What to Eat in Morocco: 20 Traditional Dishes to Try

Start with a tagine and a couscous, then look for the dishes that belong to a day or a place: harira in Ramadan, pastilla in Fes, tanjia in Marrakech, grilled sardines on the coast and medfouna at the edge of the Sahara. Moroccan food is slow-cooked, fragrant rather than fiery, often sweet and savoury at once, and always eaten with bread.

Here is the national list as we eat it at home in Marrakech: what each dish is, when and where you will meet it, and how to eat it the Moroccan way.

Moroccan food in a nutshell

Most meals are built around a stew that has simmered for a long time, a basket of round bread and a few small salads. Cumin, ginger, saffron, cinnamon and ras el hanout (the "head of the shop", each spice seller's own blend) are there for fragrance; chilli usually comes on the side. Fruit goes into the pot with the meat: prunes, raisins, preserved lemon. There is no pork, and mint tea comes before, after and between everything.

The 20 dishes in this guide:

Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives
Lamb or beef tagine with prunes and almonds
Kefta tagine with eggs
Fish tagine with chermoula
Couscous with seven vegetables
Pastilla (bastilla)
Harira
Bissara
Mechoui
Tanjia
Brochettes and grilled kefta
Zaalouk, taktouka and the cooked salads
Rfissa
Seffa
Mrouzia
Khlii with eggs
Medfouna
Grilled sardines
Amlou
Msemen and baghrir

Plus the sweets and the glass of mint tea that end the meal.

Tagine: the dish and the pot

Tajine, usually written tagine in English, means two things: the round earthenware dish with a cone-shaped lid, and the stew cooked in it. The lid sends the steam back down, so meat and vegetables cook slowly in very little water. You will see the pots steaming on small charcoal stoves outside roadside cafés all over the country.

The versions you are most likely to be offered:

Chicken with preserved lemon and olives: the classic, tangy and salty, in a golden sauce of saffron and ginger.
Beef or lamb with prunes and almonds: sweet and savoury, with cinnamon and toasted almonds on top, often cooked for guests.
Kefta with eggs: spiced meatballs simmered in tomato sauce, with eggs cracked over them at the end. Quick, cheap and a lunch-menu staple.
Vegetable tagine: carrots, potatoes, courgettes and peas stacked into a cone.

On the coast, the fish tagine is the one to order: fish marinated in chermoula (coriander, parsley, garlic, cumin, paprika and lemon) and braised over potatoes, tomatoes and peppers.

In a home there is no cutlery for a tagine: you tear off a piece of bread and use it to pick up meat and sauce. One dish that is not a tagine, despite the similar name, is Marrakech's tanjia, cooked in a tall clay urn (more on it below).

Couscous, and why Friday

Couscous is semolina rolled by hand into tiny grains, then steamed, usually two or three times, over a pot of broth with meat and vegetables. The classic has seven vegetables: carrots, turnips, courgettes, pumpkin, cabbage, chickpeas, onions, depending on the family and the season. The grains are heaped on a big platter, the meat goes in the middle, the vegetables are stacked on top and the broth is poured over.

It is the dish of Friday lunch. After the midday prayer, many families gather around the couscous, and in Fes it often comes topped with t'faya, onions cooked slowly with raisins, cinnamon and honey. In the mountains you may be served belboula, a darker, nuttier barley couscous. In 2020 UNESCO added the knowledge and practices of couscous to its list of intangible heritage, on a joint file from Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

Our tip: restaurants serve couscous every day for visitors, but the real one is the Friday couscous, ideally in a home. A cooking class is the place to learn to roll and steam it (more at the end of this guide).

Pastilla, harira and bissara

Pastilla (also written bastilla or bstilla) is a round pie of paper-thin warqa pastry filled with pigeon or chicken, eggs, almonds, onions and spices, then dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. Sweet, savoury and crisp at once, it opens a festive meal. Pigeon has become rare and chicken is the usual filling; there is also a seafood version. It is the pride of Fes, and our guide on what to eat in Fes tells you where to try a good one.

