Ethiopia Street Food

Ethiopian street food turns the plate itself into the utensil — bread you eat with is as central as anything piled on top of it.

5 street food dishes from Ethiopia — what each one is, why it's made that way, and what to expect when you order it.

Signature street foods of Ethiopia

Honey Wine · Ethiopia's Ceremonial Brew Tej It's sweetened and clarified with the bitter twigs and leaves of a shrub called gesho, which also drives the fermentation instead of commercial yeast. Tej is a home-brewed honey wine fermented with gesho (a hop-like local plant), giving it a sweet, slightly bitter, wine-like character that ranges from light to strongly alcoholic. It's… Fried Snack · Street Staple Sambusa This triangular fried pastry traveled to Ethiopia along Indian Ocean trade routes long before it became a local favorite. A crisp, triangular pastry fried until golden, typically filled with spiced lentils or seasoned minced meat and onion. Vendors sell them from trays or small stalls, especially in the… National Dish · Edible Plate Injera with Wat The plate is bread — and you eat it, cutlery and all, once the stew is gone. A large, spongy sourdough flatbread made from fermented teff flour, spread flat and topped with spiced stews (wat) — lentils, collard greens, spiced meat. Diners tear off pieces of injera… Snack · Roasted Grain Dabo Kolo It's made from the same basic dough as bread, but rolled into tiny sticks and toasted dry — no oil, no frying — until it's crunchy enough to keep… Small, hard sticks or pellets of wheat dough seasoned with berbere spice and a little sugar are baked or pan-toasted until dry and crunchy. Vendors sell bags of it at markets and bus… Street Ceremony · Fresh-Roasted Coffee Buna (Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony) Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee itself, and legend credits its discovery to a goat herder named Kaldi who noticed his goats dancing after… Buna is fresh green coffee beans roasted over hot coals right in front of the drinker, then hand-ground and brewed in a clay pot called a jebena before being poured in a long, unbroken…

More street food in Africa

• Morocco
• Nigeria
• Egypt
• South Africa
• Kenya
• Ghana
• Senegal
• Tunisia
• Algeria
• Tanzania
• Uganda
• Zimbabwe
• Cameroon
• Ivory Coast
• Mali
• Rwanda
• Zambia
• Mozambique
• Sudan
• Libya
• DR Congo
• Somalia
• Madagascar
• Botswana
• Namibia