Vegetarian cuisine in Iran has more than 25 delicious and healthy dishes. The article will be useful not only for vegetarians, but also for all those who are tired of rice, meat and gastronomic monotony in Iran.
It is very difficult for a traveler who is visiting Iran for the first time to get oriented in a large number of new unknown dishes. Vegetarians and vegans are even more difficult. It seems that besides rice and kebabs nothing is eaten here. This is true in part, but there are also many vegetarian dishes, which are very popular among Iranian forex traders.
This article is the most complete gastronomic guide to healthy food in Iran, a synthesis of all my knowledge for almost 8 years. For more convenience, vegetarian cuisine will be presented in blocks. It would be impossible to give a detailed recipe for all the dishes, so I will only describe the ingredients and talk a little about the culture of a particular dish. In brackets, I’ve listed the name of each dish in Persian, so you don’t even have to look up the dictionary to order it in a restaurant. Vegan food will be marked separately.
There are no analogues to this on the Russian-language Internet. Therefore, I will be grateful for any feedback and very grateful if you share this information with all those who will benefit from it.
Street food
1. Falafel
Ingredients: chickpeas, fresh herbs, pickles, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, various pickles, baguette bread, mayonnaise-based sauce.
Falafel is the king of street food in Iran. Iranians themselves are very fond of falafel and therefore you can find it in any tourist place and not only. Personally, I think that nowhere else cooks falafel as good as in Iran: I have tried Arab falafel, Israeli falafel and the ones sold in Russia. But after Iran, it’s not the same, something is missing. Iranian falafel is a rich palette of spicy and salty flavors surrounded by fresh herbs and vegetables.
The only note to avoid disappointment is to choose popular places that are particularly popular. Not all places know how to make falafel, and deep-fried chickpeas can give you heartburn. It’s usually tasty where bandari is in the name (the southern port part of Iran is where the falafel spread across the country).
In the last couple of years, more and more falafels have started to open in Iran on a self-service basis. It’s very convenient – you can choose your favorite fillings and fill up as much as you like.
Falafel self-service
Plenty of fillings – choose any you like and fill as much as you like
Suitable for vegans if you don’t ask for extra gravy.
2. ash reshte
Ingredients: special set of fresh herbs, chickpeas, white beans, lentils, large red beans and other legumes, noodles (“reshte”), fried onions, kyashk (like kurt).
Ash reshte is a thick, rich soup and is often prepared and sold on the street. To find it, however, you will need a minimum knowledge of Persian. Usually they are unassuming places for locals with khalim, kebab and other delicacies of Iranian cuisine. There are regional variations of this dish. For example, in the north of Iran they add local sour herbs to it, which cannot but affect the taste of the final dish.
Ash reshteh is also a ritual vegetarian cuisine. On some religious occasions, it is cooked by the whole female part of the family to be distributed among neighbors and relatives. It is believed that this not only brings people together, but also cleanses the sins of those cooking and increases God’s light and blessing in the home.
Ash reshte is cooked in large vats.
Iranians eat ash reshte at noon, around 5 p.m., so you can’t find it anywhere during the day. No one here considers this rich soup a complete meal, but personally, I always have enough for dinner.
Suitable for vegans, if you ask not to add kyashka.
3. Baked tomato (goje kebab shode).
Vegetarian Cooking Baked Tomato
Ingredients: tomato, rice or bread of your choice
Roadside cafes in Iran often serve only meat dishes: kebab or abgusht. What to do in this case? For ourselves, we found a very simple solution. Kebab is always accompanied by a grilled tomato with rice or bread. And this is the real salvation! Rice with tomato, of course, is not the most sophisticated dish, but it satiates for at least 3-4 hours. And you don’t need to look for special cafes or read the menu. Often natural yogurt can be offered as a sauce.
Suitable for vegans.
4. Fereni (fereni).
Ingredients: milk, rice flour, rose water, pistachios, cinnamon, sugar or date syrup.
Ferani is a rice pudding served as a dessert in Iran. The classic recipe excludes the addition of sugar, but variations with it are possible. It’s not as easy to find on the street as falafel, but if someone offers ferani, you now know what it is.
Iranian breakfast.
Wherever you eat breakfast – in a hotel restaurant or visiting an Iranian – it will be helpful to know what Iranians eat for breakfast and what to expect. Iranian vegetarian cuisine offers the following traditional breakfast options.
5. Iranian Bread.
Iranians always try to buy freshly baked bread from traditional bakeries. They work according to the original schedule, which will be unaccustomed to the foreign tourist: in the morning from 5-6 to 8 am, in the afternoon from 12 to 14 and in the evening from 5 to 8. However, today in large cities you can find bakeries, working almost around the clock. Usually there are two queues: one for men and one for women.
sangak
Ingredients: water, wheat flour with bran, whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, sesame (optional).
It is baked in special ovens on stones (xiang – hence the name of the bread). In appearance, it is a long thin flatbread, almost unleavened taste.