Harira is a tomato soup with lentils, chickpeas, herbs and a little meat, thickened at the end with a mix of flour and water. You can find it all year, but it is the dish of Ramadan (expected about 8 February to 9 March 2027): at sunset the fast is broken with dates, harira, hard-boiled eggs with cumin and the honeyed pastries called chebakia. This evening meal is the ftour.

Bissara is a thick soup of dried split fava beans, served steaming with a ribbon of olive oil, cumin and a pinch of chilli. It costs very little and keeps people going on winter mornings, especially in Fes and the north.

Grilled and slow-roasted meat: mechoui, tanjia, brochettes

Mechoui is lamb roasted whole, or in large pieces, for hours in a pit oven sealed with clay, until the meat comes away from the bone at a touch. It is eaten with the fingers, with a pinch of salt and cumin and nothing else. A feast dish in the countryside, it is a lunchtime classic in Marrakech.

Tanjia belongs to Marrakech: beef or lamb, preserved lemon, garlic, cumin and saffron packed into a tall clay urn, sealed with paper and left for hours in the ashes of the furnace that heats a hammam's water. The fire-keeper looks after it for a small fee. Our guide on what to eat in Marrakech tells you where to try both.

Brochettes and grilled kefta are everywhere, from city snack bars to roadside grills on mountain roads. The most Moroccan way to eat them is the butcher-grill: you choose your meat at the butcher's counter (lamb, beef, liver or minced kefta), carry it a few steps to the man at the grill, and sit down with bread, a tomato and onion salad and tea while it cooks over charcoal. Ask the price first if nothing is written up.

Salads and the start of the meal

Before a tagine, a Moroccan table fills with small plates, and most of these "salads" are cooked:

Zaalouk: grilled aubergine mashed with tomato, garlic and cumin, smoky and soft.
Taktouka: roasted green peppers stewed with tomato.
Carrots with cumin, beetroot, courgettes or pumpkin, cooked and seasoned.
Moroccan salad: fresh tomato, onion and cucumber, finely chopped.

You scoop them up with bread while waiting for the main dish. At a feast the order goes on: salads, then pastilla, one or two meat dishes, often couscous near the end, and finally fruit and mint tea.

Salads are the vegetarian's friend in Morocco: our guide for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free travellers explains what else to order and what to ask. If your stomach is still adjusting, the cooked salads are the safer choice for the first days; our article on whether street food is safe in Morocco covers raw salads, water and how to choose a stall.

Dishes for special days

These rarely appear on restaurant menus, but you may be served them in a home, or by your riad, if your visit falls on the right day:

Rfissa: shredded msemen or trid (a thin pastry) under chicken stewed with lentils, onions and fenugreek. It is the dish cooked for a new mother, and for family celebrations.
Seffa: steamed vermicelli or couscous shaped into a dome with butter, cinnamon, icing sugar and almonds, often with saffron chicken hidden inside. A dish for weddings and big family gatherings.
Mrouzia: lamb cooked slowly with ras el hanout, raisins, honey and almonds, made in the days after Eid al-Adha (expected about 17 May 2027) with meat from the sacrifice. Before fridges, it was kept for weeks in its own fat.

Regional specialities worth a detour

Marrakech. Tanjia and mechoui are the city's pride, and at dusk Jemaa el-Fna fills with smoking grill stalls. Our guide to the Jemaa el-Fna food stalls explains how the night market works and how not to overpay.

Fes. The most refined city kitchen: pastilla, couscous with t'faya, bissara for breakfast and pastries. Fes is also the home of khlii: strips of beef or lamb marinated with garlic, cumin and coriander, dried in the sun, then cooked and kept in fat. A spoonful fried with eggs makes the classic Fassi breakfast.

