Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Emirati Thareed
A spiced meat-and-vegetable stew ladled over thin crisp regag bread, a comforting Emirati dish, especially in Ramadan.
Emirati · medium · serves 4
prep 25 min · cook 75 min
~451 cal · 48g protein · 38g carbs · 10g fat · 6g fiber · 7g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Thareed is one of the most loved traditional dishes of the Emirates, a stew layered over thin bread, and a staple of the Ramadan table for being both nourishing and easy to eat after a day of fasting. It has ancient roots across Arabia.
A rich stew of lamb or chicken is simmered with vegetables, marrow, potato, and tomato and warmly spiced with bezar, dried lime, and cinnamon. It is ladled over torn pieces of regag or thin rqaq bread laid in the bowl, which soak up the broth and soften. Comforting, spiced, and generous, it is the taste of an Emirati home.
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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
1 1/2 lb lamb or chicken pieces
4 thin flatbread (regag or rqaq)
Hard to find? lavash or another paper-thin flatbread, torn - regag is tissue-thin and drinks the stew; lavash comes closest, pita is too bready
4 cups potato, zucchini, and carrot, chunked
3 tomato
2 tbsp bezar spice and dried lime
2 onion
3 cloves and 2 tbsp garlic and fresh ginger, crushed
1 dried chili
1 each bay leaf and cinnamon stick
2 tsp each ground cumin and turmeric
to taste salt and black pepper
a handful fresh coriander, chopped
Instructions
1
Blanch the meat briefly and discard that first water, then fry the onion, garlic, ginger and dried chili, add the tomato and paste, and return the meat with the bay, cinnamon, bezar, cumin, turmeric, salt, pepper and pierced dried limes.
2
Add water and the vegetables and simmer into a rich, thick stew.
✎ Chef’s note
Let the stew reduce to a thick, well-seasoned gravy, since the bread will soak up a lot of the liquid.
3
Break regag into a wide shallow dish and ladle broth over it a little at a time so each layer soaks, then add more bread and more broth, building up about two inches of moistened bread.
4
Arrange the meat and vegetables over the bread, scatter with coriander, and serve at once.
✎ Chef’s note
Build the bread in soaked layers rather than tipping the stew over one pile: that is what gives thareed its texture. Regag is scraped off a hotplate as a paper-thin crisp sheet, and watching it made is half the pleasure.
Emirati Ramadan tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Dubai. Harees takes patience and a stick. Wheat and meat are cooked together for hours and beaten with a wooden medrab until they collapse into one smooth paste, then finished with ghee. It is Ramadan food, and it sits on Abu Dhabi's register of intangible heritage.
🗺️
United Arab Emirates. Balaleet is the traditional first meal after Ramadan across the Gulf: sweet vermicelli with cardamom, saffron and rosewater, served under a thin savoury omelette, the sweet and the savoury on one plate. The pearl-diving economy that preceded oil is what put dried limes, rice and Indian spice into an otherwise sparse desert pantry.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from United Arab Emirates
BalaleetSweet saffron-and-cardamom vermicelli topped with a thin savory omelette, the Gulf’s sweet-and-savory breakfast.
Emirati SalonaA tangy Emirati stew of meat or fish and vegetables in a spiced tomato-and-dried-lime broth.
LuqaimatCrisp golden dumplings drenched in date syrup and scattered with sesame, the classic fried sweet of the Emirati Ramadan table.
Browse all United Arab Emirates recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Best the day it is made. Wrap well and refresh in a warm oven, or freeze and reheat straight from frozen.
Make it a United Arab Emirates meal
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LuqaimatDessert
Emirati MachboosDinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Emirati Thareed?
A spiced meat-and-vegetable stew ladled over thin crisp regag bread, a comforting Emirati dish, especially in Ramadan.
Where does Emirati Thareed come from?
Emirati Thareed is a Emirati dish from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Can Emirati Thareed be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Emirati Thareed 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 Emirati Thareed 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 Emirati Thareed take to make?
About 100 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 75 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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