Use the regional background below as a starting point for exploring the food, rather than expecting one dish to represent every household. Food traditions differ within a country and continue to change through travel, migration, and everyday cooking.

In this storyOverviewCulinary style and influencesRice dishesMeat dishesFish dishesOther foods from SylhetSweetsBeveragesAlcoholic beverages

Overview

Bangladeshi cuisine has been shaped by the region's history and riverine geography. Bangladesh has a tropical monsoon climate. The staple foods of Bangladesh are rice and fish. The majority of Bangladeshi people are ethnic Bengali, with a minority of non-Bengalis, many of whom are used to cuisines from different traditions and regions.

Culinary style and influences

Rice is the staple food of Bangladesh, while fish is the most common source of protein in Bangladesh. There are 250 plant-based ingredients in Bangladeshi cooking. The use of mustard oil was the traditional edible oil before soybean oil was introduced.

Rice dishes

Akhni is a mixed rice dish similar to biryani or polao, made with meat and/or vegetables.

Red and white Birin rice (also transliterated as Biroin or Bireen) is found only in the Sylhet region. It is eaten in savoury and sweet dishes and is the main ingredient for Chunga Pitha, a traditional rice cake prepared by stuffing sticky rice inside young bamboo and smoking it slowly. The rice cake is removed from the tube and has the shape of a candle. The dish may also be made with milk, sugar, coconut, and rice powder.

Khichuri is a rice dish similar in consistency to porridge. During the holy month of Ramadan, it is served as a staple food for Iftar. It consists of aromatic rice mixed with spices, ghee, cumin and fenugreek. It is also offered to sick people mixed with ginger.

Meat dishes

Beef Hatkhora is a traditional festive dish of beef cooked with hatkora juice.

Aash Bash is a traditional dish using duck and bamboo shoots. It is also known as Aash ar Khoril.

Fish dishes

Fish is eaten both curried and fried. Dried and fermented fish called shutki also known by many locals of Sylhet as hutki or hukoin, and hatkora, a bitter and fragrant citrus fruit are used in fish curries. Extremely hot Naga Morich peppers are used in broths.

Some local dishes incorporate hidol, a pungent chutney of dried fish matured in earthenware pots. This includes Hutki Shira, a fish curry with vegetables.

Thoikor Tenga is a dish fish cooked with thoikor, a bitter citrus fruit that grows in the Sylhet region.

Other foods from Sylhet

Bakarkhani is a flatbread that resembles porota and is commonly eaten during Iftar, the evening meal during the month of Ramadan

Handesh is a snack made of deep-fried dough sweetened with molasses or sugar. It is served on special occasions such as the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

Nunor Bora is a savoury snack made of rice flour and with onion, ginger and turmeric, fried to a golden colour.

Tusha Shinni is a dessert halwa made from sweetened dough with nuts and raisins that is usually served on special occasions.

Seven Color Tea is a colourful drink with multiple different layers of flavoured tea.

Sweets

Amriti is a flower-shaped deep-fried dessert in sugary syrup that is popular in Dhaka and Tangail.

Chomchom is a traditional sweet that originated in Porabari. The sweet is oval and brown.

Boondi is popular during Ramadan.

Balish mishti (lit. pillow sweet) is a large pillow-shaped sweet from Netrokona District.

Jilapi is a pretzel-shaped sweet in syrup that is popular throughout South Asia. Shahi jilapi (royal jilapi) is a very large, pinwheel-shaped variant from Dhaka.

Kachagolla is a dessert made of dairy ingredients and sugar that is from Natore District in Rajshahi Division. It may have been presented to the 18th century ruler Rani Bhabani.

Ledikeni is a light fried reddish-brown ball made of chhena and flour, soaked in sugar syrup. It was devised in the mid-19th century and named after Lady Canning, the wife of the Governor-General of India.

Pantua is the Bengali version of gulab jamun.

Ras malai is a dessert of balls of chhana milk solids in a cream sauce flavoured with cardamom.

Taal, the fruit of the Palmyra palm is used in a variety of desserts.

Dimer Jorda also known as Egg Jorda or Egg Halwa is a Bangladeshi informal popular sweet dish. It is halwa made using egg and milk.

Beverages

Borhani, (বোরহানী) is a traditional yogurt-like drink Borhani is made from sour doi, green chilli, mustard seeds, black salt, coriander and mint. It is popular as a digestive after heavy meals or as an appetizer beforehand.

Taal er rosh (Palm juice) is the sap extracted from palm trees and drank as a cool beverage in summer.

Rooh Afza is a concentrated squash made by Hamdard Bangladesh.

Ghol and matha are buttermilk drinks made in Bangladesh, especially in the village of Solop in Ullahpara Upazila of Sirajganj District.

Lassi is a blend of yogurt with water and either spices or sweet flavourings.

Alcoholic beverages

As a majority Muslim country, alcohol sales in Bangladesh are controlled. A government permit is necessary to purchase alcoholic drinks.

Hunter Beer is the only alcoholic beer produced in Bangladesh. It is manufactured by Jamuna Group.

Carew & Co is a government-owned distillery located in Chuadanga District.

Non-Bengali tribes produce and consume alcohol from fermented rice.

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