This is a guest post written by a Moroccan mother and Registered Dietitian, Maryam. Use this as your opportunity to explore feeding your baby from the cultural lens of someone else. As always, we take great care in showcasing the voices of others, so we hope you enjoy this article and recipes included…which btw… we think are delicious after trying them ourselves!
My name is Maryam and I’m a Registered Dietitian based in Atlantic Canada -Saint John, New Brunswick, to be precise. I became a mama in 2023, and I’m a full-time step mama to a seven year old.
I was born in Morocco, and my parents immigrated to Montreal when I was only six months old. Since I was so young, I don’t remember much from my time there. We didn’t visit Morocco, as a lot of my family lives in the United States and in Canada, too. The main two ways I was exposed to my culture were through Arabic pop music (that I still blast in the car and while cleaning) and through food.
I left home and moved to Atlantic Canada a few years ago for my Dietetics studies. Before then, I never realized how comforting and important Moroccan foods were to me. My mom, an amazing cook, makes everything from scratch from memory, without measuring anything!
Healing my inner child, too
My daughter, Kenza, is only at the start of her feeding journey with solids, and it’s such a pleasure to see her enjoy foods of my culture, which is her culture, too. It has been so healing for me. Similar to a lot of children of immigrants, I wasn’t embracing my Moroccan heritage much when I was younger, especially after we moved to a town in the suburbs where I was clearly a minority, and my cultural food was often welcomed with a side eye during lunch time at school.
Fast forward to today. I have been rediscovering these meals with Kenza, and I cannot wait to visit my parents so they can see it in person, and create new memories around our favourite cultural foods.
I’m excited to share a few ways you can introduce your baby to Moroccan cuisine whether it’s a part of your heritage or not! First, let’s look at some of the common ingredients you’ll find in our cultural dishes.
Common Moroccan food ingredients
Many people think Moroccan food is spicy. It actually isn’t! I find most meals have a combination of sweet and savoury, which I’m a huge fan of.
A lot of the everyday meals include vegetables, meat, fish, legumes, healthy fats, and fragrant spices. Moreover, in Moroccan cuisine, our hands or bread are our primary utensils, so these recipes are perfect if you choose a baby-led weaning approach for feeding your baby.
Back to those common food ingredients, here they are:
- Spices: cumin, cinnamon, paprika, and ginger
- Olive oil
- Lemons
- Herbs: parsley and cilantro
- Tomato paste
- Dry green lentils and beans
5 Moroccan dishes you can feed your baby
Okay, let’s dive right in!
L3dess
Yes – there IS a number in that word. Arabic, written phonetically using our English alphabet, uses numbers to describe sounds that simply don’t exist in the English language! You could say the name of this meal with the pronunciation ler-diss, or by simply calling it a Moroccan lentil soup.
It’s actually the first Moroccan meal I mastered, and managed to make it taste exactly like my mom’s. It’s also the first cultural food I fed my husband, step-daughter, and daughter! It’s in our family rotation because it’s tasty, nutritious, quick to make, and only uses one pot (two if you make some for baby!).
As a gift to you, here’s the recipe (makes about 8 adult portions)
L3dess
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry green lentils
- 1 large onion cut in strips for older kids and adults, finely minced for baby
- 1 large carrot cut in half moons for older kids and adults, grated for baby
- 2 celery stalks roughly chopped for older kids and adults, finely minced for baby
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 pinch cayenne optional
- Salt and pepper to taste (no salt for baby)
- 6 cups broth water for baby
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- Fresh parsley or coriander to garnish
Instructions
- Soak your lentils while you prepare your vegetables.
- Heat up about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pot on medium-high. Add onions, carrots and celery and stir until the onions are translucent. About 2 minutes.
- Add lentils, garlic, tomato paste, cumin, and ground coriander. Stir to coat all the ingredients with the spices.
- Add broth or water. Once it has reached a boil, reduce the heat to medium, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, add olive oil and let cook for another 10 minutes, or until your lentils are nice and soft. Depending on the heat, you may need to add more water so keep an eye on that, too.
- Freeze some for later!
Loubia
So many cultures around the world have a bean stew. Well, so do we and it’s called loubia! When translated, “loubia” is simply the Arabic word for “beans”. I love this recipe for a few reasons:
- It’s a one pot recipe which means less clean up!
- It uses basic staple and budget-friendly ingredients
- There are little to no adaptations necessary for baby
- You will find healthy fats, vitamin C, and iron all in one bite
- It freezes really well
Loubia
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 can 540 ml or 19 oz of white cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 100 g stewing beef cubes optional
- 1 red onion minced
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp of each : black pepper paprika, ground ginger, cumin, ground coriander, parsley, salt (omit salt for baby)
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup low sodium crushed tomato
- 1 cup broth (no-sodium broth or water for baby) 1 cup if you make it without meat, 2 cups if you add meat
- olive oil for garnishing
Instructions
- Add oil to a large pot, on medium-high heat.
- Add the meat to brown, along with the onions, garlic and spices.
- Once the meat is brown and onions are soft, add tomato paste and beans. Coat the beans evenly with the spices and tomato.
- Add crushed tomatoes and broth.
- Let it reach a simmer and lower the heat. Simmer while stirring occasionally, for about 15-20 min or until the stew has thickened and the beans are nice and soft.
- For baby’s recipe, remove meat, and use a potato masher to make it a lumpy purée. Using an immersion blender is also an option.
- Garnish with olive oil.
Lamb and prune tagine
This lamb and prune tagine is my favourite meal that my mother makes. It’s also the first meal my mom ever cooked for my husband, and now she makes it every time we visit.
This lamb stew has the sweet and salty combo I love about Moroccan cuisine. It’s also a one-pot recipe, so yay for less dishes! The lamb ends up so tender you don’t even need utensils to eat it.
You can find the recipe for lamb and prune tagine I used here.
Here are the adaptations I used to make this recipe baby friendly:
- I start by making her portion in a separate pot where I didn’t use any salt
- I also do not sprinkle hers with sesame seeds or almonds
- I omit the honey when caramelising the prunes and mash her prunes to ensure they are soft and a safe texture.
- My mom enjoys this tagine with hard boiled eggs, so I do this for Kenza too since eggs are so nutritious.
Couscous
Couscous! Morocco’s national meal! I feel like this dish doesn’t need any introductions, but one thing to know is that there are soooo many ways to make couscous:
- With meat, chicken, sausage, or vegetarian with only legumes
- Sweet and savoury, by adding caramelized onions and dried fruits like apricots, dates, raisins, or
- Making it savoury only
Moreover, every family has their own recipe and way to make it, but I found a recipe that looks the most like my version of couscous here.
All the vegetables and meat are usually tender and soft, perfect for a baby that’s starting solids. A few things I would encourage you to do:
- Slice the vegetables in a size and shape that is baby-friendly
- Use a meat that’s going to be nice and tender like lamb, beef, chicken drumsticks, or ground meat kabobs
- Omit the chickpeas if given to a 6 to 9 month old, or flatten them if baby is over the age of 9 months
- Omit dried fruit on baby’s plate as most of them are hard to chew
- Not use any salt
Beghrir
Beghrir are Moroccan fluffy pancakes. They are different from typical Western pancake as these are extremely airy and you’ll notice they are filled with tiny holes. One more thing, these pancakes don’t need to be flipped!
This is a Beghrir recipe that you could use.
Beghrir are typically drizzled with honey and butter, which gets completely soaked up by the spongy pancake, but I suggest you omit the honey for baby since it isn’t recommended under 12 months of age due to the risk of botulism. Instead, using butter and puréed fruit can work!
There you have it—five Moroccan-inspired dishes that are perfect for nourishing your baby and family. And if you made it this far, thanks for letting me share.
From savoury soups to sweet desserts, these recipes celebrate the rich culinary heritage of Morocco while introducing your little one to a world of flavours and aromas.
Happy cooking, and as we say in Arabic, Bismillah!
From Jess and Nita:
A huge thank you to Maryam for lending her expertise on Moroccan foods you can adapt to serve your baby! If you’d like to learn more from Maryam, you can follow her here.
If you want to expand your baby’s palate to include other international dishes, check out these posts too:
