Egyptian Koshari Recipe (The Best I've Had) (2024)

Koshari (also spelled kushari and koshary) is the national dish of Egypt made with brown lentil rice, spicy tomato sauce, pasta, and crispy onions. It's popular Egyptian street food, and it hits the spot. This Egyptian koshari recipe is a family recipe and the best I've ever had.

If you are ever visiting Egypt, I recommend trying ful medames, mulukhiyah with roz, and koshari (of course)!

What Is Koshari?

Koshari is a hearty vegan meal made with lentil rice, pasta, chickpeas, vinegar tomato sauce, and topped with crispy thin fried onion rings.

What I Love About This Recipe

This meal is delicious! However, the thing I love the most about this recipe is it's perfect for batch cooking and meal prepping. It reheats extremely well, so it's one of my favorite meals to prepare ahead of time. It takes some time to make, but it's worth it!

Why This Koshari Recipe Is The Best

Many koshari recipes only have a cooked red vinegar sauce. However, this recipe has two types of red sauce: a fresh red sauce and a cooked vinegar red sauce. This recipe has been perfected over a lifetime, and the fresh red sauce is the secret sauce.

Ingredient Notes

• Rice: Use Egyptian rice (also known as Calrose short-grain rice).
• Brown Lentils: I recommend using brown lentils for the right koshari experience; however, green lentils can be substituted.
• Onions: You can use white onion, brown onion, yellow onion, sweet onion, or red onion.
• Tomatoes: I like to use tomatoes on the vine or Roma tomatoes. Beefsteak tomatoes work just fine. I don't recommend using canned tomatoes in this recipe.
• Tomato Paste: Any type of tomato paste will do for this recipe.
• Garlic: I recommend using fresh garlic.
• White Vinegar: I use distilled white vinegar. I don't recommend using any other type of vinegar because it will change the flavor of the koshari vinegar red sauce.
• Crushed Red Pepper: Just a pinch of crushed red pepper. Alternatively use ground chili powder or fresh chili pepper.
• Spices: This authentic Egyptian koshari recipe needs ground cumin, ground coriander, and ground chili powder.

• Chickpeas (garbanzo beans): I recommend using dried chickpeas; however, canned chickpeas can be substituted to save some time.
• Pasta: Traditional koshari uses white pasta, but a healthier alternative is whole wheat pasta. In fact, I prefer whole wheat pasta for this recipe when I can find whole wheat spaghetti and whole wheat elbow pasta.
• Oil: Any type of oil can be used, but my favorite is sunflower oil because it makes the fried onions very crispy. One tip is to use the same oil that was used for frying the onions (after frying the onions) because it's infused with an onion flavor.

How To Make Koshari

This koshary recipe is split into four parts: make the chickpeas and crispy fried onions, blend the fresh red sauce, cook the lentil rice, and make the vinegary sauce. Before getting started, soak the lentils and chickpeas ahead of time for about 3 hours.

Make The Chickpeas and Fried Onions

Boil the chickpeas with cumin while preparing the fried onions.

Once the chickpeas are tender, add a squeeze of lime on top.

Chop the onions into thin circles. Allow the onions tossed in flour to rest for 30 minutes prior to frying.

Sunflower oil yields the most crispy fried onions. Fry the onions in oil until golden brown, then put them on a paper towel lined plate.

Make The Fresh Red Sauce (Optional)

Make the fresh red sauce. Add the bell pepper, tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, pepper, lime juice, and some oil from the fried onions in a food processor.

Blend on high. Set aside.

Make The Koshari Lentil Rice

Prepare the koshari lentil rice by blending the peeled onion in the food processor.

Add some oil to a high-rimmed pot and fry the blended onions for about 10 minutes on medium-low heat.

Add the soaked brown lentils and water to the cooked onions. Bring to a boil for 10 minutes, or until the lentils are soft.

Turn down the heat to medium-low and add the rice and more water. Add salt and pepper and mix the rice. Cover and cook for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until the rice is steamed. Remove from the heat and keep the rice covered.

Make The Pasta and Koshari Red Vinegar Sauce

Cook the pasta until al dente per the package instructions while making the tomato vinegar chili sauce.

Blend the tomatoes in a blender. Pour the pureed tomatoes into a strainer.

Use a spoon to press the blended tomatoes through the strainer.

In a medium saucepan on high heat, add some oil and fry the red pepper flakes (or cayenne pepper) and minced garlic for about 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and white vinegar for about 30 seconds.

Add the strained tomatoes. Stir in the ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, sugar, and ground pepper.

Boil on medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. Add a chili pepper if desired.

Assemble your koshari bowl!

How to Assemble the Perfect Koshari Bowl

Because koshari has several parts to it, you might be wondering how to assemble everything. I made the list in order of how you assemble the bowl starting with the bottom-most layer (being the koshari lentil rice).

1. Koshari lentil rice
2. Pasta
3. Cumin chickpeas
4. Traditional koshari tomato sauce with vinegar
5. Fresh red sauce (optional)
6. Crispy fried onions

Tips and Variations

• I recommend following the steps just as I lay them out in the recipe instructions to save the most time.
• If using long-grain rice, add a cup more water. Long-grain rice requires more water than short-grain rice.
• If you want to lighten this recipe up, use whole wheat pasta and reduce the amount of oil used for the koshari rice.
• Use the oil from the fried onions in other parts of this recipe. This is a tip I've heard from 2 sources to make the most flavorful koshari.
• Substitute brown rice in lieu of white rice.

The secret to an amazing bowl of koshari is the right portions of each layer. Personally, I go overboard with the fresh red sauce and fried onions. But, experiment for yourself with what you prefer.

Time Saving Tips

Koshari takes time to make, especially if it's your first go around. Here are some time-saving tips:

• Use canned chickpeas instead of dried chickpeas.
• Don't make the optional fresh red sauce.
• Use store-bought passata (strained tomatoes) instead of blending and straining fresh tomatoes.

See Also

The world’s best falafel recipe comes from Egypt | Back to basicsKoshari (National Dish of Egypt) Recipe - The Daring Gourmet32 World Cup Recipes That Are Worth Feasting On41 Best African Food Recipes You Need to Try

FAQs

Middle Eastern Lentil Recipes

Another vegan lentils recipe is this Lebanese lentils and pasta, aka rishta. Or check out Egyptian red lentil soup or mujaddara.

Egyptian Cuisine

Check out the best Egyptian traditional foods, or try some of our favorites below!

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