12 Essential Mediterranean Ingredients, Explained

Mediterranean cooking is often touted as one of the world's healthiest diets and has been the darling of nutrition-forward thinking for ages. This is largely thanks to Mediterranean cooking methods, plus the use of whole foods and fresh, seasonal produce. The cuisines in the Mediterranean are not monotone, however — vast and diverse cooking can be found not only between countries but within them as well. Along its coastline, the Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by twenty-two countries, spanning from Spain and Morocco in the West to Syria and Lebanon in the East. This body of water has deep historical significance as the connecting point for three continents: Africa, Europe, and Asia.

While Mediterranean cuisines vary, certain characteristics connect this part of the world. The sunny climate and fertile lands produce bountiful fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and people are accustomed to buying and cooking foods seasonally. Certain ingredients are essential all over the region and are a good starting point if you want to get into Mediterranean cooking. Many of these are about simple, yet powerful flavors that can add life to a dish or provide a base to build upon. Whether you're a newbie to the region's cuisines or just looking to expand your repertoire, these are some of the essential Mediterranean ingredients you need.

One thing that often comes to mind when thinking about the Mediterranean is olive trees. Olive groves grow abundantly and are of great importance to many communities in the region, which produces most of the world's olives. This is why olive oil is perhaps the single most common ingredient across all Mediterranean countries. It can be considered the backbone of the cuisine and it's definitely one you need to keep stocked in your pantry.

Many people use it as their oil of choice for cooking, frying eggs, and sauteing onions to build a sauce, among many other things, but it doesn't stop there. It's also an ingredient that people use to flavor their food. It's used as a finishing oil for pasta and pizza, drizzled on top of yogurt dips and hummus, and you'll rarely find a salad that isn't dressed with it. It's also the oil used to flavor various North African flatbreads, like kesra, the Algerian semolina bread. It shines as the star of the show all over the Levant and even in places like Italy, where people dip their bread in olive oil as a filling snack or to start a meal. Keep in mind that it's always best to try and get good quality, extra-virgin olive oil for the best flavor.

It's not hard to convince people to use garlic. It's already such a beloved ingredient and unless you have allergies, or can't eat it for religious reasons, you probably already cook with it. Garlic is a strong feature in Mediterranean cuisine, and you can find it heavily used in most of the countries along this coastline. In Lebanon, garlic is turned into a creamy sauce called "toum" which is slathered on grilled meats, and in shawarmas and other sandwiches. You can find a similar sauce, garlic aioli, in the South of France and Spain. Raw garlic is also part of what makes Greek tzatziki so tasty, and it's often an essential ingredient in Italian pesto.

This pungent allium adds so much flavor to cooking, especially considering its size. Whether cooking with garlic or adding it in raw, you only need one clove to make an impact (although garlic lovers would probably add a couple more). The smell of garlic being cooked is usually what people associate with something tasty, and there are even rumors that some restaurants cook up garlic purely for the sake of enticing customers to come in.

All types of citrus are celebrated in Mediterranean cuisine. Lemon is arguably the most common type of citrus used, as it adds the perfect hint of fruity acid to seafood and many other dishes. Not to mention that in Italy and the South of France, it's a popular ingredient to turn into liquors like Italian limoncello. You can also find preserved lemons used in various ways in savory dishes and, in Morocco, they are a key ingredient in chicken and olive tagine.

In North Africa and West Asia, limes are a popular choice for making freshly squeezed "lemonade" and for squeezing on freshly fried falafel or fish. Additionally, oranges, pomelos, mandarins, and grapefruit are enjoyed all over the region, as well as used in cakes, cookies, and even marinades and vinaigrettes. If you're looking to start cooking more Mediterranean cuisine, it's always best to stock up on some citrus, although which type depends greatly on the recipe you're making. When in doubt, go with lemons, as you'll always find something to do with them in Mediterranean cooking.

