These mezze recipes make delicious Middle Eastern appetisers served as a spread of snacks, starters and salads before heartier mains, rice or grains, and vegetable sides. Traditionally plated as individual dishes for sharing-style sit-down meals around a table, these days mezze platters and mezze boards are popular for picnics, casual gatherings, barbecues, and parties. This is our guide to the marvel that is mezze.
We fell in love with mezze long before moving to the Middle East. Some of our favourite Middle Eastern recipes are recipes for mezze, such as hummus recipes, and condiments to sprinkle on those addictively delicious dips, such as dukkah. We love the versatility of mezze – serve them as healthy snacks, picnic treats or dinner starters. Best of all, mezze are made to be shared.
Terence and I have both loved sharing-style meals since we were young, whether it was seated around a spinning Lazy Susan at a Chinese restaurant with our families as kids, boisterous meals with friends at cheap and cheerful Southeast Asian joints, or passing dishes around the table at the leisurely Sunday feasts at my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents home.
One of our favourite parts of Russian meals are the starters called zakuski, meaning ‘something to bite after’. Typically ‘after’ a shot of vodka. During the Russian Empire they were presented as a buffet, now they’re served on the table to nibble on before mains and include plates of dill pickles, devilled eggs, eggs with caviar, cold cuts, cured fish, piroshki, and small salads.
We’re big fans of small plate culinary cultures and sharing bite-size snacks and finger food during relaxed social drinks, such as the Spanish tapas bar hopping ritual, the similar Basque pintxos tradition, Italian aperitivo – complimentary cocktail hour canapés – and the Venetian take called cicchetti, similar to pintxos.
Then there’s Italy’s first course of antipasti, appetisers that include olives, cured meats, cheeses, marinated mushrooms, artichokes, peperoncini etc. Koreans serve banchan, small dishes of cold vegetables that begin as starters before becoming sides. And let’s not forget the ancient Chinese teahouse cum brunch traditions of yum cha and dim sum – which probably inspired all the others!
It was inevitable that we’d come to adore the cuisines of the Middle East and it happened before we actually moved to the region. It was at Lebanese and Turkish restaurants, cafés and kebab shops in inner city Sydney that we fell in love with Middle Eastern food, especially dishes such as hummus and baba ghanoush and the custom of grazing on mezze before the main course.
So what is mezze exactly and how do you prepare and assemble an array of mezze to kick off a Middle Eastern meal or feed a crowd at a casual gathering? I’ll share tips to making and serving mezze in our guide to mezze below, along with our best mezze recipes.
Mezze Recipes for a Traditional Middle Eastern Spread of Appetisers
This is our guide to mezze and you’ll find some of our best mezze recipes below that.
What are Mezze?
Pronounced ‘mehzay’ in Arabic, in the Middle East mezze – meze in Turkey and mezedes in Greece – are an assortment of snacks, finger food and small plates traditionally served as appetisers and starters to whet the appetite and sustain guests before the main dishes are ready.
In the home, a host might serve a combination of dishes of nuts, olives, pickles, and crudités, plates of cold mezze and hot mezze, and baskets of crispy homemade pita chips or warm flat breads to tear apart and use to scoop up dips or use as vehicles to carry soupy or saucy dishes, such as hummus balila.
Cold mezze include dips such as muhammara, muttabal, baba ghanoush and hummus, in all its many variations, such as a hummus balila salad; stuffed vegetables and vine leaves; laban cheese balls rolled in olive oil, herbs and spice; and small bowls of salads, such as cucumber in yoghurt, tabbouleh, fattoush, and a traditional farmers salad.
Hot mezze might include small warm salads, baked vegetables, and hot pastries and hand pies, such as falafel (deep-fried chickpea or lentil rissoles), fatayer (fried open filled pies), borek or brik (filled savoury short crust pastries), and kibbeh (spiced minced meat and pine nuts encased in crispy deep fried bulgur.)
How to Prepare Mezze
Most of our mezze recipes are a breeze to prepare and the beauty of mezze is that the cold mezze – especially dips such as hummus, baba ghanoush, muhammara, muttabal etc – can be prepared a day or two in advance if you’re also serving hot mezze. Refrigerated in well-sealed containers, cold mezze will keep for days.
This is what restaurants in the Middle East do, which is why the cold mezze always arrive immediately after you order them. In Turkey, waiters will appear at your table soon after you’re seated with a large tray filled with an array of plates so you can select what you like.
If you’re preparing mezze at home for a Middle Eastern feast, you’ll want to make salads on the day, tossing them just before guests arrive. With fattoush, add the crispy pita chips at the last minute so they don’t get soggy. However, tabbouleh keeps well for days and can easily be prepared the day before. I think it actually tastes better on the second day.
