Food guide Tunisia
Tunisian Street Food: Sandwiches, Lablabi & Fried Snacks
Tunisia between bread: the sandwiches, bowls and fried snacks we ate from market corners and marina cafés.
Classic sandwich
Kaskrout tounsi
Cold-day bowl
Lablabi
Fried snack
Fricassé
By the sea
Bambalouni
On this page: Sandwiches · Lablabi · Fried & sweet · Recipes
If there’s one thing Tunisia does brilliantly, it’s turning bread into a meal. Everywhere we went — from market corners to marina cafés — we found ourselves drawn to the smell of sandwiches being assembled, each one a little different but always bursting with flavor. Sandwiches here aren’t an afterthought; they’re a way of life.
Most of it comes with a smear of harissa. For the bigger picture of Tunisian cooking, from brik to couscous, see our Tunisian food guide.
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Tunisia Between Bread: A Sandwich Story
Kaskrout Tounsi
The most famous is the Kaskrout Tounsi, a baguette generously stuffed with tuna, slices of boiled potato, hard-boiled egg, olives, and a good smear of harissa. It’s simple, affordable, and endlessly satisfying. We quickly learned why students, workers, and sailors alike grab them on the go: it’s fuel for the day, wrapped in bread.
Kaskrout Lablébi
Inspired by the country’s humble chickpea stew. Instead of tuna and egg, the baguette is filled with warm chickpeas mashed lightly with garlic, cumin, and harissa, then topped with a drizzle of olive oil and sometimes a slice of egg or tuna. Earthy, hearty, and comforting — like carrying a bowl of stew in your hands, tucked neatly inside bread.
Mlewi
A sandwich with a twist. Instead of a baguette, it’s made with a flaky flatbread cooked on a hot griddle, its layers soaking up harissa and melting cheese. Stuffed with tuna, eggs, or spicy merguez sausage, it’s messy, warm, and utterly addictive. Watching vendors stretch and fold the dough by hand made every bite feel freshly crafted.
Makloub
The indulgent cousin of the bunch. Built on soft flatbread, it’s packed with grilled meat, peppers, onions, cheese, and, of course, harissa. Once pressed on the grill, the bread crisps, the cheese melts, and the whole thing becomes smoky, gooey, and impossible to resist. It was the sandwich we turned to on cooler evenings.
Lablabi: Humble but Rich
On a cold, windy day, we ducked into a small shop near the market. Steam fogged the windows, and everyone inside was bent over steaming bowls. Lablabi. At first glance, it seemed almost too simple: chickpeas in a cumin-scented broth, poured over chunks of day-old bread. But then came the toppings — harissa stirred in for heat, a drizzle of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, olives, capers, even a poached egg.
It was humble food, born of necessity, but it warmed us from the inside out. Around us, workers, students, and families all ate the same dish. It wasn’t just sustenance; it was comfort, shared across generations.
Fried, Sweet and Grilled
Fricassé: A Fried Delight
If lablabi was humble, fricassé was indulgence. Small fried rolls, split open and stuffed with tuna, potato, eggs, olives, and a spoonful of harissa. Crisp outside, soft inside. We bought them from bakeries, from street stalls, even from the marina café. Always cheap, always satisfying, always a reminder that fried bread can solve almost anything.
Bambalouni: Sweet by the Sea
On the beach in Monastir, vendors walked with paper cones full of sugar-dusted doughnuts. They fried them to order, pulling hot rounds from bubbling oil and tossing them straight into sugar. The kids’ faces lit up, cheeks covered in sugar as waves crashed in the background. Simple — dough, oil, sugar — but in that moment, it felt like magic.
Brik from the Fryer
The golden triangle of pastry, tuna, capers, parsley and a runny egg that we first bought from a street stall. Read the full story in our Tunisian food guide.
By nightfall, merguez sausages and sardines sizzle on open grills, tucked into bread with lemon and harissa. Even the simplest street snacks — brik hot from the fryer, a flaky mlewi filled with cheese, a sugar-dusted bambalouni by the sea — carried a kind of joy that made every bite memorable.
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