As I did with Japan, Jordan, and Turkey — places that rank high on my favorite food by country list — I’ve compiled my best meals of Morocco into one post. Prepare to salivate.

The most popular Moroccan meal is tagine. The name refers to the dish in which the meal is cooked, a ceramic plate with a cone top. There’s a wide variety of tagine dishes on any Moroccan menu, like chicken tagine or veggie tagine or beef tagine. In addition to the main ingredient, there are usually other items sprinkled in, like potatoes and veggies and olives. Each combination I tried was delicious.

Here’s our group on the very first night of the tour, enjoying chicken tagine at Hotel Imichil.

And here is my absolute favorite kind of tagine — beef with prunes. OH MY GOD, I could eat this every day for the rest of my life. Each time I order it, the beef is so tender it melts in my mouth. Similarly, the prunes are cooked through and release a sweet flavor to compliment the meat. Toss in some veggies and olives and I’m good.

Cous cous is another popular Moroccan dish. Here’s a photo of chicken over cous cous with raisins:

Here’s a typical dessert that’s sold in bakeries, similar to the honey sweets we ate in Israel and Turkey. I have yet to meet a honey-dipped pastry I don’t like.

I’ve spoken of my deep love of olives many times on this blog, and Morocco is olive heaven. Side dishes of them accompany every meal, and they’re usually complimentary! Plus free samples in the markets! Take me back to Morocco, stat.

A sample of olives at dinner:

There are two Moroccan beverages that rock my world. The first is nos nos coffee, a short glass of sweet caffeine that we sipped daily on this trip.

Mint tea is probably the most popular beverage in Morocco. And waiters love to show off their pouring skills, often holding the pot WAY up in the air and the tea cups down below, rarely spilling or overfilling the cups. It’s an impressive trick.

Breakfast was typically included in our hotel stays, and the photo below left shows off our fresh orange juice and almond croissant provided by Hotel Imichil in Marrakech. On the right are photos of cookies and mint tea we enjoyed seaside in Rabat.

Some of my tour mates are in the midst of longterm travel through Europe, where prices are high and breakfast often isn’t included. So Ellen shows off a typical backpacker move: grab all you can during the free breakfast and stuff your purse and pockets with the extra bread and cheese and jam. (My dad circa 1997 approves of this method.)

Ellen’s sister Natalie earns the award for most adventurous eater during our Moroccan travels, as she is the lone brave soul to order sheep brain tagine during our lunch following Volubilis. She kindly offered up her dish for others to try, and I quickly said ME! before I had a chance to over think it. And you know what? It wasn’t bad at all. Flavorful and a little mushy.

Our group ate most meals together. While it often took a while to order and eat, I never grew tired of it. We sat in different configurations each time and it was nice to chat with everyone. Sometimes meals were served family style and that created a nice dynamic too, sharing everything together and trading comments on what we liked or didn’t like (or, more often, what we really really liked). Here’s our group in Rabat:

Another group dinner out, this time on the main square in Chefchaouen:

We stopped at an Italian place in Chefchaoun for lunch and had the option to order this smoothie below made with avocado and fruit, topped with nuts and cherries. Check out those sweets to the right below…

The first evening in Fes we attended a dinner show that included belly dancers, magicians, and fire eaters. The food was pretty great too, but the company takes the cake:

Also in Fes, we enjoyed a terrific lunch in the middle of our day-long walking tour of the city. Here’s Ellen, Tally, and Natalie showing off the plethora of shared appetizer dishes before the main course arrived.

A closer shot of the tapas-style dishes, plus the mint tea and nos nos that ended our meal:

On the way to the Sahara we had a lovely lunch that included shared Berber-style pizza plus other veggie, chicken, and dessert dishes. For the record, almost all of the meals in in these photos are included in the price of the tour and we only had to pay for our beverages. Not a bad deal at all!

Our dinner in the Sahara was fantastic, too — courses included olives, nuts, and tea, followed by tagines with veggies and meat skewers.

And for dessert we roasted marshmallows over the fire.

Here’s a meal in Midelt:

And our outdoor poolside dinner at Todra Gorge:

FYI, that dish below right is meatball tagine (they typically add hard boiled eggs on top). I had this dish earlier in the trip (sans eggs) and really liked it.

Essaouira is on the ocean, which means…

… that the seafood is pretty incredible. We dined right on the water and ordered the following dishes, each of us green with food envy because all of the meals looked SO tasty.

Quick pause to point out the fake ‘spice cones’ which are on display in most of the medinas and souks around Morocco. Supposedly in Marrakech there are real ones and you can photograph them in exchange for a few coins, but I didn’t see them there.

Quick food-related story about the shopkeepers throughout Morocco — they often call out “Fish and chips!” to attract the attention of white tourists who they probably assume are from the UK. To which I always want to respond, “Tagine and cous cous!” as though it’s totally normal to refer to other humans by the popular food in their home region.

Our second meal in Essaouira featured more seafood and excellent fellowship.

As I shared in a post the other day, the main square in Marrakech has lots of food stalls with long tables where guests are beckoned to sit by eager waiters. Our group thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

After the meal, we indulged in cookies, which are wheeled around on a giant slab throughout the market. Then we tried a spicy tea that the group was less enthusiastic about.

Whew! So those are my food highlights from Morocco. Have you been? What’s your favorite dish? Or if you haven’t had this kind of food before, did you see anything here you’re eager to try?

Thanks to Nomadic Tours for discounting my tour in exchange for blogging and photography. Opinions are my own.