Delicut Introduces New Arabic Dishes to Its Menu

If you track what you eat, you've probably scrolled past Arabic food more than once. Not because you don't love it. More because in your head, Mandi is for when you're off plan. Mansaf is a wedding thing. Machboos is what you order on a Friday night when you've stopped counting.

It gets sorted into the comfort food pile almost automatically. Which is fine, except the reason you're skipping it on a regular Tuesday isn't really the food. It's a reputation the food mostly doesn't deserve.

Everyday Arabic food and celebration Arabic food are genuinely different things. And when you look at what the everyday version is actually built on, it sits a lot closer to what you'd call eating well than the category it usually gets put in.

Delicut has now 50+ Arabic dishes to its weekly rotation: Mandi, Mansaf, Machboos, Maqluba and a lot more. Fresh daily, sized to your plan, delivered across the UAE.

Here's what's on the menu.

Arabic Dishes Now Available on the Delicut Menu

20 new dishes join 25+ existing favourites, bringing the Arabic menu to 50+  with 11 more on the way. From a Yemeni Chicken Mandi to a Persian One-Pot Mixed Grill with saffron rice and cucumber yoghurt, to Lamb Shank Mansaf slow-cooked over aromatic rice. Something across most protein preferences and most of the Gulf's regional cooking styles.

Dish	Description	Protein
Prawns Mashawi	Sautéed prawns with fragrant rice and a creamy yoghurt sauce	Shrimps
Levantine Zaatar Chicken & Couscous	Tender zaatar-seasoned chicken with couscous and bell pepper sauce	Chicken
Persian One-Pot Mixed Grill	Mixed grill with saffron rice, cucumber yoghurt and tomato sauce	Chicken, Lamb, Beef
Salmon Harra with Saffron Rice	Middle Eastern-style salmon with ladies finger and makdous pickle	Salmon
Turkish Chicken Doner	Tender chicken with pita, tahina sauce and pickled veggies	Chicken
Middle Eastern Fish Sayadieh	Aromatic fish sayadieh with cucumber yoghurt and roasted broad beans	White Fish
Yemeni Chicken Mandi	Aromatic mandi rice with tender chicken, yoghurt and tomato dip	Chicken
Lebanese Kafta & Vermicelli Rice	Lamb meatballs in yoghurt sauce with roasted potatoes and marrow	Lamb
Persian Style Chicken & Rice	Tender chicken with aromatic rice, broccoli and turnip cabbage	Chicken
Classic Falafel Wrap	Protein tortilla with falafel, veggies and tahini sauce, served with lentil soup	Vegetarian
Bulgur Pilaf	Bulgur and chickpeas with choice of chicken or salmon, cucumber yoghurt and a fresh side salad	Chicken / Salmon
Zaatar Rice with Creamy Spinach Chicken	Lebanese zaatar rice with tender chicken stew	Chicken
Lebanese-Style Chicken Musakhan & Pita	Spiced chicken with hummus and olive bell pepper sauce	Chicken
Lamb Stew with Machboos Rice	Slow-cooked lamb with tangy sauce and mint yoghurt	Lamb
Zaatar Chicken Escalope & Potato Wedges	Chicken escalope with quinoa tabbouleh salad and cocktail sauce	Chicken
Creamy Tahini Chicken Fettuccine	Fettuccine tossed in tahini sauce, finished with parmesan and olives	Chicken
Chicken Maqluba	Aromatic rice layered with veggies, tomato sauce and cucumber yoghurt	Chicken
Lamb Shank Mansaf	Slow-cooked lamb shank over aromatic rice with marrow and cucumber yoghurt	Lamb
Saudi-Style Chicken Bukhari Rice	Fragrant spiced rice with chicken, carrots, raisins and tomato sauce	Chicken
Middle Eastern Beef Stew & Green Pea Rice	Beef and white bean stew with okra	Beef

Watch out as we keep adding more dishes.

The Comfort Food That's Actually Good For You

There's a specific feeling that good Arabic food gives you. It's not just that you're full, though you are. It's something else. The warmth of the cardamom in the rice, the weight of a slow-cooked dish, the smell that hits you before the food even arrives. It settles you. Salads and protein bowls are great. They just don't do that.

Here's the thing though: a lot of what makes Arabic food feel the way it does is the same thing that makes it genuinely good for you. The slow cooking, the spices, the legume base. The comfort and the nutrition aren't pulling in different directions. They're coming from the same place.

