🥣 Harees
Harees is a classic Gulf dish of whole wheat and lamb simmered for hours and then beaten until they merge into a smooth, thick, slightly elastic porridge. It is seasoned simply with salt and cinnamon and finished with a pool of melted butter. Comforting and mild, it is eaten with a spoon from a shared bowl, above all at Ramadan iftar and during Eid.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g whole wheat (hulled wheat berries), soaked overnight
- 600 g lamb on the bone (shoulder or neck)
- 1 cinnamon stick, plus ground cinnamon to serve
- About 2.5 litres water
- 1½ tsp salt
- 30 g butter, melted, to serve
Method
- Drain the wheat and put it in a large pot with the lamb, cinnamon stick and water.
- Bring to the boil, skim, then cover and simmer on very low heat for 4 hours, stirring now and then and adding water if needed.
- Remove the bones and any fat, shred the meat and return it to the pot with the salt.
- Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon or blend briefly until smooth and stretchy, cooking 20–30 minutes more.
- Serve in bowls with a little melted butter and a pinch of ground cinnamon.
How to make it lighter
- Use only a teaspoon of butter per bowl, or skip it.
- Choose lean lamb and skim the fat off the pot as it simmers.
- Harees is filling; one small bowl with a salad is enough for iftar.
History
Harees is among the oldest recorded dishes of the Arab world: a dish of pounded wheat and meat appears in medieval Arabic cookbooks. It remains a Ramadan and Eid essential in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and across the Gulf, and the related haleem is eaten in South Asia.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →