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A white bowl of koshari piled with fried onions and chickpeas, with a spoon in it and two metal bowls of red sauce beside it.

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Egypt

Koshari

A layered dish of rice, lentils, pasta and chickpeas under tomato sauce and fried onions, sold on Egyptian streets and cooked at home.

Dish

A bowl of koshari with two sauces served alongside. Photo: Flickr user: Furibond, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources beyond UNESCO and Wikipedia: 3 (3 press). Check each source's status in the list at the end of the card. It was published without a prior review by people from the place. If something is wrong or missing, tell the project.

This card keeps two kinds of knowledge apart: what the documented record says, and what the people who know the place say. Each is labelled, so a reader always knows which one they are reading.

Jump to what people who know this place say

In the record

What it is

Koshari is a dish of rice, lentils, chickpeas and pasta, all cooked separately without spices, topped with a peppery hot sauce called shatta, a garlicky vinegar called da'ah, and fried onions.[1] An Egyptian cook describes it as vegan and easy to make for a large family.[2]

Kind
Street food and family dish[3][2]
Also spelled
kushari, koshary[1]
Layers
rice, lentils, chickpeas and pasta, cooked separately[1][2]
Toppings
spiced tomato sauce, fried onions, a hot sauce (shatta) and garlic vinegar (da'ah)[1][3]
Often called
Egypt's national dish[3]
Origin
Disputed: see below[3][2][1]

A home cook says her tip for a great koshari is to fry the sliced onions first, so that you get a flavoured oil. She makes it most weekends for her children.[2] An Egyptian news site calls it often considered Egypt's national dish.[3]

How it is eaten

Street vendors traditionally prepare it, though it can be made at home. Diners who are not full can ask for a "kemala", extra spoonfuls.[3] It is also cooked at family gatherings, a home cook says, as "a dish made with love".[2]

Where it comes from: three accounts

One account says the dish came from India, where a similar one is called khichri or khichdi, with Indians who accompanied British soldiers to Egypt in the early 1900s, after the First World War; Italian residents are said to have added the pasta.[3]

A home cook gives another date: British colonialism in 1882, when Indians and Italians were based in Egypt, and Egyptians then added the fried onions and the tomato sauce.[2]

A newspaper puts the Indian link in the 1800s, with Italian workers on the Suez Canal arriving by the mid-1800s, and adds that some historians see koshari as developing from the Egyptian mujaddara, a dish of rice, lentils and crisp caramelised onions.[1]

These accounts differ on the date and on who brought what, and this card does not choose between them.

Not yet sourced
  • The origin. The three press articles read give three different dates, from the 1800s to the early 1900s, and none is a historian's study; an Egyptian food historian is needed.
  • What Egyptians call koshari at home, which varies from family to family. One cook is quoted, and the others are written for readers abroad.
  • Where and when koshari first appeared in Egyptian cookbooks or shops. Nothing read dates its first sale.
  • Prices, where to eat it and which places are best known: none of the sources gives them.
  • The photograph shows a bowl with sauces on the side; where it was taken is not given on its page.

Sources

  1. Press[1] Egyptian Koshari, kushari or koshary: a delicious mix of rice, lentils, pasta and cultures. Gulf News. gulfnews.com retrieved 8 Oct 2026
    A newspaper food feature; the page read does not show its date, which the web address suggests is December 2021. It sets out several origin theories.
  2. Press[2] Koshari is a regular on this Egyptian family's table. SBS Food (Australia), 24 Jun 2021. www.sbs.com.au retrieved 8 Oct 2026
    A home cook, Sahar Elsemary, describes how her family makes koshari, 24 June 2021. A single voice, with her own account of the origin.
  3. Press[3] The history of koshari is as rich as its flavor. Egyptian Streets, 21 Sep 2021. egyptianstreets.com retrieved 8 Oct 2026
    An Egyptian independent news site, 21 September 2021. It repeats the most common account of the dish's origin and does not cite a document for it.