On the slow cooking

Mandi, Mansaf, Machboos: all built on time and low, controlled heat. That's what makes the meat tender, and research published in Frontiers in Nutrition on how cooking methods affect meat confirms that moderate-heat cooking also preserves protein quality better than high-heat methods like grilling or deep-frying. The technique that makes the food taste right is the same one keeping its nutritional value intact.

On the spices

The cardamom, cumin, and cinnamon in Arabic rice dishes aren't just flavour. A review published in the Journal of Translational Medicine found their active compounds to be significant inhibitors of the NF-kB inflammatory pathway, linked to cardiovascular disease and chronic inflammation. A separate analysis of randomised controlled trials on cardamom confirmed measurable drops in C-reactive protein. And saffron, which shows up in Salmon Harra and the Persian One-Pot Mixed Grill, has its own research track: a review in Nutrients found its key compounds show genuine antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in clinical settings.

On the legume base

Bulgur Pilaf, the Falafel Wrap, Fish Sayadieh: everyday Arabic food leans heavily on legumes. A meta-analysis in Advances in Nutrition, drawing from multiple large cohort studies, found that higher legume consumption was significantly associated with lower cardiovascular and coronary heart disease risk. The meal that feels hearty is doing protective work at the same time.

On dates

Dates have been a daily Gulf staple for thousands of years, eaten before meals, with coffee, as a quick energy fix. A 2025 review in Food Science & Nutrition classifies them as a functional food with documented antioxidant activity and positive effects on metabolic health markers. The tradition wasn't wrong.

And about the heaviness

The heaviness reputation comes almost entirely from the celebration dishes: Mansaf at weddings, Ouzi at big family occasions, whole-roasted lamb at feasts. Those were designed for large gatherings. But Shorba is a lentil soup. Bulgur Pilaf is exactly what it sounds like. Order either on a regular evening and the reputation just doesn't hold up.

And what Delicut actually changed, and what they didn't

The short answer is not as much as you might expect.

Some dishes went through real adjustments. Less oil is the most consistent one. Arabic cooking often calls for generous amounts, and pulling that back carefully, without touching the spices or the method, doesn't change the taste as much as you'd think. The spices are carrying most of the flavour anyway. Sugar was reduced where it appeared. Leaner meat cuts were used where the dish allowed it, and in slow-cooked dishes especially, the long cooking time gets you to the same tenderness and depth that the fat was previously responsible for. Same result, cleaner numbers.

Some dishes have had the base swapped. Healthier rice options where it works, different bread choices in dishes that call for it. None of this was applied across the board though. Substitutions were only made where they hold up under tasting and don't betray what the dish is supposed to feel like. Nobody is replacing the rice in a Mansaf with something else and calling it authentic. But where a swap makes the macros better without making the food worse, it was made.

And some dishes haven't been changed at all. Same spices, same method, same preparation, as close to the original recipe as it gets. What's been adjusted is the portioning. Sized to your plan rather than a family occasion serving. Which is often the only thing that actually needed changing.

Arabic Dishes Are Just the Beginning

The rest of the Delicut rotation keeps going though. Mediterranean, Levantine, Asian, European dishes, all changing week to week. Mansaf on Wednesday and something completely different on Friday is just how the menu works.

The low-carb high-protein, balanced and vegetarian plans at delicut.ae is what sits underneath all of it. Chef-prepared, portion-controlled, rotating every week. Your goals stay consistent. What you're eating stays interesting.

Key Takeaways

• Most of the 'Arabic food is heavy' reputation comes from the celebration dishes. Mansaf and Ouzi are feast foods. Shorba and Bulgur Pilaf are weeknight food. Those are very different things.
• The comfort and the nutrition in Arabic food come from the same sources: slow cooking, warming spices, a legume base that's been keeping people going across the Gulf for centuries. None of it was accidentally healthy.
• When it's portioned properly and freshly prepared, Arabic food doesn't lose what makes it worth eating. The comfort stays. The macros just happen to work out too.

FAQs

Q: Is the food halal?

Yes. All dishes on the Delicut menu, including the new Arabic lineup, are halal.

Ready to Try?

Delicut's new Arabic dishes are available now across the Balanced Plan. See what's on this week's menu and get started at delicut.ae.