25 best Bangladeshi Food
Food in Bangladesh has been shaped by its history and geography. So, the Food has diverse flavours and tastes. Here are the top 10 Foods of Bangladesh.
1. Panta Ilish dish
Panta Ilish is a traditional food that almost every Bangladeshi eats at the Pohela Boishakh Festival (the first day of the Bangla year). It’s the most popular food in Bangladesh. We love this dish as it is a great symbol and celebration of our culture and tradition.
It’s a platter of leftover rice soaked in water and served with fried hilsa, achar, and dal. People eat Panta Ilish in the morning of Pohela Boishakh and then take part in cultural programs. The flavorful, crispy, and delicious hilsa fish served with water-soaked cold rice and spicy bharta presents a combination of salty and chili tastes. You will love it after your first mouthful. Another fish, American shad, tastes like hilsa, so you can buy that and have yourself some Bengali pleasure.
2. Kacchi Biryani food
Kacchi Biryani is one of Bangladeshi people’s most loved foods. It is so loved, it is served at most festivals and special occasions, such as weddings, picnics, etc. I love this dish.
The most popular biryani in Bangladesh is Dhaka Kacchi Biryani. You will always find the Dhaka street biryani stall crowded because of the huge demand for this food. The main ingredients are rice and marinated meat cooked in lots of spices, giving it its special taste. The spices are nutmeg, mace, pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, coriander, mint, ginger, onion, tomatoes, green chilies, and garlic. It is sometimes served with a boiled egg and salad.
This rich and flavorful dish is lip-smackingly good. A tip: take a half spoon of biryani and put it on your tongue without chewing it. You will feel the flavor spreading around your mouth. Everyone is happy with a plate of biryani, so you too should try this little bit of magic.
3. Vuna Khichuri/ Khichuri food
Khichuri is a dish made of rice and lentils (dal). Vuna Khichuri (roasted) is cooked with different ingredients and spices from normal Khichuri. It’s served with roasted meat and pickle. It’s one of the tastiest and the most loved food in Bangladesh. Seasoned with a dash of turmeric and salt and topped with ghee, Khuchuri makes an ideal lunch or dinner.
But you can make it tastier and more “gourmet” by adding veggies, dried fruit, and meat or chicken. It’s a comforting food for rainy days, and very popular at family get-togethers.
4. Morog Polao food
Polao is a rice dish that involves cooking a stock and adding spices. Other varieties of this delicious, mouth-watering food are Morog Polao or Chicken Polao, which is Polao served with chicken.
Polao and biryani are cooked with the same rice but they taste different because of the different variety of spices used. But when you are eating Morog Polao, you know you are not eating something ordinary. It has the taste of royalty and is often eaten at celebrations and other special occasions.
5. Grill Chicken With Naan Roti food
Almost every restaurant in Bangladesh serves this dish, and more than 50,000 grilled chickens are sold every day throughout the country. There are different ways of grilling chicken and there are many variations of spices that are used. Many restaurants roast chickens in a glass oven placed outside to entice people to eat. It’s a very successful strategy.
Now, it is mostly eaten with Naan Roti. Naan Roti is an oven-baked leavened flatbread—the perfect food with chicken. The bread is a little sweet while the chicken is spicy. This combination creates a fabulous wild taste in your mouth.
6. Haleem dish
Haleem is an Arabic dish. It is a popular stew made with meat—usually beef or mutton—lentils, barley, and spices. It is sold on street stalls and in bazaars (markets) as a snack, and making haleem involves a lengthy and complex process. It can be served with mint, lemon juice, coriander leaves, fried onions, ginger root, and green chillies.
Haleem is a high-calorie dish, providing protein from meat and fibre and carbohydrates from the combinations of grains and pulses. This is quite possibly why the dish is so popular for breaking fast during Ramadan.
7. Seekh Kebab fish
Seekh Kebab is a Turkish dish that has become very popular in Bangladesh. The beef is prepared with various spices creating unique flavors. It is a delicious appetizer, soft and succulent, and seasoned with ginger, garlic, green chilli pepper, powdered chilli, and other spices.
The preparation of Seekh Kebab really brings out the flavour of the meat. Some people eat it with Roti, others prefer to eat it on its own.
8. Puchka dish
Probably the most loved snack and street food in the whole of Bangladesh is Puchka. It originated in India but has become popular in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal. Puchka is a round or ball-shaped deep-fried, crisp flatbread which is served with mashed potato, dal, chaat masala, onion, and coriander.
As soon as you smell a puchka, you know you are going to have a great taste experience. You get the perfect mix of cold, spicy, tart, sweet, and crunch. So popular is it, that people will often hang out with friends at roadside puchka stalls.
9. Rasgulla food
Rasgulla or Roshogulla (syrup-filled roll) is one of the most popular sweets in Bangladesh. It is traditionally eaten after lunch as the people of Bangladesh love to eat sweet dishes after a heavy meal. Sweet and spongy rasgulla is also served to guests and at festivals and special occasions.
Its origins are contested. Some believe Rasgulla originated in East India while others claim that was Bangladesh. It is made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena and semolina, cooked in a light syrup. The syrup soaks into the dumplings, creating soft, fluffy, syrupy white-colored sweets that melt in the mouth. They can be eaten hot, cold or at room temperature: and each one tastes different.
10. Mishti Doi (Yoghurt) dish
This is the second most consumed food at festivals and celebrations after biryani. Here, the tradition of eating something sweet after a heavy meal is served by Misti Doi.
Mishti Doi is fermented sweet dahi, originating from the Bogra district of Bangladesh. It is mainly made with milk and sugar, but it differs from plain yogurt due to its preparation technique. Mishti Doi is prepared by boiling milk until it thickens slightly, sweetening it with sugar, either Gura (brown sugar) or khejur gura (date molasses), and allowing the milk to ferment overnight. Earthenware pots are always used for making dahi because the water gradually evaporates through their porous sides. This further thickens the yogurt, but also creates the right temperature for the culture to grow. The result is a pale yellow yoghurt which is always served on a custom-made earthen plate.
Misti Doi tastes elegant yet is comforting and sweet. It has a creamy, pudding-like texture with a deep, rich flavor of dark caramel and a touch of acidity that makes it refreshing.
