5 Best Dishes to Eat When You’re in Pakistan!

Pakistani food is rich, packed full of spice, generous with ghee, and unbelievably tasty.

In this list of the 5 dishes to eat in Pakistan, I’m going to share with you the best dishes I tried during my trip to Pakistan.

Get ready for some serious Pakistani flavor and regional specialties. Enough introductions, lets get to all the dishes.

SHEEP AND GOATS IN CENTRAL PAKISTAN MAY EVEN GROW UP ALREADY DREAMING OF CURRY SPICES…

1. Mutton Korma

For a classic meal of Punjab cuisine it would be mandatory to include at least one dish with mutton – and its likely to be a korma curry – just as beautiful as the one you see here.

Mutton korma is hearty and rich, including incredibly tender chunks of sheep or goat meat, and a dark red blend of spices.

From the top of Pakistan’s Himalayas to the bottom of the Indian Sub-Continent, a large portion of planet earth’s population is probably dreaming of their mother’s mutton curry right this minute. We had some amazing mutton curries in Pakistan, one specifically if you’re in Lahore, don’t miss the mutton korma at Khan Baba restaurant.

GREEN PLATE OF GREEN MUSTARD GREENS SAAG, ENJOYED STREET-SIDE IN PESHAWAR

2. Saag

Another dish commonly found throughout the Punjab Province of Pakistan is Saag. The dishes name simply means ‘mustard greens,’ and there can be any number of other ingredients cooked along with it.

The mustard greens are slow-cooked until its leaves are so soft they’re literally breaking apart, it almost resembles a stew its so gooey. Seasoning includes mint, coriander, and chili flakes, and usually includes generous amounts of glorious desi ghee.

(You may know the more internationally-famous version, saag paneer, made with soft cheese. In Pakistan though, you can come across many with more brave additions. In the Northern town of Skardu, enjoy an incredible version made with huge chunks of mutton meat, and the saag dish from the Peshawari Grandfather in the photo above was even sour (maybe made with mustard greens?), very health-ful feeling and using minimal seasonings, and he serves it cold! Refreshing.)

FRESHLY CHURNED BUFFALO BUTTER, FEW THINGS ARE MORE CREAMY THAN HAND-MADE LASSI.

3. Lassi

After all the gloriously heavy meat meals in Pakistan, you will love the cool and refreshing tradition of enjoying lassi after breakfast, lunch, or really any time possible.

Lassi is simply the name of the beverage, so many of the variations in English will simply be written as ‘salt lassi,’ or ‘sweet lassi,’ or a fruit variation with mango.

The style most Pakistani lassi makers use involves making the drink from scratch. Very cool to watch each cup of milk transform, versions including cream or even butter even allow you to even watch the chef churn it all by hand.

Some can be extremely simple, made with nothing but yoghurt, some sugar, and ice water, or others (like the version pictures above) include layer upon layer of ingenious flavor and texture combinations.

For the richest lassi I’ve ever had in my life, head to Chacha Feeka Lassi peray wali – it’s hard to believe how rich, creamy, and incredibly satisfying their lassis are.

ALL THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS, SMELLS, AND TASTES OF A COUNTRY, FITTING ONTO A SINGLE SMOKY GRILL

4. Tikka Kebab

Few dishes could possibly have the people of Central Asia welcoming you to eat and enjoy more than Pakistani tikkas. Tikka is a special type of ‘kebab,’ the main thing being that tikka uses larger chunks of marinated meat (kebab meat is usually minced and then seasoned, and formed onto the skewer by hand)

Since back when it was a daily meal of nomadic herders, or one using an ancient Kings’ fatty lambs, all the way to the present day mega-city road-side BBQs – this truly is an Ultimate food of all Humankind.

A fore-most food on the mind of anyone traveling in (or native to) this entire part of the world, the time-less and ever-simple practice eating skewers of chunks of meat cooking over open flame has never, and will never cease to satisfy.

I have been lucky enough to enjoy meat like this in many countries, and Pakistan instantly joins the ranks of the Greats.

Middle-Eastern style kebab in Dubai, in Israel, in Turkey, modern variations served as far East as my own home in Thailand, and then of course most recently in the wonderful city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan; these are all wonderful food memories.

THE COLD WEATHER FOODS LIKE CHAPSHURRO WARM THE STOMACH AND THE HEART.

5. Chapshurro (or Chapshoro)

Moving on now to more unique, local cuisines, from Pakistan’s northern people groups (Gilgit Baltistan), the first thing you absolutely have to try is Chapshurro.

‘Chap,’ just means meat, and these wonderful hotplate cakes often contain yak meat. These cook on a large convex steel/iron plate, and are the perfect snack for a traveler when the weather starts to cool.

Seasoning them simply with onions and pepper, a sweet carrot, or maybe a small locally grown tomato, these will be the only vegetable ingredients. Using local species of wheat, the specific dough recipe, feeling, and consistency can vary widely from town to town.

This was one dish always highly recommended by locals throughout the Gilgit Baltistan region. I thought it was a perfect example of the diversity there is to discover among the food from all the various parts of Pakistan.

One of the more famous places to find this dish is right along the highway, driving from Gilgit to the Hunza Valley, just past the breath-takingly pretty Ataabad Lake. You can see some great footage here from this incredible day of our trip.