Why you should travel to morocco if you’re Vegetarian / Vegan

If you’re worried about whether or not there will be great options or tasty food for you as a vegetarian stop thinking that way, we moroccans love our meat and it’s served always in the main meals but for sure there a variety of delicious vegetarians options too.
Morocco is great country for Vegetarians or Vegan food lovers we have a great choice of vegetable that are grown here locally, also Morocco it’s a sunny country, all around the year we do have 8 months of sun, it’s an agricultural land the vegetables are tasty and yummy and if you’re lucky there is a big chance that you can find them Bio.
in this article we’re gonna list some Viable and non Viable options for your morocco trip as Vegetarian / Vegan
Viable Options :

Salads or starters

As in our culture our meals are three courses menu the starters, the main dish and the desert … the starters can be a various choice of fresh or cooked salad in many restaurants you will find more than 8 choices of starters, the most common ones are Zaalouk which is a delicious recipe made out of eggplant tomato and garlic, Taktouka also is a bell pepper salad with tomatoes and spices, another basic salad that you will find everywhere is a the famous cucumber and tomatoes with a sour dressing “vinaigrette”, and a bunch of other options like broad beans or fava beans, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, caramelized pumpkins, White beans, lentils, green beans, Rice with vegetables … none of those contains any butter or any non vegetarian oil so it’s suitable for vegans … a lot of our vegetarian customers says that the starters are already a complete meals for them unless if you like to have something Hot

The moroccan Bread

the moroccan round bread that you will find everywhere is a great option too to fulfill your carbohydrates needs, with some olives, olive oil, argan oil, Amlou, fruits Jam and honey and without doubt a hot mint tea !! that’s the perfect breakfast for every Moroccan … again it doesn’t contain butter

Vegan Proteins (Nuts)

in every market you will find shops selling almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashew, pistachios … the perfect snacks for vegans and vegetarians and also a great source of proteins

Dry fruits

at the same shops you will find a variety of dry fruits like the famous moroccan dates, Dry figs, apricots, plums or prunes, raisins, even dry Bananas, pineapples and kiwis … and also one of our favorites caramelized ginger, as said before we do have plenty of sun all around the year so all the fruits can be dried to be conserved we did not had any fridges back in the days so we developed our own traditional methods to preserve food

Fruits

depending on the season the choices can be multiple, we grow a variety of fruits here locally like apple, banana, peach, all sorts of berries, apricots, figs, watermelon, melon, avocado, grapes, oranges, grapefruit, pear, pomegranate … and we import a lot of exotic fruits from africa like kiwi pineaple mango papaya … here is a picture of the market during the summer season and also a picture of our tour guide welcoming you to a juice bar, the heaven of fruits you can find those kind of shops everywhere in morocco and they prepare whavere kind of fresh juice for a great price

Vegetarian main meals

And here we are in front of different options from the vegetarian couscous to tagine with vegetables passing by the moroccan lentils, white beans, and also the soups like Bissara which is Broad beans soup and Harira … you can find also in a lot of modern restaurants vegetarian pizza or vegetarian pasta and also a bunch of other options like gratin tacos sandwiches … all kind of Fish are also is an available option in almost everywhere
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Tips & thing to avoid :

• Always ask if in couscous, the vegetables are cooked separately because some restaurant they cook the vegetables with the meat and they just take it off …
• Harira, the moroccan soup sometime we put some small pieces of meat on it and also boiled eggs so always ask the waiter / waitress if it has no meat and/or no eggs
• be careful from all the fries some restaurant use the same oil to fry the meat also, so again always ask
• Moroccan especially in small villages might not understand vegetarianism, the meat for us traditionally is a synonym of wealth, it’s considered hospitable to serve you meat or at least chicken, thus your request can be not understood at a small restaurant …
• Some kind of bread especially the one cooked in a pan like Msmmen, Rziza, Rghayef, betbout or Mkhamer may contain butter and milk so if you’re vegan better to stick with the round bread made in the oven
• almost all the moroccan pastry is vegetarian but it contains butter what makes it non suitable for vegans

And always remember that always wherever you go you will find a wonderful local dish to eat that will satisfy your needs as a Vegetarian or Vegan, so eat as many as flavourful salads and starters you can, and we’re so sure that you won’t find the same taste and the same vegetables and spices combinations from one place to another … so you will not get bored eating the same thing everywhere.