Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Masoub
Mashed flatbread and ripe banana bound with honey and topped with cream, nuts, and dates.
Yemeni · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 0 min
~391 cal · 2g protein · 63g carbs · 17g fat · 4g fiber · 48g sugars · 11g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
Masoub is a rich, beloved breakfast from Yemen, a country with a real sweet tooth first thing in the morning. It is built by tearing up flatbread, often a day old, and mashing it with very ripe bananas and honey until it forms a soft, sweet, pudding-like base, warm and fragrant.
Then comes the crowning, which is where it turns indulgent: a generous spoonful of qishta (clotted cream), a scatter of crushed nuts, chopped , and more honey, sometimes with a dusting of cinnamon or ground black seed. It is served in a wide communal bowl and shared, everyone dipping in together.
Energising and deeply satisfying, it is exactly the sort of thing to set a person up for a long day, and it belongs to relaxed mornings and to Ramadan tables. Sweet, creamy, and warming, masoub is a rich way to start a Sanaa morning.
Saved recipes and passport stamps are kept on this device. Sign in to keep them across your devices and leave reviews.
Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and 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
4 rounds wholemeal flatbread, ground to crumbs
4 ripe bananas
1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp or butter
1/2 cup clotted cream (to top)
1/3 cup crushed nuts (to top)
1/3 cup (to top)
Instructions
1
Mash the bananas smooth, and grind the wholemeal bread to fine crumbs in a food processor or a meat grinder.
✎ Chef’s note
Grind the bread rather than tearing it. Masoub is a smooth pudding, not bread in a bowl, and pieces left whole never break down into the banana. Work to roughly one flatbread and one banana per person.
2
Put the crumbs and banana in a saucepan with the ghee, the honey and half the cream, and stir over medium heat until it comes together into a thick, warm, glossy pudding.
✎ Chef’s note
It is cooked, not just mixed. A few minutes over the heat with the fat and cream is what turns crumbs and fruit into one smooth mass.
3
Spoon into a wide bowl.
4
Top with the rest of the cream lightly whipped, the nuts (or seeds), dates and a few fried banana slices, and a last drizzle of honey.
✎ Chef’s note
Some Yemeni households finish it with grated cheddar instead of nuts, for the sweet-and-salty version. The dish is also called malakia, and it is a breakfast as often as a dessert.
5
Serve warm on one wide plate, to share with spoons.
Sanaa tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Cooked it? Rate this dish:
No account needed. Sign in to leave a full review with a comment.
Cooked it?
Kept on this device, no account needed. Sign in to leave a review and keep your passport across your devices.
No reviews yet, be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Sana’a. The stone pot does real work. A madra carved from soapstone holds heat well enough that the stew keeps bubbling for minutes after it arrives, and bread is torn and dipped straight into it rather than anything being served onto a plate. This is highland cooking, done at over 2,000 metres.
🗺️
Yemen. The green relish Israelis call zhug is sahawiq or bisbas in Yemen, and it is chilli, coriander, garlic and cardamom pounded fresh rather than jarred. Bint al-sahn is the layered honey bread, brushed with clarified butter between sheets, and the honey poured over it is a serious export, sidr honey in particular fetching prices that surprise outsiders.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Yemen
SaltahA bubbling stone-pot stew crowned with whipped fenugreek froth (hulba) and fiery green sahawiq, Yemen’s national dish.
MandiSmoky spiced rice and tender meat traditionally cooked in an underground oven, a celebrated dish of Yemen and the Gulf.
Bint al-SahnMany paper-thin layers of buttery dough baked and drenched in honey and scattered with nigella seeds, Yemen's honey cake.
Browse all Yemen recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Food processor.
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 Yemen meal
QishrDrink
Bint al-SahnDessert
Similar dishes from around the world
PetullaAlbania
Uštipci with KajmakBosnia & Herzegovina
PriganiceMontenegro
Mahjouba (Mhadjeb Stuffed Semolina Flatbread)Algeria
MsemenAlgeria
Pa amb TomàquetAndorra
Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Masoub?
Mashed flatbread and ripe banana bound with honey and topped with cream, nuts, and dates.
Where does Masoub come from?
Masoub is a Yemeni dish from Sana’a, Yemen.
Can Masoub be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Masoub 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 Masoub 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 Masoub take to make?
About 15 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 4.
Get the Sunday Spin
One dish from somewhere in the world, in your inbox every Sunday. No spam, just dinner inspiration you can cook that day.