Egyptian Koshary
Egypt's favorite street food: layered rice, lentils and macaroni topped with spiced tomato sauce, crispy onions and garlic vinegar.
Koshary is less a single recipe and more a whole philosophy of eating: a bit of everything, layered rather than mixed, so every bite lands differently depending on which spoonful you get. It started as a working-class Cairo lunch and is now eaten by everyone from cart vendors’ regulars to families cooking it at home on a weeknight, which is exactly where this version is aimed.
The dish leans on contrast — soft rice and lentils against crunchy fried onions, mellow starch against sharp garlic vinegar — so don’t be tempted to smooth it all into one flavor. Keep the components separate until the final bowl, and let people finish it themselves at the table with the vinegar and hot sauce.
It also happens to be one of the easiest ways to feed a crowd on a budget, since rice, lentils and pasta are all pantry staples. Leftovers reheat well; just fry a fresh batch of onions if you’re serving it a second day, since they lose their crunch in the fridge.
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown or green lentils
- 1 cup long-grain rice
- 1 cup small elbow macaroni
- 3 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
- 2 cups crushed tomatoes — canned is fine
- 6 cloves garlic, minced — divided between the tomato sauce and the vinegar dressing
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 3 tbsp white vinegar
- 1 cup chickpeas, cooked or canned
- 1/2 cup neutral oil, for frying the onions
- to taste salt and black pepper
Method
- Cook the lentils and rice
Rinse the lentils and simmer them in salted water for about 20 minutes, until tender but not falling apart. In a separate pot, cook the rice as you normally would; a little of the frying oil stirred in before the water goes in gives it a rounder flavor.
- Boil the macaroni
Cook the macaroni in salted water until just past al dente, since it will sit under the warm rice and lentils for a few minutes before serving. Drain and set aside.
- Fry the onions
Heat the oil in a wide skillet and fry the sliced onions in batches over medium heat, stirring often, until deep golden brown and crisp. Lift onto paper towels; they crisp further as they cool.
- Build the tomato sauce
In a saucepan, warm a spoonful of the onion frying oil, add half the garlic and the cumin, and cook for a minute until fragrant. Add the crushed tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 15 minutes until slightly thickened.
- Make the garlic vinegar (dakka)
Whisk the remaining garlic into the vinegar with a pinch of salt. This sharp dressing is what gives koshary its signature tang, spoon it on at the table rather than mixing it in ahead of time.
- Assemble and serve
Layer the rice, lentils and macaroni in a wide bowl, scatter the chickpeas on top, ladle over the tomato sauce, and finish with a generous pile of crispy onions. Pass the garlic vinegar and a bottle of hot sauce separately.
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