🥟
✨ Newstarter
Mantu
Delicate Afghan steamed dumplings filled with spiced minced lamb and onion, served on a bed of garlicky yogurt and tomato sauce — a celebration dish of exquisite flavour.
⏱ 100 min🔥 480 kcalHard
★4.8(394)
13 recipes using garlic — Kabuli pulao, mantu, bolani — fragrant, spiced dishes from the crossroads of Asia.
These 13 afghan garlic recipes are ready in about 96 minutes on average, with 280–720 kcal per serving, and 31% are rated easy enough for a weeknight. Every recipe includes exact ingredient quantities, step-by-step instructions and full nutrition per serving.
Afghan cuisine — Kabuli pulao, mantu, bolani — fragrant, spiced dishes from the crossroads of Asia — brings its own distinctive techniques and seasonings to every ingredient it touches. When Afghan cooks work with garlic, they reach for its own regional aromatics, fats and signature spice blends, and the techniques that come up most across these recipes are frying, simmering, boiling and steaming.
The aromatic foundation of savoury cooking almost everywhere — pungent raw, sweet and mellow when cooked. In this collection it's most often cooked with ground coriander, dried mint, onion, turmeric, plain flour and ground cumin. The dishes here span afghan classics ready in as little as 50 minutes to slower, more involved cooking that rewards a relaxed afternoon.
Reader favourite: Ashak — Afghan Leek Dumplings is the highest-rated dish in this collection at 4.9★ from 1,654 ratings.
Delicate Afghan steamed dumplings filled with spiced minced lamb and onion, served on a bed of garlicky yogurt and tomato sauce — a celebration dish of exquisite flavour.
Thin flatbread filled with spiced potato, leek or pumpkin, pan-fried in oil until golden and crispy — Afghanistan's most beloved street food and celebration bread.
A fragrant Afghan lamb stew cooked down with spinach, leeks, coriander and dried fenugreek leaves until deeply green and intensely flavoured.
Delicate Afghan dumplings filled with spiced leek and spring onion, served on a bed of yoghurt and topped with a rich lamb and tomato sauce and dried mint.
Afghanistan's celebrated steamed dumplings — delicate pasta parcels filled with spiced minced beef and onion, served on a bed of yogurt and topped with a rich tomato-chickpea sauce.
Delicate Afghan dumplings filled with scallions and leeks, topped with meat sauce and yogurt.
Tender fried eggplant layered with spiced tomato sauce and cooling yogurt — Afghanistan's beloved vegetable dish.
Afghanistan's most celebrated dish for guests — delicate steamed dumplings filled with spiced beef and onion, draped in a yogurt and tomato sauce, topped with split peas and dried mint. A labour of love.
Afghanistan's beloved stuffed flatbread — thin rounds of unleavened dough filled with spiced potato, leek or pumpkin, pan-fried until golden and flaky. The street food of Kabul.
Afghanistan's essential everyday soup — bone-in lamb and chickpeas simmered in a fragrant tomato and vegetable broth with turmeric, coriander and cinnamon. Ladled over flatbread for a complete meal.
Afghan leek and scallion dumplings topped with spiced ground beef and yoghurt sauce — a national treasure.
Afghan baked sweet pumpkin in a spiced tomato meat sauce, topped with garlicky yoghurt — a beautiful autumn dish.
Afghanistan's celebration dumpling: paper-thin pasta filled with sautéed leeks, topped with garlic yoghurt and spiced lamb sauce.
Pick firm, heavy heads with tight, papery skin and no green shoots or soft spots. Fresh garlic far outperforms jarred pre-minced, which tastes flat and slightly sour.
Crush to release more of its pungent compounds, slice for a milder bite, or roast whole until jammy and sweet. Add minced garlic late and keep it moving — it burns and turns bitter in seconds.
Eaten in small amounts, but a source of allicin and other sulphur compounds linked to heart and immune benefits.
Most of these 13 Afghan garlic recipes are ready in around 96 minutes from start to finish. The quickest, Bolani — Afghan Stuffed Flatbread, takes about 50 minutes, while the slower-cooked dishes run up to 135 minutes.
Across this collection they range from about 280 to 720 kcal per serving, averaging 469 kcal — Afghan Borani Banjan (Eggplant with Yogurt) is the lightest option at 280 kcal.
Bolani — Afghan Stuffed Flatbread is a great place to start — it's rated easy and comes together in about 50 minutes. 31% of the recipes here are beginner-friendly.
In these recipes, garlic is most often paired with ground coriander, dried mint, onion, turmeric, plain flour and ground cumin. Afghan kitchens also lean on its own regional aromatics, fats and signature spice blends.