Harira, or hrira, is a beloved Moroccan soup “الحريرة المغربيةة” made with tomatoes, lentils, and chickpeas, seasoned with ginger, cinnamon, pepper, and fresh herbs. It’s enjoyed year-round, but especially during the month of Ramadan when it’s served to break the fast. This hearty, aromatic soup is also a popular street food, loved for its vibrant spices and satisfying ingredients.
Moroccan Harira Soup for Ramadan
The harira recipe, the quintessential Moroccan soup, is one of the first dishes my mother taught me to make. It holds great importance in Moroccan cuisine and is the traditional soup of Ramadan. While it’s enjoyed year-round as a starter in Moroccan meals, harira is especially famous for being the centerpiece of the iftar table during Ramadan.
Harira is also served for breakfast the day after a long evening wedding and at christenings before the ceremony. The authentic harira is loved in all cities of Morocco.
Moroccan harira
During Ramadan, its aromas, a blend of coriander and spices, tantalize the taste buds before iftar (the breaking of the fast). We just want a good bowl with some dates, chebakia , a chicken cigars, ground meat spring roll, briouats, etc.
There isn’t just one Moroccan harira recipe, but each region of the kingdom has its own recipe. However, the base with the main ingredients will be the same everywhere. Depending on the region, the spices and legumes will change. Having tasted them all, they’re all delicious. However, it does not contain ras el hanout.
- Harira Fassia (from the medina of Fez) is the least spiced; it contains neither caraway (karwiya) nor allspice (kababa). This is the recipe I make and the one I’m sharing with you.
- Harira Oujdia (from the city of Oujda) is highly aromatic thanks to the addition of caraway and allspice. Some families also add dried fava beans in addition to chickpeas. Everyone has their own method of preparation, but in the end, each version of the soup is just as delicious as the other.
- Harira Bidaouia (from the city of Casablanca) most often includes a beaten egg, which is added after the tadouira.
Traditional Moroccan soup, warming and tasty.
What are the ingredients for moroccan harira?
Table of Contents
| NB: Find the complete recipe with detailed ingredient quantities in the recipe card at the end of the article, which you can print out. |
Harira consists of a broth and a tadouira ( Flour-Based Thickener). For the broth, you’ll need a fair amount of fresh tomato coulis, onion, parsley, coriander, celery, tomato paste and legumes (chickpeas, lentils).
The main spices are salt, pepper, ginger and turmeric. Most add a little cinnamon, while others prefer it spicy, adding caraway and allspice. We also use rancid butter (smen in Arabic), which is a preserved, aged butter that gives it a special taste that I really like. Smen is not essential; it depends on individual taste.There is no Ras el hanout in the traditional authentic recipe.
After cooking the ingredients, a binder (flour-based-thickener) is needed to make the harira slightly creamy and velvety. This binder is called tadouira in Arabic.
How to prepare tadouira
The tadouira, the binding agent for harira, is made with water and flour. Mix the two ingredients with a whisk or blender, then strain through a fine sieve. There must be no lumps in the tadouira, or your soup will be thrown away. You can add a little tomato paste to this mixture before pouring it into the cooking pot.
Preferably prepare the tadouira a few hours before making the hrira. This will give it more taste. Our grandmothers used to make sourdough harira (tadouira with fermented yeast). This made more digestible and gave it a bit acidity. Here we have the right acidity thanks to the tomato puree.
Authentic Moroccan Harira soup
This Moroccan soup is very easy, however, it can easily be ruined if you don’t master the tadouira. The most important thing to remember is when to pour the liaison into the cooking pot. Pour it in, stirring constantly, until the soup starts to boil again. This is where the word tadouira comes into its own. Indeed tadouira in Arabic is the action of stirring.
Tips for success
This soup is prepared in two stages: Preparation of the broth with ingredients and meat and the tadouira. You need to choose ripe tomatoes that will give it a beautiful color. Choose fresh herbs, coriander and aromatic celery.
The broth can be cooked in a pressure cooker, but once the tadouira is added, it should simmer without closing the lid.
First, brown the meat with all the ingredients for about ten minutes. Then add the water and leave to cook for 30 minutes in a pressure cooker, or 1 hour more or less in a cooking pot. The meat and chickpeas must be cooked. 
