One of the most well-known dishes in Egypt is this one. It is a traditional dish that is flavorful and delightful.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 35 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 cups uncooked white rice
- 3 cups water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 (16 ounce) package uncooked elbow macaroni
- 1 cup beluga lentils, soaked in water
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 5 onions, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 4 ripe tomatoes, diced
- ½ cup tomato paste
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in rice; continue stirring until rice is coated with oil, about 3 minutes. Add 3 cups water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender and liquid has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes.
- Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Stir in the macaroni, and return to a boil. Cook the macaroni uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the it has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes. Drain well in a colander. Return macaroni to cooking pot, cover and keep warm.
- Soak lentils for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse; drain again. Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a pot and stir in lentils. Bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until lentils are tender 15 or 20 minutes. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt.
- Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the onions in the oil, stirring often, until they begin to brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Onions should be a nice caramelized brown color. Add garlic and cook another minute. Remove from pan, drain on a paper towel-lined plate.
- Place half of the onion mixture into a saucepan. Mix in the vinegar. Add the chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, black pepper, 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, cumin, and cayenne (if using). Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 12 minutes.
- Serve by placing a spoonful of rice, then macaroni, and then the lentils on serving plates. Sprinkle with some of the browned onions, then top with tomato sauce.
- To save time, you can prepare the lentils the day before and reheat them before serving.
Reviews
Koshary is my new favorite food! Every component goes so well together and melts in your mouth. A nice way to serve this is to let everyone pick what they want and how much of it they want. I recommend this if you’re serving a group of people because the tomato, onion mixture is spicy.
I’m Egyptian, and this Koshary doesn’t really work. The sauce is way too thick because it doesn’t have any water. Tomatoes and 3 tablespoons of vinegar is not enough. The consistency of the sauce should be slightly thicker than water. The onion also needs to be fried to crisp before topping. Finally, I felt like nothing had any flavor other than the sauce, which was not how I’ve ever had koshary, whether at home or elsewhere. Any part that wasn’t covered in sauce had no flavor. To be fair, the sauce did have good flavor and that made this dish overall okay. But I would look for a better recipe that incorporates the flavors together during cooking, especially the rice and lentils.
My boyfriend is Egyptian and was very pleased with this meal ( I made it as anniversary surprise!) There is a sauce Egyptians spoon on top of the dish as a finishing touch…it is minced garlic, 1 tbs coriander, 1/2 tbs cummin, 1 tbs red pepper flakes, distilled white vinegar ( just enough to cover the spices) and dilute with water to taste! it’s excellent added flavor! Plus add to the dish chick peas and fried onion crisps to top it
My husband’s boss is Egyptian and his wife went to Egypt for a few months and it was his birthday so I wanted to do something nice for him I found this recipe and keep in mind I’m not Egyptian and have NEVER made anything like this at first I didn’t think I could do it but it was so EASY and I did it he loved it and I myself thought it was amazing. I will be making it again……..
It was a big hit for our Empty Nesters Evening
Super good! I halved the recipe added chickpeas and petite diced tomatoes. I’ll definitely make this again.
I make this recipe at least once a month for my egyptian husband, it’s his absolute favorite. Instead of caramelizing the onions i blackened them because that is how my husband’s mother made it.
We love this dish. In Cairo, it’s that takeout or dine- everyone loves. It’s also vegetarian (although I sometimes make the rice with some chicken consume). I recommend serving it in large bowls. The down side is, it always takes me 1 & 1/2- 2 hours to make. But so worth it if you have time and a dishwasher at home (I use ALL the pots & dishes for this meal).
This makes a TON of koshari!!! Which is great because I love it. I would actually say to make it with even more onions as the fried onions are my favorite part. I noticed that the recipe forgets the garbanzo beans, I added a can to mine. It’s a great koshari recipe to get you hooked on the dish and to build from if you have certain flavors that you love or would want to add to it.
I make koshary quite a lot, and this is a good recipe. As a rule for cooking rice, use 2:1 water to rice, and it should turn out perfect without needing to be checked or to add more water. You cut time by making things simultaneously (cooking macaroni, lentils and rice on separate burners) and the sauce in another pan. It takes about 15-20 min. cooking time and 10 min. prep. time then. Serve with kababs, chicken and mulokhia, and fattoush salad for a rounded out meal.
Pretty good, but definitely needs chickpeas and french fried onions on top to be like the Kosheri I had in Cairo! In the future, I will also use more lentils, crushed tomatoes instead of tomato paste, and cooking time is overestimated: only took me an hour from start to finish, including prep which can be done while rice/pasta is cooking.
I love trying international foods and this one is yummy!
Just like in Egypt! Delicious but will require several of the pots and pans in the kitchen with the rice, pasta, onion frying, & sauce all needing their own dish. So worth the work!
This was SO nice! I really enjoyed this. I added chickpeas as there seemed to be chickpeas in the picture and both me and BF really loved it! Thank you!
Beautiful Recipe
We really didn’t enjoy the texture (pasta, lentils and rice with tomato sauce) of this meal.
My husband would really prefer to never eat lentils. However, there is an Italian tradition (I’m Italian, he’s not) of eating lentil soup on New Year’s Day to ensure prosperity in the coming year so he has to put up with them one day a year. This year I thought I’d try something a little different and found this recipe. Hubby loves tomato so I thought this might work. I cooked the lentils and the rice in a chicken veggie broth for extra flavor, the pasta I used was some leftover pastina (really small pasta used for soups) and the tomato I used was leftover homemade pizza sauce. It was fantastic! My husband loved it and I could probably get him to eat it a couple of times a year because I love lentils and would like to be able to have them more often. Thanks for this one!
Eaten almost everywhere in the Middle East, this poor’s man feast requires a lot of preparation and utensils to cook. But it is a delicious filling-up meal.
Thanks for the recipe, it tastes exactly as we can buy it here in Egypt from the restaurants.
Sorry, we did not care for this one. The texture of the pasta with the rice kinda threw us off.
We loved it!