Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Hawawshi
Spiced minced meat baked inside crisp flatbread until juicy and golden, an Egyptian street sandwich.
Egyptian · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 25 min
~326 cal · 31g protein · 10g carbs · 17g fat · 2g fiber · 4g sugars · 7g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Hawawshi is a hugely popular Egyptian street food, spiced minced meat encased in the country's round baladi bread and baked or grilled until the bread crisps and the filling turns juicy. Named, by tradition, after a butcher called Hawawshi who created it in early 20th-century Cairo, it is fast food with real satisfaction.
The filling of minced beef or lamb is heavily seasoned with onion, green pepper, chili, and warm spices, then stuffed into the pocket bread and pressed flat. Baked in a hot oven until the bread is crisp and browned and the meat cooked through and dripping, it is cut into wedges and eaten hot, often with or a squeeze of lemon.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy-, egg-, nut- 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
4 round flatbread (baladi or pita)
1 lb ground beef or lamb
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup green pepper and chili, chopped
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1 tbsp ground cumin, coriander, and allspice
2 tbsp tomato paste
Instructions
1
Mix the meat with the onion, garlic, pepper, chili, parsley, spices, and tomato paste.
2
Split each flatbread pocket and stuff with a thin, even layer of the meat mixture.
✎ Chef’s note
Spread the filling thin and even so it cooks through in the time it takes the bread to crisp.
3
Brush the outsides with a little oil and bake at 425F (220C) until crisp and browned, about 20 minutes.
4
Cut into wedges and serve hot with tahini or lemon.
Cairo street-food tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Cairo. Taameya is not falafel made with chickpeas. Egyptians grind dried fava beans instead, with a great deal of parsley, coriander and dill worked through, which makes the interior bright green rather than beige and the texture lighter. It is a breakfast food sold from the same carts as ful medames, stuffed into baladi bread with salad and tahini.
🗺️
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. Much of what reads as timeless African cooking is younger than the Atlantic crossings. Maize, cassava, groundnut, chilli and tomato all arrived from the Americas after 1500 and pushed older crops aside; millet, sorghum, teff, yam and fonio are the ones that were already here, and the map still shows the join.
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.
Ful MedamesSlow-cooked fava beans mashed with cumin, lemon, and olive oil, the breakfast that has powered Egypt for millennia.
Browse all Egypt recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and reheats covered in the oven. Most bakes can be assembled a day ahead and baked when needed.
Make it a Egypt meal
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Cuisine
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Frequently asked questions
What is Hawawshi?
Spiced minced meat baked inside crisp flatbread until juicy and golden, an Egyptian street sandwich.
Where does Hawawshi come from?
Hawawshi is a Egyptian dish from Cairo, Egypt.
Can Hawawshi be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Hawawshi 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 Hawawshi 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 Hawawshi take to make?
About 45 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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