Essaouira and the Atlantic coast. Sardines grilled over charcoal at the port, fish tagines with chermoula and seafood pastilla. Our guide to the Essaouira fish market explains how the port grills work and what else to eat in Essaouira.

The Sahara. Around Rissani and Merzouga, the speciality is medfouna, Arabic for "buried": a round bread stuffed with minced meat, onions, herbs and spices, traditionally baked buried in hot sand and embers, and nicknamed "Berber pizza". The Tafilalet oasis is also where the Mejhoul date comes from, harvested in autumn. Our 3-day Merzouga desert tour passes through Erfoud and Rissani, the heart of date country.

The Souss, argan country. Around Agadir, breakfast comes with amlou: toasted almonds ground with honey and argan oil into a spread that tastes like a very good nut butter.

Bread, sweets and mint tea

Khobz, the round everyday bread, is baked fresh each day, often in the neighbourhood's wood-fired oven, the ferran, where families send their dough for a small fee. Breakfast adds msemen, a flaky square flatbread, and baghrir, the spongy semolina "thousand-hole" pancake, both soaked in butter and honey. Our guide to the Moroccan breakfast covers them, and the Ramadan ftour too.

The sweets to know:

Chebakia: strips of dough folded into a flower, fried, dipped in honey and covered in sesame; piled high in every pastry shop during Ramadan.
Kaab el ghazal (gazelle horns): thin crescents of pastry filled with almond paste and orange-blossom water.
Sellou: a crumbly mix of roasted flour, almonds and sesame bound with honey and butter.
Ghriba: round biscuits with a crackled top, made with almonds, semolina or coconut.

And then there is mint tea: green tea, a fistful of fresh mint and plenty of sugar, poured from a height and offered to every guest, at home, in shops and after every meal. It has its own ritual, explained in our article on Moroccan mint tea.

How to eat it: bread, the right hand and the shared dish

In a restaurant you will be given cutlery. In a home, or at a family lunch during a day trip, the meal follows its own customs:

Hands are washed at the table. Someone comes round with a basin and a kettle of warm water and pours it over your hands, before the meal and after.
Bismillah. The host says bismillah ("in the name of God"), and everyone starts.
One dish, your side of it. Tagine and couscous are shared from a single platter in the middle. Eat from the part in front of you, without reaching across.
The right hand, and bread as a spoon. Tear off a piece of bread, use it to pinch meat and vegetables and to soak up the sauce. Eat with your right hand; the left can help tear the bread.
Couscous by hand is optional. Some people roll it into a small ball with their fingers; nobody minds if you ask for a spoon.
The best pieces will come to you. The host keeps pushing meat towards your side of the dish and urging you to eat more. When you have had enough, put a hand on your heart and say baraka, shukran ("that's enough, thank you") or shbe't, hamdullah ("I'm full, thank God"), twice if needed.
Bread is respected. It doesn't go in the bin: leftovers are reused or given to animals, and a piece that falls is picked up, often kissed, and put aside.

Where to eat the real thing

Your riad. Many riads cook dinner on request, usually home-style tagine or couscous. Ask in the morning so there is time to shop.
Small local restaurants with a short menu of the day and Moroccans at the tables. A tagine costs about 30–60 MAD (€3–6). On Fridays, order the couscous.
Street food, from bissara to grilled brochettes, once your stomach has settled in.
A meal in a family home. On our Imlil day trip, lunch is served at our guide's home in the Atlas, with bread from the oven and mint tea.
What to be wary of: touts at the door, laminated photo menus in six languages and no prices displayed. Such places are not always bad, but they are rarely the real thing.

The best way to understand Moroccan food is to cook it. Our guide to cooking classes in Marrakech compares the medina schools with village kitchens, and our own cooking class in a Berber home in the Atlas has you make tagine, couscous, salads and bread before sitting down to eat with the family. Allergies or a special diet? Tell us on WhatsApp when you book, and the menu will be adapted.