We may all dream of going to the fresh produce market weekly and making a pot of tomato sauce from the fresh, beautiful tomatoes we picked out, but in a busy life, it's not always possible to live that dream. Luckily, canned tomatoes exist, making our lives easier without needing to cut down on quality and flavor. Canned tomatoes are a super helpful pantry item, and they're just as favored in Mediterranean countries as they are elsewhere in the world. Sure, you'll still find people making dishes using fresh tomatoes and cooking them down, but the truth is, more and more people are turning to canned tomatoes for their convenience and because they give you great-tasting tomatoes even outside of tomato season.

Canned tomatoes are used to make tasty sauces for pasta, pizza, and more. They work great in vegetable soups (or straight-up tomato soup), as the sauce in casseroles like moussaka and ratatouille, and in a spicy North African shakshuka. Having a couple of cans of tomatoes, whether whole or crushed, allows you a world of opportunities. Opt for cans where the ingredient is just tomatoes. Any other additives or ingredients are unnecessary and can take away from the deep tomato flavor you want in Mediterranean cooking.

Eggplant can be a polarizing vegetable, and some people dislike it because of its texture, flavor, or simply because it wasn't prepared the right way. When prepared well, eggplant can be deliciously meaty or even silky smooth. Often people don't realize that salting eggplant before cooking will help remove the bitterness that this veggie tends to have. 

In addition to Japan and other East Asian countries, the Mediterranean is where many of the world's eggplant recipes come from. Think of moussaka — which is eaten in Egypt, Greece, the Balkans, and beyond — or ratatouille in France, eggplant parmigiana in Italy, pickled eggplant and makdous (stuffed mini eggplants) in West Asia and North Africa. Eggplant is also delicious in some of our favorite Middle Eastern dips like baba ganoush and moutabal, or a Balkan ajvar. If you don't know what to do with eggplant, look no further than some of these dishes to fall in love with this versatile ingredient.

Other than olive oil, there's another favorite fat in the Mediterranean, and it's clarified butter. You may know it as ghee if you're familiar with Indian cuisine, but clarified butter is used extensively in countries in North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as certain Southern European countries. Clarified butter is pure butterfat, which means the water and milk solids have been removed. It has a more potent, slightly nuttier taste than regular butter, and it adds great flavor to dishes. In Egypt for example, clarified butter is used for cooking in various ways, added to rice, soups, eggs, and baked goods.

You can find clarified butter in certain grocery stores, but it's easy to clarify butter yourself at home. Using unsalted butter, let your butter come to a light boil on the stove. You'll notice foam start to form on top. Leave it to keep simmering until the foam all sinks to the bottom, and the boiling gradually stops. This indicates that all the water has boiled out, and you're able to strain the butterfat from the milk solids with ease.

Harissa paste is an all-purpose spicy condiment you should try if you like a little heat in your cooking. Originating in Tunisia, harissa has become a staple ingredient across North Africa. It's also made its way to the common grocery items in the South of France, and across the world, where it's a relatively easy ingredient to find in the international aisle of most supermarkets. Harissa owes its popularity to just how moreish and enticing it is. You'll smell it in your dish before you even know it's there. Its fiery kick announces itself immediately on your tongue, along with aromatic flavors of garlic, caraway, cumin, chile, and tomato, among other things.

There are numerous "hot sauces" in different Mediterranean countries, but harissa is a good place to start because it's a flavor powerhouse. It will instantly give any dish an intense flavor upgrade. It's the perfect paste to get your shakshuka started in the pan. Mix some in with your eggs, tuna salad, or even add it to your next marinara sauce for a spicy twist. For people who don't tolerate spicy heat, you can sometimes find milder harissa brands in specialty food stores.

Olives may be prized for their oil in the Mediterranean, but they're also incredibly beloved in their own right. Throughout the countries of this region, you'll find different varieties of olives and different flavors used in their recipes. Olives are added to all sorts of dishes, from pasta to pizza, salads, sandwiches, eggs, and more. They are salty, tangy, and savory, so they add a powerful lift to foods that may be a little bland or simple in taste.

