Moroccan Breakfast: What Moroccans Really Eat in the Morning

Ask people what they miss most after a trip to Morocco and a lot of them say breakfast. Not the tagine, not the couscous. Breakfast. Warm msemen soaked in honey and butter, bread torn straight into a saucer of olive oil, a glass of mint tea so sweet it wakes you up faster than coffee.

The funny part is that most Moroccan breakfasts are very simple. On a normal weekday a lot of us have bread, olive oil, maybe a boiled egg and a glass of tea, and we’re out the door. The big spread comes out on weekends, on cold mornings, for guests, and during Ramadan and Eid.

So what do Moroccans eat for breakfast? In short: bread (khobz, msemen or baghrir) with olive oil, honey, butter, jam or amlou, a few olives or some fresh cheese, eggs seasoned with cumin, and mint tea or coffee with milk. In winter, a bowl of bissara or harira often joins the table.

Below is how it really works day to day, what each item is, and the recipes on this site you can use to set up a Moroccan breakfast in your own kitchen.

The Moroccan breakfast table at a glance

What’s on the table	Common examples	Recipes to try
Bread and pancakes	Khobz, msemen, baghrir, harcha, batbout, krachel	Khobz, Msemen, Baghrir, Krachel
Things to dip or spread	Olive oil, honey, butter, jam, amlou, argan oil	Just open the jars
Something savory	Olives, jben (fresh cheese), cheese triangles, eggs with cumin	Hard boiled eggs, Shakshuka
Something warm	Bissara, harira, hssoua (barley soup), loubia	Bissara, Harira, Loubia
Drinks	Mint tea, coffee with milk, fresh orange juice, raib	Mint tea, Orange juice, Raib

What breakfast is called in Morocco

In Darija, Moroccan Arabic, breakfast is ftour (فطور). You’ll also see it spelled ftoor. The word means breaking the fast, which is why it has a second job during Ramadan: the sunset meal that ends the day’s fast is also called ftour. If someone invites you to ftour in Ramadan, show up at sunset and expect harira and dates, not pancakes at eight in the morning.

The meal eaten before dawn in Ramadan has its own name, s’hour (also written shour or se7our).

What a typical Moroccan breakfast looks like

There isn’t one Moroccan breakfast. It changes with the day, the weather, the city, and who’s coming over.

On a regular weekday

Quick and light. Bread from the day before, warmed up in a pan. A small plate of olive oil. Honey or jam if there’s time, a triangle of spreadable cheese, maybe an egg. Tea, or coffee with milk. Kids get a glass of milk or a bowl of raib. Most people aren’t frying msemen at 7 a.m. on a school day.

On weekends and when guests come

This is the breakfast you see in photos. Msemen, baghrir or harcha, honey warmed with butter, a bowl of amlou, olives, eggs, cheese and a big pot of mint tea. It takes more time, so it lands on Saturday and Sunday mornings, on holidays, and on any day there’s a visitor at the table.

On cold mornings

When the weather turns, a lot of families want something hot in a bowl. Bissara, a thick soup of dried fava beans or split peas finished with olive oil and cumin, is the classic, and it’s especially popular in the north. Hssoua is another one: barley grits cooked slowly in water, sometimes finished with milk and a little butter. And plenty of people will happily eat leftover harira in the morning.

At a café or a street stall

In the cities, a lot of people eat breakfast out. Neighborhood cafés serve msemen and harcha with coffee, and early in the morning you’ll see vendors frying sfenj, big rings of doughnut, and threading them on a strip of palm leaf so you can carry them home. The coffee order you’ll hear the most is nus nus, which means half half: coffee and hot milk in equal parts.

Some men start the day at the loubia shop instead, with a hot bowl of stewed white beans, a drizzle of olive oil and a round of khobz. If that sounds good, here’s our loubia recipe.

In a riad or hotel

If you’re visiting, your riad breakfast will probably be bigger than what a Moroccan family eats on a Tuesday. Riads lay out a sampler for guests: two or three kinds of bread, eggs, jams, cheese, fruit, fresh orange juice and tea. It’s a great way to try everything at once. Just know it’s the guest version.

The breads and pancakes

Bread sits in the middle of every Moroccan meal and breakfast is no different. We use it as a spoon, a plate and a sponge. These are the ones you’ll run into most.

Khobz (round Moroccan bread)

Khobz is the everyday loaf: round, a little coarse, usually made with a mix of flour and semolina. In the morning it gets torn and dipped in olive oil or honey, or split, toasted and spread with butter and jam. In older neighborhoods some families still carry their dough to the ferran, the neighborhood oven, to be baked. Want to try it? Here’s how to bake Moroccan bread (khobz) at home.

