List of Burmese dishes


The following is a list of dishes found in Burmese cuisine. Burmese cuisine includes dishes from various regions of Burma. The diversity of Myanmar's cuisine has also been contributed to by the myriad of local ethnic minorities. The Bamars are the most dominant group, but other groups including the Chin people also have distinct cuisines. Burmese cuisine is characterized by extensive use of fish products like fish sauce and ngapi. Owing to the geographic location of Myanmar, Burmese cuisine has been influenced by Chinese cuisine, Indian cuisine and Thai cuisine.

[Burmese salads]

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
Bazun thokeပုစွန်သုပ်Pickled prawn salad.
Gyin thokeချင်းသုပ်Ginger salad with sesame seeds and assorted fried beans.
Khauk swè thokeခေါက်ဆွဲသုပ်Wheat noodle salad with dried shrimps, shredded cabbage and carrots, dressed with fried peanut oil, fish sauce and lime.
Htamin thokeထမင်းသုပ်Rice salad with tomato puree, potato, glass noodle, toasted chickpea flour, crushed toasted dried fermented beancake,crushed dried shrimp, crushed dried chilli, garlic and dressed with cooked peanut oil, fish sauce, lime or tamarind and coriander.
Let thoke soneလက်သုပ်စုံ Similar to htamin thoke with shredded green papaya, shredded carrot, ogonori sea moss and often wheat noodles.
Nan gyi thokeနန်းကြီးသုပ်Thick rice noodle salad with chickpea flour, chicken, fish cake, onions, coriander, spring onions, crushed dried chilli, dressed with fried crispy onion oil, fish sauce and lime.
Nanbyagyi thokeနန်းပြားသုပ်As above with tagliatelle.
Shauk thi thokeရှောက်သီးသုပ်Sliced lemon or kaffir lime, toasted chickpea flour, crushed roasted peanut, crushed dried shrimp, crushed dried chilli, baked fish paste, cooked oil with onions.
Samuza thokeစမူဆာသုပ်IndianSamosa salad with onions, cabbage, fresh mint, potato curry, masala, chili powder, salt and lime.
Lahpet thokeလက်ဖက်သုပ်ShanA salad of pickled tea leaves with fried peas, peanuts and garlic, toasted sesame, fresh garlic, tomato, green chili, crushed dried shrimps, preserved ginger and dressed with peanut oil, fish sauce and lime.
Nga baung thokeငါးပေါင်းသုပ်MonMixed vegetables and prawn, wrapped in morinda leaves and banana leaves outside.
Kya zan thokeကြာဆံသုပ်RakhineGlass vermicelli salad with boiled prawn julien and mashed curried duck eggs and potatoes.
Thayet chin thokeသရက်ချဉ်သုပ်Fermented green mango salad with onions, green chilli, roasted peanuts, sesame and peanut oil.
Thinbaw thi thokeသင်္ဘောသီးသုပ်Shan and ThaiPapaya salad of shredded papaya, mixed with ground dried shrimp, onions, and fried garlic; tossed in garlic oil, lemon juice, and a little hot chili pepper.
Tofu thokeတိုဟူးသုပ်ShanFresh yellow tofu, cut into small rectangular slices, dressed and garnished with peanut oil, dark soy sauce, rice vinegar, toasted crushed dried chilli, crushed garlic, crushed roasted peanuts, crisp-fried onions, and coriander.

Bamar-influenced

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
Mohingaမုန့်ဟင်းခါးThe unofficial national dish of rice vermicelli in fish broth with onions, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and sliced tender core of banana-stem, served with boiled eggs, fried fish cake and fritters.
Kat kyi hnyatကပ်ကြေးညှပ်‌Dawei, MyeikLit. 'cut with scissors', a southern coastal dish of rice noodles with a variety of seafood, land meats, raw bean sprouts, beans and fried eggs comparable to pad thai.
Kya yoe hingaကြာရိုးဟင်းခါးLotus roots in clear chicken or fish broth.
Kyar zan hingaကြာဆံဟင်းခါးglass noodle soup with dried shrimp, wood-ear mushrooms, egg, dried flowers, onions.
Ngapi jetငါးပိချက်Fermented spicy fish paste or salted fish curried with onions, tomatoes, garlic, chilli and coriander served with to za ya, vegetables fresh or boiled, on the side.
Ngapi gyawငါးပိကြော်Fried version with dried shrimp, onions, garlic and dried chilli.
Hsi htaminဆီထမင်းGlutinous rice cooked with turmeric and onions in peanut oil, and served with toasted sesame and crisp fried onions, a popular breakfast like kao hnyin baung and ngacheik paung.

