🥗 STARTER
Muhammara
The crimson mezze of roasted red peppers, walnuts, and pomegranate molasses, smoky, sweet, and gently fierce.
Syrian · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 15 min
~269 cal · 5g protein · 15g carbs · 22g fat · 3g fiber · 3g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Muhammara is the jewel-red of Aleppo and the wider Levant, roasted red peppers and walnuts pounded into a thick, textured dip with , breadcrumbs, and warming Aleppo pepper. Sweet, tangy, smoky, and nutty, it is one of Syrian cuisine's most distinctive creations.
The dish is inseparable from Aleppo, the historic culinary capital, and its signature ingredients, the region's prized peppers and tart . The balance of roasted-pepper sweetness, walnut richness, and pomegranate sourness is what makes it so craveable.
Spread on the table and scooped with warm bread, muhammara is a starter across Syria and the Levant, and naturally vegan.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, 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 6
- 4 red bell peppers
- 1 cup walnuts, toasted
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 2 tbsp , plus a drizzleHard to find? pomegranate juice boiled down hard with a squeeze of lemon - reduce it until it coats a spoon and tastes more sour than sweet; the bottled kind keeps for a year and is cheap, so this is a stopgap rather than a plan
- 2 tsp Aleppo pepper
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- to taste salt
- 1/2 lemon
- plenty warm flatbread, to serve
Instructions
- 1Char the peppers over a flame or under the broiler until black all over. Steam in a covered bowl, then peel and seed.
- 2Pulse the walnuts to a coarse rubble, texture is the point; this is not hummus.
- 3Add peppers, breadcrumbs, molasses, Aleppo pepper, cumin, garlic, and lemon; pulse to a thick, nubbly paste.
- 4Stream in the olive oil; season. Rest an hour if you can, it deepens.
- 5Plate in swirls, drizzle molasses and oil, and serve with warm bread. Watch it vanish first.
Damascene mezze tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Damascus. The mezze table is a sequence rather than a spread. Cold dishes go down first, hummus, labneh, pickles and vine leaves, then hot small plates, then grilled meat, and bread does the work of cutlery the whole way through. The point of it is that it takes a long time.
🗺️
Syria. Aleppo and Damascus are not interchangeable. Muhammara, red pepper and walnut pounded with pomegranate molasses, is Aleppine; so is the kibbeh made with sour cherries, and so is the seven-spice baharat that goes into it. Aleppo pepper is a named cultivar, halaby, sun-dried and rubbed with oil rather than simply dried, which is why it is fruity rather than sharp.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Syria
KibbehTorpedo-shaped bulgur shells stuffed with spiced meat and pine nuts, fried until crisp.
BalilaWarm chickpeas dressed with cumin, lemon, garlic, and olive oil, a simple Damascene breakfast.
Chicken ShawarmaMarinated spiced chicken roasted and shaved into flatbread with garlic sauce and pickles, the Levant's great street lunch.
Browse all Syria recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Steamer.
Storing it: Best straight off the heat. Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and reheat well in a hot oven rather than the microwave.
Make it a Syria meal
Sous (Licorice Drink)Drink
Halawet el JibnDessert
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Muhammara?
The crimson mezze of roasted red peppers, walnuts, and pomegranate molasses, smoky, sweet, and gently fierce.
Where does Muhammara come from?
Muhammara is a Syrian dish from Damascus, Syria.
Can Muhammara be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Muhammara recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Muhammara 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Muhammara take to make?
About 35 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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