Many hot mezze, such as falafel, kibbeh, and pastries such as fatayer and borek could also be made the day before and reheated in an oven – which is what you’ll probably want to do if you’re serving mains such as grilled meats like garlicky shish tawook, kofta meatballs and kofta kebabs, which you’ll definitely want to do just before guests arrive.
How to Assemble a Mezze Table
In the home, an array of cold mezze will already be spread out on the dining table when guests arrive as a gesture of hospitality. This means they don’t have to wait for the hot food to be served and can start nibbling. The mezze will sustain them while the hot mezze are being reheated or mains finish cooking.
An abundant mezze table is a sign of hospitality in the Middle East, where hospitality is everything – the more mezze the better. Obviously nobody likes food waste, but again, the beauty of mezze is that it keeps so well. We’ll happily eat mezze leftovers for days.
Keep in mind that as long as you have plenty of warm pita bread, crispy pita chips, vegetable crudités, lettuce leaves and herbs, you can get away with a smaller assortment of mezze.
It’s important to have snacks on the table before guests sit down, such as mixed nuts, and dishes of olives and pickles. Then you can bring the cold mezze out after guests sit down – along with drinks. Arak is the spirit of choice in the Middle East.
Meals in the Middle East are never rushed. In fact, they’re very leisurely. Diners should be able to linger over the cold starters a little and enjoy those before you serve the hot mezze.
In restaurants in the Middle East, diners are encouraged to order mezze straight away so they can graze on the small dishes while their main courses cook. In Turkish restaurants, waiters will carry trays of meze to tables for diners to select what they want.
Don’t wait for your guests to finish the mezze before serving the mains, as you don’t want them to fill up on the starters. In restaurants, waiters will typically remove the mezze before serving the grilled meats. In the home, hosts will often leave them on the table so guests can still enjoy some hummus or salads as sides.
Mezze Boards and Mezze Platters
While mezze have been traditionally served for shared sit-down meals around a table, mezze are fantastic for more casual gatherings, standing or sit-down. Serve mezze in individual dishes on a buffet or on wooden boards or large platters.
Pre-prepared mezze boards and mezze platters are perfect for picnics – assemble them at home and cover them with plastic if you’re not travelling far; if you are, transport the dips and cold mezze in separate containers and the warm mezze wrapped in tea-towels in baskets, and assemble the boards on the picnic blanket.
Mezze platters and mezze boards are also brilliant for barbecues, especially if you’ll be grilling Arabic kebabs and kofta, and perfect for parties and other soirees or if you’re asked to bring a plate to an event.
Our Best Mezze Recipes
These are our best mezze recipes and while they mainly make cold mezze such as dips, we’ll be adding recipes for hot mezze soon, so if you’re a lover of Middle Eastern food or do a lot of entertaining and gathering, do bookmark this page and check back with us from time to time.
Traditional Hummus Recipe
Our traditional hummus recipe makes an authentic hummus that Terence learnt to make from a Lebanese friend when we lived in Abu Dhabi. Hummus is perhaps the most quintessential Arabic mezze. Thought to have originated in medieval Egypt, hummus is found right across the Arab world, from North Africa through to the Levantine countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, in the state of Palestine and Israel, and throughout the Arabian Peninsula. You can make it with dried chickpeas or canned chickpeas.
Hummus bil Lahme Recipe
This easy hummus with spiced beef recipe makes hummus bil lahme, another delicious Arabic mezze that originated in the Levant. It’s a breeze to make. After draining the canned chickpeas, you simply transfer the chickpeas, garlic powder, extra virgin olive oil, tahini paste, ground cumin, and lemon juice to a food processor or blender, and pulse until well-combined. Make the wonderful spiced beef mince, spread the hummus on a plate, pile the spiced ground beef on top, sprinkle on some finely chopped parsley, and serve.
Hummus Beiruti Recipe
Hummus Beiruti is topped with whole chickpeas, drizzled with spiced oil, showered with more fresh parsley and sprinkled with a blend of sweet paprika and chilli powder. Everything in this hummus is bumped up – the tanginess, spice levels, fragrance, and texture – making you a zestier, spicier and herbier hummus, thanks to the extra lemon juice, extra ground cumin and paprika, and addition of fresh flat-leaf parsley. As you’d expect from a hummus named after one of the Middle East’s most exuberant cities and the region’s most vivacious people, this is “next level hummus”, as one Lebanese chef described it to us many years ago.
