🥔 SIDE
Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice)
Fine vermicelli toasted golden in ghee, then cooked with short-grain Egyptian rice into a fluffy, buttery, nutty pilaf served with stews, kofta and roast chicken.
Egyptian · easy · serves 6
prep 5 min · cook 30 min · plus 35 min hands-off time
~289 cal · 6g protein · 51g carbs · 6g fat · 1g fiber · 0g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Roz bel shareya, rice with , is the everyday rice of Egypt, on the table with almost every stew, with kofta and kebab, with molokhia and with rotisserie chicken. Elsewhere in the Arab world it is often simply called roz masry, Egyptian rice.
It is made the way. Short pieces of very fine , shareya from the Arabic for hair, are toasted in samna, butter, until they turn golden brown, then short-grain rice is stirred in, the liquid added and the pot covered until every grain is tender and separate. The toasted noodles give the rice its nutty flavour and its speckled look.
Egyptian rice is a plump, short-grain rice. Many cooks use chicken broth in place of water for a richer pot, and a little oil with the keeps the from scorching.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally 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 6
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) Egyptian or other short-grain rice (such as calrose)
- 2 1/2 tbsp (samna)
- 1 cup (about 90 g) fine (shareya), broken into short pieces
- 2 cups (480 ml) chicken broth or water
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- 1Rinse the rice in several changes of water until it runs clear, then cover it with water and leave it to soak for 30 minutes. Drain well.
- 2Melt the ghee in a medium pot over medium heat, add the vermicelli and stir constantly for 3 to 4 minutes, until it is an even golden brown.✎ Chef’s noteVermicelli goes from golden to burnt in seconds, so keep stirring and have the broth ready.
- 3Pour in the broth, add the salt and bring to the boil.
- 4Stir in the drained rice. When it returns to the boil, lower the heat to the minimum, cover tightly and cook for 20 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender.
- 5Take the pot off the heat and leave it covered for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork and serve with a stew, kofta or roast chicken.
Egyptian home tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Cairo. Cairo runs on koshari, a carb-loaded street bowl of rice, pasta, lentils, and crispy onions, plus ful medames and taameya (Egyptian falafel). Five thousand years of Nile cooking feed the megacity.
🗺️
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.
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: Pot or saucepan, Oven.
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice)?
Fine vermicelli toasted golden in ghee, then cooked with short-grain Egyptian rice into a fluffy, buttery, nutty pilaf served with stews, kofta and roast chicken.
Where does Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) come from?
Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) is an Egyptian dish from Cairo, Egypt.
Can Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) 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 Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) 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 Roz bel Shareya (Egyptian Vermicelli Rice) take to make?
About 1 h 10 min in all: 5 minutes prep and 30 minutes cooking, plus 35 min of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.
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