Msemen

Msemen are square, layered pancakes. The dough is stretched until it’s almost see-through, folded into a square with oil and semolina between the layers, then cooked on a hot pan until it’s crisp outside and chewy inside. Eat them warm with honey and butter or amlou. Some people stuff them with onions, herbs and spices for a savory version. Here’s our msemen recipe.

Baghrir

Baghrir are the thousand-hole pancakes. The batter is thin, made with fine semolina, and cooked on one side only, which is why the top ends up covered in tiny holes. Those holes are the whole point: they soak up warm honey and butter. They’re also one of the easiest Moroccan breakfast recipes to start with, so if you’re new to all this, begin with baghrir.

Harcha

Harcha is a thick semolina griddle bread with a crumbly, slightly grainy texture. People often compare it to cornbread. You’ll find it in cafés and bakeries, and it’s great with cheese, honey or jam.

Batbout and melwi

Batbout is a soft bread cooked in a pan until it puffs up, so you can split it and fill it, a bit like a small pita. Melwi is msemen’s round cousin: the dough is rolled into a coil, flattened and cooked, so it comes out round and extra flaky.

Krachel and sfenj

Krachel are soft, lightly sweet bread rolls covered in sesame seeds. They’re a favorite for breakfast and afternoon tea, and they freeze really well (see our krachel recipe). You’ll also find croissants and pain au chocolat everywhere, a habit from the French protectorate years that never left.

Sfenj are the street doughnuts: a sticky, unsweetened yeast dough fried until it’s crisp outside and chewy inside. People eat them plain, rolled in sugar or dipped in honey. They’re usually sold early in the morning and again in the late afternoon, and almost never in between.

What goes on the bread

The spreads are simple, and that’s the charm. A typical table has two or three of these:

• Olive oil. The most basic Moroccan breakfast there is: bread, good olive oil, tea.
• Honey and butter, often melted together and spooned over msemen or baghrir.
• Amlou, a thick paste of toasted almonds, argan oil and honey. It comes from the Souss region in the south, where the argan trees grow, and it’s basically Morocco’s nut butter.
• Argan oil on its own, especially in the south.
• Jam. Apricot, strawberry and fig are the usual ones.
• Cheese. Jben, a soft fresh white cheese, and the little foil-wrapped cheese triangles you’ll find in a lot of Moroccan fridges.
• Olives, usually the black salt-cured kind.

Some families also keep smen, a salted aged butter with a strong, cheesy smell. A little on warm bread goes a long way, and it’s not for everyone.

Eggs the Moroccan way

Eggs are common at breakfast but kept simple, and there’s no bacon or pork sausage on a Moroccan table. What you’ll see instead:

• Boiled eggs, peeled and dipped in a pinch of cumin and salt. If yours never peel cleanly, this guide to hard boiled eggs fixes that.
• Eggs fried in olive oil, with olives on the side.
• Eggs cooked with khlii, dried preserved meat kept in its own fat. Rich and very traditional.
• Eggs poached in a spiced tomato sauce, close to shakshuka.
• A thick potato omelet cut into squares, like our Moroccan style Spanish tortilla.

Some hotels and cafés also serve halal mortadella, made from chicken or turkey, with bread and cheese.

Warm bowls for winter mornings

Bissara is the one to try first. Dried fava beans or split peas are cooked down until thick and smooth, then finished with olive oil, cumin and a little paprika, with bread for dipping. It’s cheap, filling and naturally vegan. Our bissara recipe has both the stovetop and the pressure cooker method.

Harira is famous as the Ramadan soup, but a bowl of leftover harira in the morning is a very Moroccan thing to do. Hssoua belboula, barley grits simmered in water and finished with milk or with olive oil and cumin, is lighter and gentle on the stomach, which is why it’s a go-to when someone isn’t feeling well. For more cold-weather bowls, see our guide to Moroccan soups.

What Moroccans drink at breakfast

Mint tea is served at breakfast and pretty much all day after that: green tea brewed with a big handful of fresh mint and sugar, poured from high up so it foams in the glass. If you’ve never made it, start with our Moroccan mint tea recipe.

Coffee with milk is just as common, especially in the cities. Fresh orange juice is cheap and everywhere since Morocco grows a lot of oranges (here’s how we make orange juice at home). And raib, a lightly sweet set yogurt, makes a quick breakfast on its own.

Breakfast in Ramadan and on Eid

Ramadan turns breakfast upside down. There’s no morning meal while fasting. Instead there’s s’hour before dawn, usually something filling and not too salty: bread or msemen, eggs, dates, milk or yogurt, sometimes a bowl of hssoua.

