Food culture in Iran

[“Typical Iranian main dishes are combinations of rice with meat (such as lamb, chicken, or fish), vegetables (such as onions and various herbs), and nuts. Fresh green herbs are frequently used, along with fruits such as plums, pomegranate, quince, prunes, apricots, and raisins. Characteristic Iranian flavorings such as saffron, dried lime, cinnamon, and parsley are mixed and used in some special dishes.”] – source Wikipedia. Don’t y’all pretend like you don’t use it as a source too sometimes

Your go to Persian food:

Ash Reshteh – Soup with beans, herbs and noodles – don’t forget to ask to get without any sour cream

Tahdig – Rice with crips bottom, sometimes with potato slices set at the bottom too

Sabzi Polo – Rice with herbs(often served with fish so make sure to ask for it without fish)

Baghali Polo – Rice with beans and dill (extra good with raisin and fried onions)

Adasi – Lentil Soup(can sometimes be made with butter instead of oil so ask about that)

Lobia – Black Eyed Bean soup

Spaghetti with soy – this is a very common dish in Iran but they often mix the soy mince with real minced meat, so just be sure that it’s only got soy.

Shiraz Salas – Green salad with tomato, cucumber, red onion

Baba Ganoush – Aubergineröra

Samosa – Stuffed pastry, often with meat but there are also one’s filled with vegetables

Felafel/Falafel – These round and fried balls of chickpeas and herbs you’ve probably tried before. Cause they’re simply amazing

Lavashak – Dried fruit roll, comes in all kinds of flavours

Restaurants

These are the restaurants I tried in Tehran:

Zamin – Completely vegan restaurant with a massive menu

Pure Vegetarian Cuisine – small menu but good food, a few vegan options

Iranians Artist’s Forum – A few vegan options and at least the food I had was amazing

And there are more options that you can check out here at HappyCow’s website

Stores

Much of the food in the store has ingredients lists in English as well as Persian, which makes is possible for you to read the labels yourself.

I saw two different brands of Soy milk and they both offered a wide selection of flavours including natural, vanilla, malt, chocolate, cappuccino and strawberry.

You can also get dried soy and falafel in almost every store.

I had a hard time finding plain crackers that were free from any kind of milk, but I did find wafers with many different flavours that were vegan. The wafers had flavours of orange, banana and melon to name a few.

But most importantly – eat the locally grown fruits and vegetables. The melons I had in Iran were the best I’ve ever had.