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.
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). If you substitute a different rice, like medium grain rice, you may need to add some liquid to the lentil rice.
- Tomatoes: I prefer tomatoes on the vine, Roma tomatoes, or beefsteak tomatoes.
Chickpeas (garbanzo beans): I recommend using dried chickpeas; however, canned chickpeas can be substituted to save some time.
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. Fry the onions in oil until golden brown, then put them on a paper towel lined plate.
Make The Fresh Red Sauce (Optional)
Add the ingredients for the optional fresh red sauce to a food processor.
Blend on high. Set aside.
Make The Koshari Lentil Rice
Blend the peeled onions 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. Starting with the bottom-most layer, add lentil rice, pasta, chickpeas, traditional vinegar sauce, optional red sauce, and crispy onions on top. 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.
Variations
- 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.
- Substitute brown rice in lieu of white rice.
Time Saving Tips
Koshari takes time to make, especially if it's your first go around. I recommend following the steps just as I lay them out in the recipe instructions to save the most time.
Other ways to save time include using canned chickpeas instead of dried chickpeas, skipping the optional fresh red sauce, and using store-bought passata (strained tomatoes) instead of blending and straining fresh tomatoes.
Middle Eastern Lentil Recipes
Another vegan lentil recipe is this Lebanese lentils and pasta, aka rishta. Or check out Egyptian red lentil soup or mujaddara. Check out the best Egyptian traditional foods, or try some of our favorites below!
📋 Recipe
Egyptian Koshari Recipe (The Best I've Had)
Ingredients
Chickpeas
- 1 cup dried chickpeas or 2 - 15 ounce cans of chickpeas** See note 3
- 2 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ lime
Fried Onions
- 1½ lbs onion about 2 large onions
- 6 tablespoon flour to toss the onions in prior to frying
- oil for frying preferably sunflower oil** See note 5
- salt to taste
Fresh Red Sauce (Optional)
- 1 lb tomatoes
- 6 ounces green bell pepper
- 6 ounces onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon oil from the fried onions
- 1 lime
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 spicy pepper optional
Koshari Lentil Rice
- 1 cup dried brown lentils see note 8
- 2 cups dry Calrose rice or short-grain rice **See note 4
- 1¼ lbs onion about 1½ large onions
- 4 tablespoon oil from the fried onions
- 4 cups water
Pasta
- 8 ounces elbow pasta
- 8 ounces dried spaghetti
Traditional Koshari Red Sauce
- 2¼ lbs tomatoes see note 7 for substitution of canned passata
- 2 tablespoon ghee
- 1 teaspoon chili flakes or cayenne powder optional
- 9 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoon tomato paste
- 3 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper or to taste
Instructions
Soak Dry Lentils and Dry Chickpeas Ahead of Time
- Soak the dried lentils and dried chickpeas in water for 3 hours prior to making koshari.
Prepare the Chickpeas
- See note 3 if using canned chickpeas. Boil the dried chickpeas until semi-cooked (about 45 minutes to an hour). Drain water. Add fresh water and the ground cumin. Boil chickpeas a second time for another 30 minutes. Once chickpeas are cooked, squeeze the lime over the chickpeas.
Fry the Onions
- Chop the onions into circles. Mix with flour and set aside for 30 minutes prior to frying.
- Fry in oil, preferably sunflower oil. Using a frying spatula, remove the onions from the oil. Set onto a paper towel and set aside. Salt as desired. Keep the sunflower oil to use some of it in other parts of the recipe.
Make the Fresh Red Sauce (Optional)
- Blend the tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and garlic cloves in the food processor. If you would like a spicy sauce, add 1 spicy pepper. Add the ground cumin, ground coriander, oil (from the fried onions), lime juice, salt, and pepper. Blend and set aside.
Make the Koshari Lentil Rice
- Blend the onions in a food processor. In a high-rimmed stovetop pot, add the oil (from the fried onions). Cook the blended onions slowly on low heat for about 10 minutes.
- Add the drained brown lentils (these will be about 2.25 cups after being soaked) and water. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes covered, or until they soften.
- Turn down the heat to medium-low. Add the short-grain rice, salt, and pepper. Mix the koshari rice and cook on medium-low heat covered until the rice is tender (about 12 to 15 minutes). Turn off the stove and allow the rice to rest covered for 5 minutes.
Cook the Pasta
- Boil water and add about 1 tablespoon of salt. Break the spaghetti pasta in half, then break the half again making quarter-size sections of spaghetti. Break about 15 spaghetti noodles at the same time.
- Add the spaghetti pasta and elbow pasta to the boiling water. Cook the pasta until desired firmness. Drain the pasta and set it aside.
Koshari Vinegar Red Sauce
- Blend the tomatoes in a blender. Strain tomatoes into a bowl. Alternatively, use canned tomato passata (see note 7). Mince the garlic cloves.
- Fry oil (or ghee) with 1 teaspoon chili flakes (or chili powder) for 30 seconds then add the minced garlic cloves. Add the tomato paste and vinegar for about 30 seconds before adding the blended tomatoes.
- Add the ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, sugar, and ground black pepper. simmer for about 10 minutes.
Assemble the Dish
- Layer the dish, starting with lentil rice on the bottom, then cooked pasta, chickpeas, koshari vinegar sauce (and optional sauce), and top with fried onions.
Equipment
Video
Notes
- Store koshari rice, pasta, fresh red sauce, koshari vinegar red sauce, fried onions, and chickpeas separately in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- Whole wheat pasta is a suitable substitution.
- Substitute 2 cans of chickpeas (15-ounce cans) for 1 cup of dried chickpeas. Because canned chickpeas are already cooked, just drain the chickpeas. Boil for 5 minutes in water with ½ tablespoon of ground cumin. Then squeeze ½ a lime on top.
- Use Calrose rice, Egyptian rice, or Japanese short-grain rice for this recipe. If using medium or long-grain rice, add an extra cup of water.
- I prefer sunflower oil because it makes crispy fried onions, but you can use any frying oil available. Also, save the frying oil after frying the onions to use in other parts of the recipe.
- The nutrition facts do not factor in the oil from frying the onions.
- Tomato passata is like tomato sauce. It's strained blended tomatoes. Instead of making homemade passata, you can use canned passata. Substitute a 24 ounce bottle for 2 ¼ lbs fresh tomatoes.
- Substitute green lentils for brown lentils.
Nutrition
FAQs
Normally, koshari is served as a standalone dish. However, you can add some boiled eggs to the side. Also, a chopped salad goes well with this dish.
Koshari is not difficult to make, but it has a lot of parts. Each part is easy to do, but if you are in a hurry, it can get overwhelming. If you are making this for your first time, block off about 2 hours and 30 minutes to take your time. When you've made koshari a few times, you can cook it in less than 1 hour and 30 minutes. If you have made this meal a lot, you can get it down to an hour.
Wendi says
I'm super stoked to make this as a birthday surprise for my best friend! He had koshari at an Egyptian place in town recently and it was not really good, not like he remembers it.
Is it a horrible thing to use store bought fried onions? I've not had good luck in the past frying them at home.
Lily Guidry says
Hey Wendi, great question. I would recommend making them from scratch if you have the time. Just slice them thinly into rings, toss with flour, then fry in oil. BUT if you are afraid they won’t turn out, you can always have the store bought as a backup. Do keep in mind if this is your first time making, it takes a little time. You can skip the optional fresh sauce- it’s not part of a traditional way of doing koshari, but it does add a lot of flavor. Let us know how it turns out!