At sunset, ftour borrows a lot from the breakfast table. Msemen, baghrir, boiled eggs, dates and milk all show up, with harira and chebakia as the stars. We go through it in detail in What Moroccans Eat During Ramadan, and you’ll find recipes for chebakia and sellou on the site too.

Then on the morning of Eid al-Fitr, families sit down to their first daytime breakfast in a month, and it’s usually a big one: pancakes, cookies and a lot of tea.

How breakfast changes around the country

Morocco is a big country and breakfast shifts a little as you move around:

• The north and the mountains: bissara is everywhere once it gets cold, including as street food.
• The south, around the Souss and Agadir: amlou and argan oil are part of breakfast because that’s where the argan trees are.
• Big cities: more café breakfasts, more French pastries, more nus nus.
• Homes everywhere: bread, olive oil, olives and tea. That part doesn’t really change.

How to make a Moroccan breakfast at home

You don’t need a full spread to get it right. Start small:

1. Pick one bread. Khobz is the easiest if you like baking. Baghrir is the easiest if you don’t. Msemen takes a bit of practice, but it’s the one people remember.
2. Put out two dips: a saucer of good olive oil and a small bowl of honey warmed with a spoon of butter. Add amlou if you can find it.
3. Add something salty: olives, a boiled egg with cumin and salt, or some fresh cheese.
4. Squeeze a few oranges or slice some fruit.
5. Make a pot of mint tea.

That’s a real Moroccan breakfast. Everything else is extra.

What to buy

Fine semolina, flour, dried yeast, olive oil, honey, butter, eggs, black olives, ground cumin, Chinese gunpowder green tea, fresh mint and oranges. That covers almost every recipe in this guide.

Make it ahead

Baghrir and krachel both freeze well. Cook a batch on the weekend, let it cool completely, freeze it with parchment between the layers, then reheat in a pan or the oven. Leftover khobz freezes too (our guide on how to store leftover bread explains how), and a few minutes in a dry pan brings it right back.

Moroccan breakfast vs a Western breakfast

	Moroccan breakfast	Typical American or British breakfast
Base	Bread and pancakes	Cereal, toast, eggs
Meat	Rare, and never pork	Bacon, sausage, ham
Fat	Olive oil, butter, argan oil	Butter
Sweet things	Honey, jam, amlou	Syrup, jam
Drinks	Mint tea, coffee with milk, orange juice	Coffee, tea, juice
How it’s served	Shared plates in the middle, bread as the utensil	Individual plates, knife and fork

The biggest difference is the sharing. A Moroccan breakfast is laid out in the middle of the table and everyone tears, dips and passes.

Tips if you’re eating breakfast in Morocco

• Breakfast is usually included in riads. If they don’t serve msemen or baghrir, it’s worth asking.
• For the local version, sit down in a neighborhood café and order harcha or msemen with nus nus or mint tea.
• Look for sfenj early. By mid-morning most stalls are done.
• During Ramadan many cafés close during the day, but hotels and riads keep serving breakfast to their guests.

Planning a trip? Read 10 things you need to know before visiting Morocco, our guide to the best time to go to Morocco, and the famous Moroccan foods to try once breakfast is over.

Moroccan breakfast FAQ

What do Moroccans eat for breakfast every day?

Most weekdays it’s bread with olive oil, honey or jam, sometimes cheese or an egg, plus mint tea or coffee with milk. Pancakes like msemen and baghrir are more of a weekend or guest thing.

What is breakfast called in Morocco?

Ftour (also spelled ftoor). During Ramadan the same word is used for the meal that breaks the fast at sunset.

Is a Moroccan breakfast healthy?

It can be. Olive oil, eggs, olives, bissara and fresh fruit are all good choices. The parts to go easy on are the sweet ones, because white bread, honey, butter and sugary tea add up fast.

Do Moroccans eat meat for breakfast?

Not often, and never pork. You might see eggs cooked with khlii or a few slices of halal chicken mortadella, but most Moroccan breakfasts have no meat at all.

What time do Moroccans eat breakfast?

On workdays, usually somewhere between 7 and 9 a.m. On weekends it starts later and lasts longer.

What is amlou?

A spread made from toasted almonds, argan oil and honey, from southern Morocco. It’s eaten on bread, msemen and baghrir, a bit like peanut butter but richer. Here’s everything you need to know about amlou.

Can I make a Moroccan breakfast without special ingredients?

Yes. Bread, olive oil, honey, eggs, cumin and a pot of mint tea already get you most of the way there. Amlou and argan oil are nice extras, not requirements.

If you only try one thing from this guide, make baghrir with warm honey and butter and a pot of mint tea. That’s a Moroccan Sunday morning.