Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Koshari
Cairo’s carb-on-carb street food: lentils, rice, and pasta under spiced tomato sauce and crispy onions.
Egyptian · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 40 min
~878 cal · 27g protein · 126g carbs · 30g fat · 14g fiber · 14g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Koshari is Egypt's beloved carbohydrate mountain, rice, brown lentils, and macaroni layered in one bowl, topped with a spiced tomato sauce, a splash of garlicky vinegar 'daqqa,' chickpeas, and a heap of crisp fried onions. It is vegan by nature, ferociously filling, and sold everywhere from street carts to dedicated koshari shops in Cairo.
The dish is a genuine product of the 19th-century global age: the lentils-and-rice base echoes the Indian khichri that British-Indian troops brought to Egypt, the macaroni arrived with Italian influence, and the tomato came from the New World. Egyptians fused them into something entirely their own, and the name itself descends from the same root as 'khichri.'
Koshari is the great equalizer of Egyptian eating, cheap, meatless, and available to everyone. Regulars know it is judged by its balance: the interplay of chewy pasta, soft lentils, sharp vinegar, and sweet-crisp onions, adjusted at the table with as much chili sauce as you dare.
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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
1 cup brown lentils
1 cup medium-grain rice
1 cup small elbow macaroni
1 cup chickpeas, cooked
3 yellow onions, thinly sliced
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp, or more chili flakes
1/2 cup, for the onions
Instructions
1
Fry the sliced onions in the oil over medium heat, stirring, until deep mahogany and crisp, about 15 minutes, then drain on paper towels.
✎ Chef’s note
These crispy onions are the crown of koshari, so fry them low and slow to deep brown without burning. Reserve the oil, it flavours the sauce.
2
Simmer the lentils in salted water for about 20 minutes, until just tender, then drain.
3
Cook the rice and the pasta separately, seasoning both with salt.
4
Make the sauce: sizzle the garlic in 2 tbsp of the reserved onion oil, then add the tomatoes, vinegar, cumin, coriander, and chili.
5
Simmer the sauce 10 minutes, until thickened.
6
Layer into bowls: rice, then lentils, pasta, and chickpeas, a ladle of sauce, and a big handful of the crispy onions on top.
Cairo koshari-shop style.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Cairo. Koshari is not pharaonic and it is not five thousand years old. The earliest written trace is Richard Burton describing lentils, rice, ghee and onions at Suez in the 1850s; a serious account routes it from Indian khichri by way of soldiers under the British; the pasta was only added around 1953 as a way of stretching it; and tomatoes did not reach Egypt until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
🗺️
Egypt. Koshari's origins are argued rather than settled. The rice and lentils resemble both Indian khichri, which one account has arriving with soldiers under the British, and Levantine mujaddara, while the macaroni is usually put down to Egypt's Italian community. A traveller's account published in 1855 already describes a Suez breakfast of lentils, rice, ghee and onions under that name.
🌍
Africa. The structure repeats across most of the continent: one starch and one sauce. A grain or root is cooked stiff, torn or rolled by hand, and used to carry a stew of leaves, groundnut, okra or fish, usually from a shared bowl and with the right hand. UNESCO listings have followed that logic, inscribing couscous in 2020 as a shared Maghreb tradition and Ivorian attieke in 2024.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
Storing it: Best fresh. Leftovers keep 2 days refrigerated; loosen with a splash of water or oil as you reheat so they do not clump.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Koshari?
Cairo’s carb-on-carb street food: lentils, rice, and pasta under spiced tomato sauce and crispy onions.
Where does Koshari come from?
Koshari is a Egyptian dish from Cairo, Egypt.
Can Koshari be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Koshari 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 Koshari 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 Koshari take to make?
About 60 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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