticky, crusty deliciousness. This is a dead-easy way to cook it, before serving with yogurt and spices. It’s homey and delicious, beautiful and fragrant, all at once.