Secondly, add the tadouira while stirring constantly. Once the soup comes to a boil again, you can add some vermicelli or rice. Personally, I prefer to use thin spaghetti cut to the size of vermicelli. Unlike vermicelli, which swells if the soup is stored for 2 to 3 days, the thin spaghetti maintains its texture. Let the soup cook until the froth disappears. About 5 minutes before removing it from the heat, add a little cilantro.
The creaminess of the harira will depend on the amount of flour used to make the tadouira. If you use very little flour, you will have a thin and less flavorful soup. The right proportion, in my opinion, is 100 g (3.5 oz) of flour for 2.5 liters of broth. If it becomes too thick, you can easily add some boiling water to make it more liquid. If it’s too liquid for your taste, add a bit more tadouira (binder) 
What to serve it with?
During Ramadan, at iftar, harira is served with chebakia, almond briouats, square and flaky Moroccan Pancakes or stuffed msemmen and all kinds of cigars. It is often served as a hot, comforting soup as a starter to a meal before serving other dishes such as prune tagine or roast chicken with almonds or pastilla etc. depending on the menu of the day.
How to store it?
Personally, I don’t keep it for more than 3 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Some freeze the broth without the tadouira, but for me, despite being addicted to freezing, I’ve never been tempted to do so with this soup.
Can you make a meatless harira?
Absolutely! It can be made very well without meat. Many make it without meat, and it’s also very tasty. Some use a beef or lamb stock cube. I hope the article wasn’t too long, but I wanted to tell you everything there is to know about a good Moroccan harira.
Moroccan harira recipe (Ramadan Soup)
Ingredients :
The broth:
- 250 g beef or lamb, cut into small cubes (8.8 oz)
- 200 g chickpeas, soaked overnight in water (7 oz)
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 35 / 50 g lentils (1.2 / 1.8 oz )
- 600 g fresh tomatoes (21 oz)
- 1 ½ tablespoons 10 g chopped parsley (0.35 oz)
- 4 tablespoons 30 g chopped coriander (1 oz)
- 4 tablespoons 30 g chopped celery leaves (with a bit of the stalk) (1 oz)
- 40 g tomato paste 2 heaping tablespoons ( 1.4 oz)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
- 1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 level teaspoon turmeric
- ½ to 1 teaspoon ground pepper
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon optional
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon smen (preserved aged butter - rancid butter )optional , adjust to taste
- 35 g thin spaghetti or vermicelli (you can double this amount if preferred) (1.2 oz)
- 2.5 liters water
The flour-based thickener (Tadouira) :
- 100 g flour (3.5 oz )
- Juice of half a lemon optional
Instructions :
Tadouira (Based Flour Thickness) for Harira
- Mix the flour with 250 ml (8.8 oz) of water using a whisk or blender to create a mixture with a based flour thickness.
- Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
- Cover and let it sit until you are ready to thicken the harira.
- When ready to use, add half of the tomato paste to the tadouira and mix well.
Prepare the Harira Broth
- Peel the chickpeas that you soaked in water the night before.
- Chop the onion and place it in a pot with the chickpeas and oil.
- Add the diced meat, celery, parsley, half of the cilantro, half of the tomato paste, and lentils.
- Peel the tomatoes and blend them to create a puree. You can blanch them in hot water for 5 minutes until the skins detach. Peel and blend them.
- Add the tomato puree to the pot.
- Add salt, ginger, pepper, turmeric, smen (clarified butter), and cinnamon.
- Stir everything and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes.
- Add the remaining water (2.25 liters) and cook on medium heat for 1 hour, until the chickpeas are tender. If using a pressure cooker, cook for 20 to 30 minutes.
Finalizing the Harira
- Gradually add the tadouira (Based Flour Thickness) to the soup while stirring constantly. The heat should be high enough for the soup to start boiling again.
- Once the soup starts to boil, add the vermicelli while stirring. If using spaghetti, use size 3.
- Let it simmer on medium heat until the vermicelli is cooked and the foam formed by the tadouira disappears completely.
- Once the vermicelli is cooked, add the remaining cilantro and let it cook for another 10 minutes before removing from the heat.
Serving
- Serve the harira hot with a slice of lemon and accompany it with dates or dried figs. It can also be enjoyed with some fresh homemade bread.
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