Dukkah Uses: Bread and Olive Oil, Eggs, Vegetables, Crusts and Sweets

In Egypt, dukkah is a breakfast food, and street vendors sometimes sell it fresh in little newspaper cones. Its classic job is a dip: bread into olive oil first, so the dukkah clings, then into the dukkah. It’s a coarse mix of crushed seeds, spices and often nuts, and food writer Claudia Roden insists it should be a crushed dry mixture, never a paste.¹ It’s also great on eggs, roasted vegetables, yogurt and salads, and its crunch makes it a good crust for lamb or fish.²

For what goes into it, see dukkah.

Where dukkah goes

With bread and olive oil

This is the traditional way. The Oxford Companion says dukkah is usually eaten with bread dipped in olive oil, and that in Egypt it’s a breakfast food.¹ Fawzy explains the order: bread goes into the olive oil first, then into the dukkah, so the dukkah sticks. She adds that eating it with a bread called simit is even more traditional, often with a boiled egg on the side.²

Michele Redmond of Food & Nutrition Magazine also mixes dukkah with olive oil to make a bread dip.³

Street food. Fawzy says dukkah is mostly made at home in Egypt, but street vendors sometimes sell freshly toasted dukkah in little newspaper cones, with pita or simit.²

Eggs and breakfast

Fawzy says dukkah works on any egg dish: scrambled, fried, poached or boiled. She also finishes shakshuka with it, and suggests it for savory takes on breakfast dishes like oatmeal or waffles.² See spices for scrambled eggs.

Salads, yogurt and dips

• Salads. Fawzy sprinkles dukkah on salads.² Use it the way you’d use croutons or toasted nuts, for salt and crunch.
• Yogurt dip. Stir dukkah into plain yogurt for a quick dip for raw vegetables, or a sauce for sandwiches and wraps, Fawzy suggests.²
• Hummus. Dukkah over hummus seems like a natural pairing, though we found no named recipe for it. The coarse texture gives smooth hummus some crunch. See hummus spices.

Roasted vegetables

Fawzy says roasted carrots are a popular choice, sprinkled with dukkah right as they come out of the oven, and the same works for Brussels sprouts, pumpkin, eggplant and other vegetables that sweeten when roasted.²

Crusts for lamb, fish and chicken

Fawzy uses dukkah as a crust for a rack of lamb or for grilled fish, and says it suits quick-cooking proteins because there’s no risk of burning it through long exposure to oven heat.² That’s the opposite of the advice you’ll sometimes see to cook dukkah-rubbed meat low and slow. So press it onto oiled fish fillets, chicken cutlets or lamb chops and cook them fast. Chicken isn’t on her list, but the same idea holds. See good spices for chicken and spices for lamb.

Most dukkah already has salt in it,¹ so go light when you season the meat.

Sweet uses

Fawzy suggests dukkah on shortbread or cookies, and a sweet version on carrot cake, which often shares ingredients like nuts and cinnamon.² These are modern uses, not Egyptian tradition.

Popcorn and snacking

Dukkah on buttered popcorn, or eaten off the spoon, makes an easy snack since it’s already salted. No source we found mentions it, so it’s just an idea worth trying.

Keep it fresh

Nuts and sesame contain natural oils, so Redmond says to keep homemade dukkah in the fridge for no more than a month.³ Fawzy makes a fresh batch every month and keeps it in the fridge.² Toasting is part of making it: Redmond browns the nuts in the oven for 4 to 8 minutes.³ More on that at dukkah.

Allergen note

Most dukkah contains sesame, and many versions contain hazelnuts or other tree nuts.¹³ The FDA counts tree nuts, peanuts and sesame among the major food allergens.⁴ Check labels, and ask when it’s served in restaurants.

Related

• Dukkah and dukkah substitutes
• Za’atar uses, another blend eaten with bread and olive oil
• Sesame seeds, coriander and cumin uses