Dukkah: Ingredients, Flavor and Uses

Tear off some bread, dip it in olive oil, then into the dukkah. That’s the classic way to eat this coarse Egyptian mix of crushed seeds, spices and often nuts (also written duqqa). Unlike most spice blends, it’s a condiment with crunch, not a powder, and food writer Claudia Roden is firm that it should never be a paste.¹ Sesame, coriander seed and cumin are the usual core. You’ll often see it called ancient, but we found no evidence for that.

At a glance


What it is	A crushed, dry mixture of seeds, spices and often nuts
Name	From the Arabic verb meaning “to pound”
Where	Egypt and the wider Near East; served at breakfast in Egypt
Typical ingredients	Sesame, coriander seed, cumin, salt, pepper; hazelnuts in some versions
Texture	Crushed and dry, not a paste (Claudia Roden)¹
Eaten	With bread dipped in olive oil
Official standard	None found; the USDA spice-blend specification does not include it²
Keeps	No more than a month, refrigerated, for a version with nuts (Food & Nutrition Magazine)³
Allergens	Often contains tree nuts and sesame, both major allergens in the US⁴

What is in it

The Oxford Companion to Food describes the mix as typically sesame and coriander seeds, cumin, salt and pepper, maybe with hazelnuts, and cites Claudia Roden (1985) on how much the ingredients vary. Roden also quotes a 19th-century source listing zaatar (or wild marjoram, or mint), sesame, coriander seeds, cinnamon and chickpeas.¹

Here are a few versions side by side:

Version	Ingredients	Source
Oxford Companion to Food, typical	Sesame seeds, coriander seeds, cumin, salt, pepper; perhaps hazelnut	¹
19th-century list quoted by Claudia Roden	Zaatar or wild marjoram or mint, sesame, coriander seeds, cinnamon, chickpeas	¹
Michele Redmond, Food & Nutrition Magazine	1/3 cup each hazelnuts and almonds, 2 heaping tbsp sesame, 2 tbsp coriander seeds, 1 tbsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp black peppercorns, 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt	³

Nuts are optional in the older descriptions and central to a lot of modern recipes. Redmond bakes the nuts at 375°F until lightly browned, 4 to 8 minutes, toasts the sesame in a skillet, and heats the other spices until fragrant, about 3 minutes, before crushing everything together.³

Name and history

The word comes from the Arabic verb meaning “to pound.” Food & Nutrition Magazine puts it as crushing or turning to powder.³

You’ll often see dukkah called ancient Egyptian. The Oxford Companion makes no such claim; its oldest reference is the 19th-century list Roden quotes.¹ We found no evidence for an ancient origin, so we’re not repeating it.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Dukkah tastes toasty and nutty, with citrusy coriander, earthy cumin, a little pepper and salt. The aroma compounds have been measured for the individual spices:

Ingredient	What has been measured	Source
Coriander seed	Linalool and related terpene alcohols, 60 to 80% of the essential oil	⁵
Cumin	Cuminaldehyde, 20 to 72% of the essential oil	⁶
Black pepper	Piperine, the main pungent alkaloid	⁷

We didn’t find a published analysis of dukkah as a whole.

How dukkah is eaten

The classic way is bread dipped first in olive oil, then in dukkah. In Egypt it’s a breakfast food. Michele Redmond suggests mixing it with olive oil as a dip, using it as a dip for raw vegetables, or putting it on flatbread, over roasted vegetables or in a grated carrot salad.³

It also makes a crust or crunchy finish for lamb, chicken, fish, eggs or yogurt, the way any toasted seed and nut mix does. For more ideas, see dukkah uses.

Buying and quality

We found no standard for dukkah; the USDA’s spice-blend specification doesn’t include it.² Check the label for which nuts it has, if any, and how much salt. Roden’s test is texture, so look for a coarse, dry crumble, not a fine powder or an oily paste.

Storage

Food & Nutrition Magazine says the natural oils in the nuts and sesame mean it doesn’t keep long, and advises storing it in the fridge for no more than a month.³ That’s the author’s advice for her nut version, not a measured shelf life.

Safety

Allergens. The FDA lists tree nuts and sesame among the nine major food allergens.⁴ Most dukkah contains sesame, and many versions contain hazelnuts or almonds. Check the label, and ask when it’s served in restaurants.

Lead in spices generally. A New York City health department review of 1,496 spice samples collected from 2008 to 2017 found detectable lead in more than half.⁸ The abstract doesn’t break results out by product.

Health claims

You’ll see claims that dukkah lowers cholesterol or prevents diabetes or obesity. We couldn’t trace any of them to a regulator or systematic review, so we don’t make them.

Substitutes and comparisons

Dukkah substitutes
Dukkah uses
A related seed-and-herb blend: zaatar

The main ingredients: sesame seeds, coriander, cumin, fennel seed, black pepper, marjoram, mint and cinnamon.

Alan Davidson, “Duqqa”, The Oxford Companion to Food, 2014. app.ckbk.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Commercial Item Description A-A-20001C, Spices and Spice Blends, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, 2023. ams.usda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩²
Michele Redmond, “Do You Dukkah? You’ve Got to Try the Egyptian Spice Mix”, Food & Nutrition Magazine. foodandnutrition.org · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
“Food Allergies”, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. fda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩²
Al-Khayri et al., “Essential Oil from Coriandrum sativum: A Review”, Molecules, 2023. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩
P.C.M. Jansen, Cuminum cyminum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
McNamara, Randall and Gunthorpe, “Effects of piperine at the human vanilloid receptor (TRPV1)”, British Journal of Pharmacology, 2005. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Peer-reviewed ↩
Hore et al., “A Spoonful of Lead: A 10-Year Look at Spices as a Potential Source of Lead Exposure”, Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 2019. scholars.mssm.edu · Peer-reviewed ↩