Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Ful Medames
Slow-cooked fava beans mashed with cumin, lemon, and olive oil, the breakfast that has powered Egypt for millennia.
Egyptian · easy · serves 4
prep 10 min · cook 25 min
~203 cal · 11g protein · 36g carbs · 2g fat · 9g fiber · 3g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Ful medames, fava beans stewed low and slow, then mashed with cumin, garlic, lemon, and olive oil, is very likely the oldest continuously eaten dish in Egypt, with roots reaching back to the pharaonic era. Dried favas were even found in ancient tombs, and the dish has fed Egyptians of every class for millennia.
It is above all the national breakfast, cooked overnight in a tall, narrow pot called an 'idra' and ladled out from dawn at street carts and homes across Alexandria and Cairo alike. Cheap, protein-rich, and endlessly customizable, it is the fuel that starts the Egyptian day.
Everyone dresses their ful differently, with extra cumin, a hit of chili, chopped tomato, a hard-boiled egg, or , and scoops it up with warm baladi bread. Naturally vegan and deeply satisfying, it is comfort and sustenance in the same humble bowl, the taste of an ordinary Egyptian morning.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
3 cups cooked fava beans (canned ful is traditional now)
1.5 tsp ground cumin
2 lemons
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tomato, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
a handful parsley, finely chopped
4 baladi or pita bread, to serve
Instructions
1
Warm the beans in their liquid with the garlic and half the cumin, 10 minutes.
2
Mash roughly in the pot, some whole, some cream.
3
Season boldly with lemon juice, salt, and the rest of the cumin.
4
Bowl it, flood with olive oil, and top with tomato, onion, and parsley.
5
Serve with warm bread and extra lemon. Optional Alexandrian move: a spoon of chili on the side.
Alexandria breakfast tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Alexandria. Ful is slow rather than difficult. Small brown favas are soaked overnight and stewed for hours in a deep narrow-necked pot over a low flame until they collapse, then mashed to taste at the table with olive oil, lemon, cumin and whatever else is going. It is Egyptian rather than Alexandrian, and eaten everywhere.
🗺️
Egypt. Egyptian cooking is Nile cooking, which in practice means beans, greens and bread far more often than meat. Ful medames sits over low heat overnight and is eaten at breakfast; molokhia, the jute leaf, is chopped to a fine green slick and stirred into broth; and flatbread comes hot from communal ovens to be torn and used to pinch up everything else.
🌍
Africa. Africa's fifty-four nations hold cuisines as different as Morocco's slow-cooked tagines and South Africa's open-fire braai, yet shared threads run through them: ancient grains like millet, sorghum, and teff; stews thickened with groundnut, okra, or palm; and fiery condiments from Tunisian harissa to Ethiopian berbere. Staple starches, fufu, injera, ugali, couscous, anchor communal meals often eaten by hand from a shared dish, where hospitality is a point of honor.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Egypt
Ta'ameya (Egyptian Falafel)Egypt’s own falafel, made from split fava beans instead of chickpeas, packed with herbs for a vivid green centre and fried to a shattering crisp.
KoshariCairo’s carb-on-carb street food: lentils, rice, and pasta under spiced tomato sauce and crispy onions.
MolokhiaFinely minced jute leaves cooked into a green, garlicky soup finished with a sizzling coriander-garlic ta’leya.
Browse all Egypt recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Thickens as it sits. Reheat with extra water or milk to loosen, and keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Ful Medames?
Slow-cooked fava beans mashed with cumin, lemon, and olive oil, the breakfast that has powered Egypt for millennia.
Where does Ful Medames come from?
Ful Medames is a Egyptian dish from Alexandria, Egypt.
Can Ful Medames be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Ful Medames recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Ful Medames safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Ful Medames take to make?
About 35 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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