{"id":6445,"date":"2026-10-28T05:52:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T10:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.madeinliban.com\/10-good-lebanese-foods-you-need-to-try\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T14:37:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T19:37:02","slug":"10-good-lebanese-foods-you-need-to-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madeinliban.com\/ar\/10-good-lebanese-foods-you-need-to-try\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Good Lebanese Foods You Need to Try (and How to Eat Them)"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the morning manoushe to late night shawarma, these are the dishes Lebanese people eat every week, and how to order them like a local.<\/em><\/p>\n

Trip Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Region<\/th>\nAcross Lebanon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Best season<\/th>\nAll year (tabbouleh is best in summer)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Good for<\/th>\nFirst-time visitors, food lovers, home cooks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Lebanese food is built on a few simple things done well: good olive oil, lemon, garlic, fresh herbs, bulgur, chickpeas and bread baked that morning. A meal often starts as mezze, a table of small plates shared by everyone, and ends with fruit, coffee and something sweet. Family lunches might have three or four dishes on the table, while a restaurant mezze can run to twenty or more.<\/p>\n

If you only have a few days in Lebanon, these ten dishes give you a fair picture of how people actually eat, from the street corner to Sunday lunch. Each one comes with a tip on when and where locals eat it.<\/p>\n

How we chose<\/h2>\n

We kept the ten dishes from the original list, because they are the ones visitors ask about most and every one of them is eaten daily across Lebanon. We corrected the descriptions where the old version got things wrong (kibbeh is not a dessert, and Lebanese falafel is not served in lafa), and added how each dish is really eaten here, based on standard references on Lebanese cuisine and our own recipe collection.<\/p>\n

1. Manakish (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

The Lebanese breakfast. Manakish (singular manoushe) are flatbreads pressed by hand and topped before baking, most often with za’atar mixed into olive oil. The za’atar blend itself is wild thyme, sumac, toasted sesame and salt. Other classics are akkawi cheese, kishk (fermented bulgur and yogurt) and a half and half of za’atar and cheese.<\/p>\n

Go to a neighbourhood furn (bakery) in the morning and order one rolled with tomato, cucumber, mint and olives. Make it at home with our za’atar manakeesh recipe<\/a>, or try the tangy kishk version<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Hummus bi tahini (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

Smooth chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice and garlic, spread in a shallow bowl and finished with olive oil. Good Lebanese hummus is silky, lemony and never grainy. Restaurants often top it with sizzling minced lamb and pine nuts, called hummus bi lahmeh.<\/p>\n

Tip: scoop it with torn Arabic bread, not crackers, and eat it fresh. Try our hummus with ground beef<\/a> at home.<\/p>\n

3. Tabbouleh (Mount Lebanon and across the country)<\/h3>\n

Tabbouleh is a parsley salad, not a grain salad. Flat leaf parsley is chopped very fine with mint, tomato and spring onion, then dressed with lemon and olive oil, with only a small amount of fine bulgur. It comes from the mountains of Lebanon and Syria, and Lebanon has celebrated a National Tabbouleh Day on the first Saturday of July since 2001.<\/p>\n

Tip: eat it scooped up with crisp lettuce or cabbage leaves, the way it is served at home. It is at its best in summer when tomatoes are sweet.<\/p>\n

4. Kibbeh (Across Lebanon, famous in the south and the north)<\/h3>\n

Kibbeh is a dough of fine bulgur pounded with lean meat, onion and spices, and it is one of the most loved dishes in the country. It comes fried as ovals stuffed with minced meat, onion and pine nuts, baked in a tray (kibbeh bil saniyeh), cooked in yogurt (kibbeh labniyeh), or raw as kibbeh nayyeh, a Sunday mezze favourite. Lenten versions use pumpkin or potato instead of meat.<\/p>\n

It is a main dish or a mezze, never a dessert. Learn the classic with our fried kibbeh recipe<\/a> or the raw kibbeh nayyeh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Fattoush (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

The farmer’s salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, radish, lettuce, spring onion, purslane and mint, tossed with pieces of toasted or fried Arabic bread. What makes it Lebanese is the dressing of lemon, olive oil, garlic and plenty of sumac, often with a little pomegranate molasses.<\/p>\n

Tip: the bread goes in at the last moment so it stays crunchy. Our fattoush recipe<\/a> gets the balance right.<\/p>\n

6. Falafel (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

Lebanese falafel is often made with a mix of soaked dried chickpeas and fava beans, ground with onion, garlic, parsley, coriander and cumin, then fried until deep brown and crisp. It is mostly eaten as a sandwich: thin Arabic bread wrapped around falafel, tarator (tahini sauce), tomato, parsley, radish, mint and pink pickled turnips.<\/p>\n

Tip: falafel shops are busiest at lunchtime, which is when the oil is hottest and the falafel freshest. Try our homemade falafel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

7. Shawarma (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

Thin slices of marinated chicken or beef, stacked on a vertical spit and shaved off as they roast. It grew out of the Ottoman tradition of spit roasted meat. Chicken shawarma comes with toum (garlic sauce), pickles and fries in thin bread, while beef or lamb shawarma is served with tarator, onions, parsley and tomato.<\/p>\n

Tip: late night shawarma is a Beirut ritual. Barbar<\/a> in Hamra has fed the city around the clock for decades. Make the sauce yourself with our Lebanese garlic sauce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

8. Shish taouk (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

Cubes of chicken marinated in garlic, lemon, yogurt, a little tomato paste and spices, threaded onto skewers and grilled over charcoal. You will find it on every grill menu, as a platter with fries and garlic sauce or rolled into a sandwich.<\/p>\n

Tip: order it from a charcoal grill such as Kababji<\/a>, where the smoke does half the work. At home, follow our shish tawook recipe<\/a> and marinate overnight.<\/p>\n

9. Fatteh (Beirut, Damascus and across the Levant)<\/h3>\n

Fatteh is a layered dish of toasted or fried bread, warm chickpeas, garlicky yogurt, and a topping of pine nuts fried in butter or ghee. It is a classic weekend breakfast, eaten at small fatteh and foul shops that open early. Chicken fatteh and eggplant fatteh are heartier versions.<\/p>\n

Tip: eat it right away, while the bread still has some crunch under the yogurt. Make it with our fattet hummus<\/a> recipe.<\/p>\n

10. Kafta (Across Lebanon)<\/h3>\n

Minced lamb or beef kneaded with grated onion, parsley and seven spices, then shaped onto skewers and grilled, or pressed into a tray. Kafta bil saniyeh is baked with sliced potatoes and tomato sauce, a weeknight family dish across the country.<\/p>\n

Tip: at a grill, order kafta with grilled tomatoes and onions wrapped in bread. For the home version, try our kafta and potato stew<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tips<\/h2>\n