Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Mansaf
Lamb cooked in a tangy fermented-yogurt sauce over rice and flatbread, Jordan's national dish of hospitality.
Jordanian · medium · serves 6
prep 30 min · cook 120 min
~1028 cal · 51g protein · 90g carbs · 51g fat · 2g fiber · 6g sugars · 19g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Mansaf is the national dish of Jordan and the ultimate expression of Bedouin hospitality, served at weddings, funerals, and every occasion that gathers a family. Eating it together, traditionally from a shared platter with the right hand, is a ritual of community.
Its soul is jameed, hard dried balls of yogurt that are reconstituted into a distinctive tangy, salty sauce. Lamb is cooked until tender in this sauce, then arranged over a bed of flatbread and rice and doused with more of it, garnished with toasted almonds and pine nuts and plenty of parsley. Rich, sour, and deeply savoury, it is a dish of real ceremony.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally 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
2 lb lamb on the bone
3 cups jameed ( dried yogurt) or thick yogurt
2 flatbread (shrak or markook)
3 cups rice
4 pods, 2 leaves, 1 stick , bay leaves, and cinnamon (whole spices for the broth)
1 tsp turmeric (for the rice)
3 tbsp or samneh
1/2 cup toasted almonds and pine nuts
1 handful fresh parsley
Instructions
1
Simmer the lamb with an onion and the whole spices (cardamom, bay, cinnamon) until very tender, about 1 1/2 hours; reserve the broth.
2
Reconstitute the jameed into a smooth sauce, then cook the lamb in it gently, stirring so it does not split.
✎ Chef’s note
Stir the yogurt sauce constantly as it heats and keep it below a hard boil, or it will curdle and split.
3
Cook the rice in the reserved broth with the turmeric and ghee, so it turns fragrant and golden.
✎ Chef’s note
The signature mansaf rice is tinted yellow with turmeric and enriched with ghee (samneh), not left plain and white.
4
Lay flatbread on a platter, top with the golden rice, then the lamb, and douse with the warm jameed sauce.
5
Scatter with toasted nuts and parsley and serve.
Jordanian Bedouin tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Amman. The sauce is the difficult part. Jameed is yoghurt drained, salted and dried into hard pale balls that keep for months, then broken up and loosened back into the tart white liquid the lamb cooks in. Mansaf itself is eaten well beyond Jordan, so what is Jordanian is the ceremony rather than the dish.
🗺️
Jordan. Jordan is mostly dry, and its cooking reflects a pastoral rather than an agricultural inheritance: sheep and goats, their milk turned into yoghurt and then dried so it keeps, grains that tolerate little rain, and bread baked flat and thin because it travels. What grows in the wetter northwest, olives and tomatoes and herbs, joins the Levantine mezze table.
🌍
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 Jordan
Maqluba (Upside-Down Rice)Layers of chicken, fried eggplant, cauliflower, and spiced rice cooked in one pot, then flipped tableside.
FattehLayers of toasted bread, warm chickpeas, and garlicky yogurt topped with sizzled butter and pine nuts.
MahalabiaA delicate milk pudding set with cornstarch and perfumed with rose or orange blossom, a light Levantine sweet.
Browse all Jordan 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 Jordan meal
Qamar al-DinDrink
MahalabiaDessert
Maqluba (Upside-Down Rice)Dinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Mansaf?
Lamb cooked in a tangy fermented-yogurt sauce over rice and flatbread, Jordan's national dish of hospitality.
Where does Mansaf come from?
Mansaf is a Jordanian dish from Amman, Jordan.
Can Mansaf be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Mansaf 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 Mansaf 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 Mansaf take to make?
About 150 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 120 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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