Suitable for vegans.
barbari
Ingredients: flour, water, salt, yeast, sesame, a special coating made of flour, water and sugar to create a golden crust.
In appearance, it is a small cake in an oval or round shape with a hard crust.
Suitable for vegans.
Lavash (lavash).
Ingredients: water, salt, yeast, flour, sesame.
Baked in traditional clay oven or modern metal oven. It is the cheapest type of bread in Iran with a simple and familiar taste. Rare housewives in villages continue to make homemade pita and add to it various dried herbs and spices to their liking. Now that’s a real treat!
Suitable for vegans.
6. Cheese with fresh vegetables (noon o panir o khiar)
Ingredients: soft feta cheese or feta cheese, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes.
Bread with cheese and vegetables is a favorite breakfast of Iranians, very easy to prepare and incredibly healthy. Iranian housewives do not like to stand at the stove in the morning and prefer to just chop vegetables and make strong black tea with sugar. The breakfast is supplemented with fresh bread, sometimes with walnuts, dates or sesame paste.
7. Sesame paste with date pakmez (arde konjet ba shire)
Sesame paste with date syrup
Ingredients: sesame, date cake.
Few tourists are familiar with this dish. Sesame is grinded to a smooth homogeneous viscous mass and topped with date or grape pecmez. If you eat it for breakfast, there is enough energy to last until lunch. Sesame is also a real record-breaker in calcium, which is absorbed many times better than from milk. A real superfood of vegetarian cuisine in Iran.
Suitable for vegans.
Salads and appetizers.
8. Seasonal salad (salade fasl)
Ingredients: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, white and red cabbage, carrots, mayonnaise-based sauce.
Iranian housewives are very fond of preparing this salad and each time they come up with a new serving and decoration of the dish. Foreign tourists almost always note the imaginative way the salad is sliced and are amazed by its original appearance.
Suitable for vegans if not dressed with sauce.
9. Shirazi salad (salade shirazi)
Ingredients: cucumbers, tomatoes, mint, onions, wine vinegar dressing.
Shiraz salad is a usual guest at summer meals when the harvest is fresh and you can cut the salad in basins. It is very similar to the salad made of tomatoes and cucumbers that Russians are used to. But there are slight, but significant differences: the vegetables are cut into small cubes, and instead of oil it is dressed with water-diluted vinegar. Sour, but tasty.
Suitable for vegans.
10. Fresh herbs (sabzi khordan).
Ingredients: basil, tarragon, green onions, radishes, watercress, flat green onions.
Vegetarian cuisine in Iran is impossible without fresh greens. Iranians are ready to eat it around the clock with almost any dish: for breakfast with cheese and bread, for lunch with rice or meat, for dinner with eggplant or omelet. And if you spread pita bread with soft cheese, add greens and wrap it in a roll, you get a handy snack that you can take with you. It is what caring mothers give their children at school. This is one of the most useful gastronomic habits of Iranians, which should be adopted by any nation.
Iranian Sandwich.
A delicious and healthy Iranian sandwich.
Suitable for vegans.
11. natural yogurt (mast)
Ingredients: natural (Greek) yogurt with or without additives to taste (cucumber, garlic, mint, roasted eggplant).
In Iran, it is almost impossible to find sweet fruit yogurt with chemical additives, but natural yogurt is available in every even the smallest store. Iranians buy it in large packages of a kilogram or more. And what can be tastier than yogurt with fresh barbari bread! Try it once and it will become your favorite snack or a light summer dinner.
12: Vegetables in vinegar marinade (torshijat)
Ingredients: any vegetables, wine vinegar.
In Iran, marinating fresh vegetables in a salt solution is not as widespread as in Russia. Instead, almost every housewife can boast of homemade vinegar marinades. Iranians adore this dish and eat it with everything they can. But it is especially delicious with abgusht. In the north of Iran along the road almost everywhere you can see large plastic containers with vegetables – which once again proves the devoted love of Iranians to “sour”.
Suitable for vegans.
Rice dishes
Rice is the mainstay of Iranian cuisine. According to my personal observation, Iranians eat rice from 5 to 14 times a week! Iranian vegetarian cuisine is also based on rice. The recipe is surprisingly simple – you mix rice with this or that legume crop and the new dish is ready.
13. Rice with greens (sabzi polo)
Ingredients: rice, fennel, saffron.
Cook rice until half cooked, add dried dill and steam stew under a closed lid. The ready dish is sprinkled with a small amount (1 tsp.) of saffron dissolved in boiling water. The bright yellow color of separate grains is not only pleasing to the eye, but also adds an unobtrusive note of saffron to the overall flavor palette. On Nowruz, rice with greens and fried fish is a traditional holiday dish. It is also very tasty with natural yogurt and cucumber.
Suitable for vegans.
14. Rice with green lentils (adas polo)
Ingredients: rice, green lentils, brown raisins.
Rice is steamed with lentils and raisins and spices are added, which are steamed in vegetable oil (or butter). Perfect with a seasonal salad.
Suitable for vegans.