There's nothing quite like picking out some tasty olives from buckets of colorful varieties at an open-air market in the Mediterranean, but that doesn't mean you can't still have some great olives at home. There are plenty of options in most grocery stores, but a visit to a Greek or Middle Eastern deli can give you more choices and interesting flavor combinations. You can snack on them as-is, add them to a mezze platter with some pita bread, hummus, and pickles, or incorporate them into puttanesca pasta, a Greek salad, or even a Tunisian-inspired tuna salad.

Tahini is a popular paste made from sesame seeds. It's so ubiquitous in the Middle East that it is sometimes referred to as the local peanut butter equivalent. Plain tahini can be mixed with some honey or molasses and spread on bread. In its more well-known use, tahini is turned into a sauce by mixing it with some lemon juice, water, salt, and perhaps some spices like cumin, garlic, and herbs. This tahini sauce is then drizzled on many savory dishes, from grilled fish to kebabs, on beans, falafel, and of course, in a shawarma sandwich. It's also what gives hummus its signature nutty tang.

It's always best to buy tahini paste that's just made of sesame seeds so that you can use it in multiple applications. You can add it to your smoothies to thicken them and make them creamy without dairy, or you can even bake with it. Either way, remember that tahini is an ingredient you need to add other things to and it's not usually eaten on its own, or just spooned out of the jar (it'll likely be too bitter). When you want to make a dressing or sauce with it, it's a good idea to add a little water at a time and mix until it smooths out.

Fresh herbs are sort of the silent hero of Mediterranean cooking. While in the US we might use a lot of dried herbs, fresh herbs are incorporated in many dishes and recipes in Mediterranean recipes. They bring a whole lot of earthy freshness to cold dishes (like salads) and are sometimes cooked into hot dishes, too. We all know fresh basil is the star of Italian cooking, and there's nothing like pesto made from freshly picked basil leaves. In France, parsley and chervil tend to shine, while in Greece, mint is hugely popular.

Interestingly, it's not down to just one or two herbs either, but there are a variety of herbs that get used, sometimes even in the same dish. Take stuffed grape leaves for example (also called dolma, dolmades, or warak enab), which are eaten in Egypt, the Levant, Turkey, Greece, and throughout the Balkans. These little fingers are often made with a stuffing that incorporates three types of herbs: fresh cilantro, parsley, and dill. Fresh herbs can wilt pretty quickly in your fridge if you don't use them up in time, so it's always best to buy them fresh for cooking in a day or two.

Perhaps one of the most underrated things about Mediterranean cuisine is just how much legumes are eaten. Instead of an overreliance on meat, many Mediterranean communities rely on beans, lentils, peas, and chickpeas for protein and sustenance. If these are foods you're not as familiar with or don't know how to make delicious, then look no further than the recipes you might find in this part of the world.

You'll find most of the countries, especially in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean have a version of lentil soup that is full of flavor and zing. It's unlikely that you'll dislike Turkish red lentil soup given how nourishing and comforting it is. Often a combination of spices, alliums, fresh herbs, and citrus juice brings legumes to life in various bean stews, soups, and more. In Greece, a bowl of baked large white beans called gigantes plaki is as meaty and tasty as any meat dish, while a fava bean stew called ful medames, is a protein-packed Egyptian breakfast that will power you up until lunch. Buy your legumes dried and soak them overnight, or opt for canned or jarred for quicker and easier cooking.

In the US, we may associate yogurt with a breakfast food, or a sweet snack, but in parts of the Mediterranean, it's an integral ingredient to cook and eat savory. In Turkey specifically, warm yogurt soup is a popular dish, as is eating yogurt with eggs, as you do with çılbır. In Greece and Balkan countries like Albania, yogurt is turned into various dips. Yogurt is often strained to make it extra thick and creamy, and sometimes it's turned into a savory, almost cheese spread-like texture like with Lebanese labneh.

There are countless ways to use yogurt, and you can also add it to marinades to create a creamy, tangy coating for chicken, pork, and beef skewers. Of course, you can eat it sweet too. To really experience the pleasure of eating yogurt, try it as a dessert and use thick, good-quality Greek yogurt, drizzled with honey and roasted nuts. You'll be amazed at how delicious and satisfying a dessert that these three simple ingredients can be.