Israeli Favorite Meals

Salty and Sour Israeli Foods

I spent two months in Israel this summer and had enough time to sample a wide variety of traditional Israeli dishes.  In this post I outline a few of the dishes I particularly like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


Breakfast
Most days for breakfast I ate hummus and toast or crackers, but my hands down favorite Israeli breakfast is shakshuka.  I had shakshuka three times while in Israel, but I would happily eat it every week.  Shakshuka is a thick stew of tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers cooked on the stove.  A few minutes before finishing a divot is carved out in the stew and an egg cracked into it.  The egg cooks to desired doneness (over medium for me) in the stew.  It's delicious and homey.

Some shakshuka I had at a restaurant in Tel Aviv.

Lunch
My favorite lunch in Israel has to be the sabich sandwich.  Originally an Iraqi dish, this sandwich of sautéed eggplant, hard boiled egg, tahini (a paste made from sesame seeds), and sour pickles on bread hits all the right flavor sensors.  It's savory, salty, and everything but sweet.  It also makes for a quick lunch that is attainable at any Aroma Cafe, which are easily found by following arrows under a giant coffee cup at many intersections.

A close second on the lunch menu would be falafel.  Falafel is a ball made out of ground chickpeas, flour, and spices.  It's fried then thrown in a pita with hummus, tahini, and a mix of veggies.  Falafel is Israel's staple fast food, and there are stands selling it everywhere.  One more point for falafel is that it is cheap, in the range of $5 USD.


Dinner
Probably my favorite dinner in Israel is going out to an Israeli-style steakhouse.  These steakhouses are reminiscent of family-style dinning in the US.  Everyone pays the same fee ($5-$10) for which a endless parade of small salads and laffa (a fire baked flat bread) are brought to the table.  The salads keep coming until you say no more.  In addition, patrons can purchase grilled meats (like filet minion or the ever present kebab).  As a vegetarian, I stuck to the salads which is more than enough for a filling meal.

An array of salads at an Israeli steakhouse in Eilat.

A close second on dinner has got to be a haloumi salad.  Haloumi is a a type of cheese similar to mozzarella but much saltier.  It holds its shape when cooked, and haloumi salads take advantage of this.  In a traditional haloumi salad, haloumi is breaded and fried, then served over a variety of greens and veggies with a vinaigrette dressing.

Hot fried haloumi is the namesake of the ever popular haloumi salad in Israel.

Something which may stick out in all of the meals I've described is the lack of meat.  Most Kosher restaurants in Israel serve either dairy or meat, meaning if a restaurant serves dairy everything on the menu will be vegetarian.  Since some subgroups of Jews adhere to the Noahine Laws (laws given to Moses meant to govern all peoples of earth) which state we should be good to animals and interpreted as not eating them or dairy products, vegan and vegetarian options are also easy to find at restaurants that do serve meat.  Israel has the most vegetarians per capita of any developed country in the world, making it very easy for vegetarians like myself to find a tasty meal at any restaurant.