When Ayala Hodak hosts her friends for Yom Kippur break fast, she prepares a menu centered around this recipe: a meatball-laden soup made tangy with dried Persian limes. She serves it after breaking fast on challah, hard boiled eggs, and her family’s faloodeh.

On Fridays, Orly Elyashar’s grandmother always made her gondi berenji, meatballs stuffed with prunes, served in a broth with potatoes and beans. “Her skirt always smelled like that gondi recipe,” Orly recalls. Some Persian families make this dish for Passover. 

At the Ghalchi’s home on Long Island, tangy ash-e anar reigns supreme. Made with voluminous amounts of finely chopped herbs, thickened with rice and studded with meatballs and chunks of beet, it’s deeply comforting and a wintertime staple. 

Gondi are ubiquitous in Persian-Jewish households, but “go to 10 different houses and you’ll taste 10 different gondis,” says Nilou Ghalchi. Hers are made with ground coriander, cumin, and turkey. Serve them as an appetizer alongside pickles and a plate of fresh herbs. 

Charoset recipes change from community to community and sometimes from home to home. This one from Allegra Ben-Amotz’s Persian family includes three types of nuts, dates, and bananas.  

This Persian herb omelet can be served hot, room temperature, or cold, so it’s easy to make in advance. You can tuck leftover slices into sandwiches along with yogurt.

Crunchy and tangy shirazi salad is a staple on Iranian tables. This recipe comes from My Mythical Kitchen’s Nicole Enayati and her mother. Be sure to dress it right before serving so the vegetables remain crunchy. 

This meatball soup sports an undercurrent of pomegranate and loads of fresh herbs. Persian-Israeli cookbook author Rottem Lieberson’s family serves it on Rosh Hashanah and Friday afternoons before Shabbat arrives. Its brightness is also welcome on cold winter evenings. 

Crunchy, refreshing, and bright, this salad from Rottem Lieberson’s Rosh Hashanah table strikes just the right balance of heat from chili peppers and sweetness from dates.  

Briny olives meet fruity pomegranate and nutty roasted walnuts in this dish from cookbook author Rottem Lieberson, who says it is inspired by her Persian roots. 

In Jewish cooking, stuffed cabbage is often associated with Ashkenazi cooking where it’s filled with meat and rice. This Persian rendition is filled with yellow split peas, beef, and heaps of fresh herbs. 

Food writer Andrea Strong’s family traces their khoresh (Persian stew) recipes like this one back to her grandmother’s hometown of Mashhad, Iran and to her great-grandmother Hannah. In this simple one, beef and chickpeas are seasoned with cinnamon and turmeric. 

In Persian cooking, fruits aren’t reserved exclusively for dessert, cookbook author Rottem Lieberson explains. They are added to stews with meat and vegetables like this khoresh that’s served during the High Holidays.

“We like everything sour, so I add a lot,” says Nilou Ghalchi, scooping frozen sour grapes from the freezer. She keeps them on hand to make joojeh bademjan, a tender, silky chicken and eggplant stew.

Rich and tart, this traditional Persian stew features finely chopped celery and heaps of fresh herbs, which simmer with chunks of beef and whole dried limes until the stew is thick and the meat tender.

An important part of the Persian culinary canon, khoresh gheymeh is a split pea and beef khoresh, or stew. Dried Persian limes add a tang and are worth seeking out at Persian or Middle Eastern grocers or online. 

An iconic Persian stew, ghormeh sabzi is is packed with herbs, which is fitting since sabzi means herbs in Persian. Many traditional recipes use fenugreek leaves, but in Ayala Hodak's family, they use fresh parsley, cilantro, and mint.

Loaded with pomegranate and walnuts, fesenjan is a classic Persian dish. Chef Einat Admony makes hers with a pomegranate confiture, which you can prepare up to a week in advance. 

“In most [Persian Jewish] homes, halim is an overnight Shabbat cholent that's served in the morning and contains meat,” explains chef Ayelet Latovitch. Her grandmother made hers with marrow bones and Ayelet likes to top it with sugar and cinnamon. 

This recipe is “my favorite Shabbat dish of all time,” proclaims chef Ayelet Latovitch. The rice dish, which pairs several types of dried fruit with beef tongue and chicken, cooks overnight on Shabbat like cholent or hamin.

Persian tachin is a beloved Shabbat dish in Arielle Nir’s family, made golden with saffron and bright with barberries. Their Shabbat table blends Moroccan and Persian traditions, with abundant stews, salads, and, most often, tachin.

This rice gets its verdant color from fresh and dried dill as well as lima beans. Golden potato slices add to the tahdig, the prized crispy crust that forms at the bottom of the pot. 

Chef Einat Admony’s elaborate jeweled rice is perfumed with orange blossom water and topped with caramelized carrots, studded with tart barberries, raisins, and nuts. In her family, it’s served on Rosh Hashanah, but it’s worthy of a dinner party menu, too. 

Slices of golden potatoes help form the tahdig, or crunchy crust, on this saffron rice while barberries add pops of tartness. 

Rice is crucial to any Persian meal and tahdig, its crispy crust, is the most sought after part. Making tahdig is all about technique and it can take some practice to master. This recipe walks you through it. 

Ash reshteh typically refers to a Persian noodle and bean stew made with greens, but this version from the late Tamar Moradoff is more of a creamy noodle dish with beans, walnuts, and raisins that’s fit for Shavuot. 

Slices of eggplant are wrapped around rice infused with rosewater and saffron in this showstopping recipe from Orly Elyashar’s grandmother. It makes an excellent vegetarian main dish. 

In the Ghalchi family, momentous occasions like weddings, births, and even funerals are marked by the presence of halva, a Persian confection made of wheat flour, rosewater, and saffron. 

This creamy rice dish gets its sweetness and golden hue from simple syrup infused with saffron and cardamom. It comes from the late cook and caterer Tamar Moradoff who served it on Shavuot.

“You know, Persians, they’re not crazy about sweets,” cookbook author Rottem Lieberson says. Most often, fresh fruit and nuts are served at the conclusion of the meal, but marzipan like this recipe is an exception.

Faloodeh often refers to a cold sweet made with rice noodles. Faloodeh sib, meanwhile, swaps noodles for shreds of apple. Rottem Lieberson’s grandmother always kept some stashed in the refrigerator in the fall — and everyone was welcome to take a sip when they liked.