Muhammara Recipe
This easy muhammara recipe will make you the famous Syrian walnut and roasted red pepper dip from Aleppo. A traditional muhammara is a smoky, savoury, sweet, and subtly spiced dip. We fell in love with muhammara on our first trip to Syria many years ago and our recipe is based on the official Aleppo muhammara recipe from the Academie Syrienne Gastronomie (Academy of Syrian Gastronomy), with just a couple of tweaks.
Hummus Balila Recipe
Hummus balila, also known simply as ‘balila’, is a Levantine dish that has long been a popular breakfast staple or homemade snack everywhere from Lebanon and Syria to the Arabian Peninsula countries, but it’s also served as a mezze. Creamy warm chickpeas are gently spiced with ground cumin, and drizzled with a dressing of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice.
Beetroot Hummus Recipe
This roasted beetroot hummus recipe make a more modern mezze and a deliciously healthy dip made with roasted fresh beetroots, chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. Roasted beetroots are more nutritious than canned beetroots and taste naturally sweeter and more flavoursome. Roasting beetroots is easy – set and forget – then it’s a quick to make in a blender or food processor.
Roast Pumpkin Hummus with Dukkah
Our pumpkin hummus recipe makes a roasted pumpkin and chickpea dip drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with dukkah, the Middle Eastern condiment of crushed nuts, seeds and spices. It’s a wonderful starter but it’s also a fantastic healthy snack served with crispy vegetable crudités, such as crunchy cucumber spears, carrot batons and radishes.
Baba Ganoush Recipe
This baba ganoush recipe makes another traditional Middle Eastern mezze – also spelt baba ghanoush, baba ghanouj and baba ganouj – made with smoky grilled eggplants, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. The eggplants can be roasted, barbecued, grilled or baked, but the best method for preparing the eggplants is to roast them over a live flame over a gas stovetop, barbecue or oven-grill/broiler so the skin chars.
Eggplant Dip with Pomegranate and Pine Nuts
Our recipe for a Middle Eastern eggplant dip with pomegranate and pine nuts makes another variation of baba ganoush using the old fashioned method – mashing it with a fork or pounding it with a pestle and mortar. The result is a more rustic creamier textured dip. This rendition of the smoky aubergine dip is sprinkled with pomegranate and pine nuts. Scoop it up with warm flatbreads or crispy pita chips, as you would other mezze.
Cucumber Yoghurt Salad Recipe
Our cucumber yoghurt salad recipe makes a cooling Middle Eastern dish called khyar bi laban that’s a cousin of Indian raita and Greek tzatziki. It can be served either as a starter or a side with grilled meats such as kebabs and kofta and salads such as fattoush. It’s referred to as a salad when it has a thicker consistency like a dip and as a cucumber yoghurt sauce when it’s thinner and drizzled over kebabs, meat patties or meatballs.
Carrot Hummus Recipe
Our carrot hummus recipe makes a roasted carrot and chickpea dip sprinkled with cumin and sesame seeds. Deliciously addictive, the Middle Eastern-inspired dip is light, bright and healthy, and fantastic served with crispy pita chips or crunchy crudités. It can also be used as a spread on sandwiches and baguettes or as a base for salads and vegetable sides.
Roasted Red Pepper Feta Dip Recipe
Mezze are called meze in Greece or mezedes (plural) and this spicy roasted red pepper feta dip recipe makes htipiti, a Greek meze made with roasted red capsicums and Greek feta cheese. It’s enjoyed as one of an array of mezedes that are traditionally washed down with ouzo in Greece. Scoop it up with warm pita bread and serve with other meze dips such as tzaziki and taramosalata, or saganaki (fried cheese) or keftedes (fritters or meatballs).
Crispy Homemade Pita Chips
An assortment of mezze is always served with stacks of warmed Arabic flatbreads. Any stale leftover bread is typically fried or baked to create crispy homemade pita chips. They are perfect for scooping up mezze dips such as hummus and muttabal. The crunchy pita chips are also fantastic with spiced chickpeas and a lemony yoghurt sauce, which makes fatteh, a delicious shared Middle Eastern breakfast dish comprised mainly of leftovers.
Dukkah Recipe
Dukkah isn’t a mezze as such, it’s a condiment, and it’s fantastic sprinkled on mezze dips, especially hummus in its infinite variations. Our easy dukkah recipe makes the pounded Middle Eastern nut, seed and spice blend. And it’s incredibly versatile. While it’s typically served as a condiment with olive oil and pita bread or sourdough bread, it can be sprinkled over soft-boiled eggs, salads and vegetable sides to add texture, flavour and aroma. Originating in Egypt, dukkah or duqqa is popular all over the Middle East, where it takes many delicious forms.
Please do let us know if you make any of our mezze recipes as we’d love to hear how they turn out for you, and watch this space as we’ll be adding more recipes here as we publish them.
