Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Malawach
A flaky, buttery Yemenite-Israeli pan-fried flatbread served with grated tomato and zhug.
Israeli · medium · serves 4
prep 30 min · cook 15 min
~614 cal · 10g protein · 78g carbs · 29g fat · 3g fiber · 5g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Malawach came to Israel with the Yemenite Jews who immigrated in the twentieth century, and from that community it spread to become a beloved brunch dish across the whole country. It is a flatbread of Yemenite origin, made from a dough repeatedly rolled, brushed with fat, and folded so it builds up many thin layers, like a savoury, unsweetened cousin of puff pastry.
The layered round is pan-fried until it is deep golden and shatteringly flaky, crisp outside and tender in its leaves. The classic accompaniments matter as much as the bread: a bowl of grated fresh tomato, a hard-boiled egg (often the long-simmered brown haminados), and a spoonful of fiery zhug, the Yemenite chilli-and-herb relish.
It is weekend food, a little indulgent and much loved in Tel Aviv cafes and home kitchens alike. Rich, crisp, and satisfying, it is Yemenite Jewish cooking that went mainstream in Israel.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and 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
3 cups flour
1/2 cup oil (for laminating and frying)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
as needed warm water
2 tomato
to taste zhug (to serve)
Instructions
1
Make a soft dough with the flour, sugar, salt, and water; rest well.
2
Roll pieces very thin, brush generously with oil, and fold into layered squares.
3
Chill, then pan-fry over medium heat until deep golden and flaky on both sides.
4
Grate the fresh tomato into a bowl and season with salt.
5
Serve the malawach hot with the grated tomato and zhug.
Tel Aviv / Yemenite tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Tel Aviv. Shakshuka is North African, from the Maghreb, and it came to Israel with Libyan and Tunisian Jewish families in the 1950s and 1960s before becoming widely popular only from the 1990s. Hummus and falafel carry the same argument, so what a city can honestly claim is how it eats them, not who first made them.
🗺️
Israel. Several dishes here have documented arrival dates rather than ancient roots. Shakshuka is North African, brought by Libyan and Tunisian Jewish immigrants and only widely popular from the 1990s; sabich was assembled in Ramat Gan in the early 1960s from an Iraqi-Jewish Shabbat breakfast of egg, fried aubergine and amba. Hummus and falafel are Levantine and genuinely contested, with Palestinian claims actively made.
🌍
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 Israel
SabichPita stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, salad, and a drizzle of tangy amba and tahini.
Jerusalem Mixed GrillMeorav Yerushalmi: chicken and offal seared fast with onion, cumin, and turmeric, stuffed into laffa.
HummusSilky-smooth chickpea and tahini puree pooled with olive oil, scooped up with warm pita, a Levantine lunch of devotion.
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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.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Malawach?
A flaky, buttery Yemenite-Israeli pan-fried flatbread served with grated tomato and zhug.
Where does Malawach come from?
Malawach is a Israeli dish from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Can Malawach be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Malawach 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 Malawach 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 Malawach take to make?
About 45 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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