Savoury Spreads & Dips

Savoury spreads and dips are ready-to-eat pastes for bread, crackers or grilled food: olive tapenades, chile pastes such as Tunisian harissa, slow-cooked pepper and tomato relishes such as matbucha, and salt-cured lemon pastes.

How to choose Savoury Spreads & Dips

  • Chile paste. Harissa is sun-dried chiles ground with garlic, salt and coriander. It is concentrated, so cooks use it by the spoonful.
  • Cooked relish. Matbucha is tomatoes and peppers, often with a fresh chile, simmered for over an hour until thick. It is served as a first-course salad or spread on a sandwich.
  • Acid on the label. Vinegar, lemon juice or another acid, together with heat processing in the sealed jar, is what lets a vegetable spread sit on a shelf. US rules require such acidified foods to reach a pH of 4.6 or below.

About Savoury Spreads & Dips

Savoury spreads and dips are thick, ready-to-eat condiments made from cooked or puréed vegetables, olives, chiles or preserved citrus.

Harissa holds a place on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage for Tunisia. Chiles are dried in the sun, split, stemmed and seeded, then ground with salt, garlic and coriander in a mortar or a hand-cranked mincer and stored in glass or pottery. Salt-cured lemons are cut almost through into quarters and packed with salt in a jar. After two weeks to a month, cooks rinse them and use the softened peel.

Serve them with bread and small salads to open a meal, or beside grilled meat and fish. Keep sealed jars in a cupboard below 85°F, away from the stove.

At a glance

Made from
Olives, chiles, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, garlic, salt-cured lemon
Main origins
North Africa, Provence and southern Italy
Serve with
Bread, eggs, grilled meat and fish
Once opened
Refrigerate in a clean container

Savoury Spreads & Dips questions

What does matbucha mean?

Matbucha is Arabic for cooked salad. The Maghrebi dish adds garlic and olive oil to its tomatoes and peppers, and Jewish families from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya carried it to Israel. Its long cooking is what turns it from a fresh salad into a thick spread, so it works on a sandwich as well as a starter plate.

How long do salt-cured lemons take to be ready, and how long do they keep?

Salt-packed lemons need about two weeks to a month before they are ready, depending on the method. Once cured, they keep in the refrigerator for up to six months. Before cooking, rinse off the excess salt, scrape away the pulp and membrane, and chop the peel, which is the part with the soft texture and floral, sour flavor.

How long does an opened jar of spread keep?

Once a jar is open it belongs in the refrigerator, and keeping times vary with the recipe. USDA gives opened high-acid canned foods, such as tomato products, five to seven days. If the jar is hard to reseal, spoon what is left into a clean, covered container. Use a clean spoon each time so crumbs do not get into the jar.

Sources: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage; University of California Cooperative Extension; USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.

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