15. Rice with mash (mash polo).
Ingredients: rice, mash.
Easy-to-make dish which becomes especially tasty with a Shiraz salad.
Suitable for vegans.
16. Rice with cowpeas (loobia cheshm bolboli polo)
Rice with cowpeas
Ingredients: rice, cowpeas, dill.
Very tasty with natural yogurt and seasonal salad.
Suitable for vegans.
17. Rice with tomatoes and fried potatoes (berenj dampokht)
Ingredients: rice, potatoes, onions, tomatoes.
Add peeled tomatoes to fried onions and stew. The potatoes are cut in small cubes and fried until golden brown. After that, all ingredients are added to the rice and steamed under a closed lid. Iranians consider this dish to be the food of the poor and that is why they will never offer it to a guest, however they always eat it with great pleasure. It goes perfectly with Shiraz salad.
Suitable for vegans.
18. Iranian rice pudding (shole zard)
Ingredients: round rice, water, rose water, saffron, sugar, butter, cinnamon, almonds, pistachios.
Usually rice pudding is cooked in Iran on special occasions: mourning days, birthdays of saints, major religious festivals, and Novruz. The top of the pudding is decorated with the names of Shiite saints. It is believed that a particle of his great spirit will descend into the finished dish and give a blessing to anyone who eats it.
Suitable for vegans if you add vegetable oil instead of butter.
Main dishes
Vegetarian cuisine in Iran is not only rice, but also various vegetable dishes. Vegetables are stewed in various combinations, and oriental spices and herbs add unique flavor.
19. eggplant with kashk (kashk o bademjan)
Ingredients: eggplant, kashk (fermented product like kurt), onion, mint, spices.
The dish turns out very greasy, since the eggplant is fried in a lot of oil. For me personally, it is too heavy. If you are not used to it, you might not like kyashk, because it has a pronounced sour taste of farm dairy products. But you should try it at least once. It is usually served with siangak, fresh herbs and onions. You can find it in almost any cafe.
20. Bean stew (khorake loobia)
Ingredients: red beans, garlic, onions, tomatoes or tomato paste, mushrooms, spices.
This dish reminds something of Georgian lobio, however instead of fresh greens Iranians add mushrooms and use absolutely different spices. It is often served as gravy over rice. Especially delicious with fresh herbs.
21. Braised eggplant (khorake bademjan)
Ingredients: eggplant, tomatoes, unripe grapes.
Simple and unpretentious dish with a little sourness. All lovers of eggplant will definitely like it. Fresh herbs and onions perfectly complement the dish.
Suitable for vegans.
Egg dishes
Vegetarian cuisine can include egg dishes. In Iran, they are united by one common word kuku.
22. Mirza ghassemi.
Ingredients: eggs, eggplant, tomatoes, garlic, onions, spices.
This is the most popular dish of Gilan province in the north of Iran. It is believed that in the last century it was invented by a man named Mirza – hence the name. Each hostess cooks it a little bit in her own way, so there can be many variations of the dish. The eggplant is smoked over an open fire and this gives the dish an unforgettable taste and aroma. It is a very popular item on the menu of Iranian restaurants, but the first time you should try it is in Gilan. Very tasty with fresh herbs and raw onions.
23. Kookoo sabzi
Ingredients: eggs, special mix of greens, barberry and walnuts (optional).
Iranian housewives cook kookoo sabzi without rushing on low heat for about an hour. The dish pairs perfectly with natural yogurt.
24. Kookoo sibzamini (kookoo sibzamini)
Ingredients: eggs, potatoes, onions, garlic, spices.
Kuku sibzamini are very similar to Ukrainian draniki, only they are eaten not with sour cream, but with fresh herbs. Another difference is that no flour is added, but more eggs are beaten. Sometimes mashed potatoes are used instead of fresh potatoes for the base of the dish.
25. Omelette with tomatoes (tokhme morgh o goje)
Ingredients: eggs, tomatoes, onions.
Omelette with tomatoes is so popular in Iran that even many restaurants include it in their menus. And it is also cooked by drivers on the side of the road and ordinary Iranians in the countryside when the whole family goes out for a picnic. The main difference from the Russian omelette is the absence of milk and well-cooked tomatoes. The finished dish is perfectly combined with vegetables in a vinegar marinade (torshijat) and all the same fresh herbs.
Iranian fruits
In Iranian homes you can always find a huge amount of fresh seasonal fruits, nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, almonds), seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds) and dates. They are eaten in between meals, for dessert or for an afternoon snack.
Iranian Nuts.
Vegetarian cuisine in Iran is not a myth, but a reality that even Iranians themselves do not often notice. When Iranians find out that someone who doesn’t eat meat is standing in front of them, they immediately ask the question, “What can I make you?” Now you know what to answer them. You have a list of 25 delicious and healthy dishes familiar to any Iranian housewife.
With a firm confidence I can say – in Iran without meat you will not die of hunger! With such a variety of delicious fruits, vegetables and herbs, as well as traditional vegetarian dishes, its absence may not be noticed at all.