Chinese-inspired

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
Kyay ohကြေးအိုးChinese Vermicelli noodles in soup with pork offal and greens.
Roast duckဘဲကင်ChineseRoasted duck.
Wontonဖက်ထုပ်ChineseLit. leaf wrap, of meat, pastry paper, ginger, garlic, pepper powder, salt. Usually served with soup or with noodles.
Fried riceထမင်း‌ကြော်ChineseFried rice with boiled peas.
Kaw yay khauk swèကော်‌ရည်ခေါက်ဆွဲSino-BurmeseNoodles and curried duck in broth with eggs.
Mixian မီဆွမ်ChineseVery soft rice noodles, known as Mee suah in Singapore and Malaysia. It is a popular option for invalids, usually with chicken broth.
Panthay khauk swèပန်းသေးခေါက်ဆွဲChineseHalal noodles with chicken and spices, often served by the Muslim Panthay Chinese.
Baoziပေါက်‌စီChineseSteamed buns filled with either pork and egg or sweet bean paste.
Rice congeeဆန်ပြုတ်ChineseRice congee with fish, chicken or duck often fed to invalids.
Si gyet khauk swèဆီချက်ခေါက်ဆွဲChineseWheat noodles with duck or pork, fried garlic oil, soy sauce and chopped spring onions. It is considered an 'identity dish' of Myanmar and Burmese Chinese, as it is not available in other Chinese cuisines. Sarawak's Kolok mee is a bit similar.
Wet tha doke htoeဝက်သားတုတ်ထိုးChinesePork offal cooked in light soy sauce. Eaten with raw ginger and chilli sauce.

Shan-inspired

Mon-inspired

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
Thingyan htaminသင်္ကြန်ထမင်းMonFully boiled rice in candle-smelt jasmine water served with mango salad and fried dried-prawn.
Wet mohingaရေစိမ်မုန့်ဟင်းခါးMonLike mohinga but vermicelli is served while wet.

Hin

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
Kyar zan hinကြာဆံဟင်းMandalayglass noodle soup with chicken, wood-ear mushrooms, dried flowers, onions, boiled egg, garnished with coriander, thin-sliced onions, crushed dried chilli and a dash of lime.
Kalar hinကုလားဟင်းSouth IndianA South Indian dish made of dried snakefish, radish, carrots, eggplant, and okra.
Si byanဆီပြန်Dish of meat or fish with condiments cooked in oil and water until all the water is boiled off leaving the meat or fish in an oily gravy.
Cho chin gyawချိုချဉ်ကြော်Sweet and sour dish of meat or fish with vegetables.
A sein gyawအစိမ်းကြော်ChineseDish of fried green vegetables with meat, cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, green beans, baby corn, cornflour or tapioca starch, tomatoes, squid sauce.

Desserts

Burmese nameBurmese scriptImageOriginDescription
HalawaဟလဝါPathein, Middle East originA snack made of sticky rice, butter, coconut milk, from Indian dessert halwa. Burmese halawa is in a loose form, something like smashed potato, without baking into a hard or firmer cake in contrast to sanwin makin.
PhaludaဖာလူဒါIndianSimilar to the Indian dessert falooda, rose water, milk, jello, coconut jelly, coconut shavings, sometimes served with custard and ice cream.
Shwe yin ayeရွှေရင်အေးAgar jelly, tapioca and sago in coconut milk.
Shwe gyi montရွှေကြည်မုန့်MonHardened semolina porridge cake with poppy seeds, sugar, butter, coconut.
Sanwin makinဆနွင်းမကင်းThaiSemolina cake with raisins, walnuts and poppy seeds.
Mont let saungမုန့်လက်ဆောင်းShan?Tapioca balls, glutinous rice, grated coconut and toasted sesame with jaggery syrup in coconut milk.
Kyauk kyawကျောက်ကျောAgar jelly usually set in two layers with coconut milk.
Sut-hnanRakhineMillet cooked in sweet milk with raisins.
Htoe montထိုးမုန့်MandalayGlutinous rice cake with raisins, cashews and coconut shavings.
Malaing loneမလိုင်လုံးIndianBurmese-style gulab jamun.
Mont kalamaမုန့်ကုလားမIndianToffee-like delicacy made of coconut milk, jaggery, and rice flour.
Saw hlaing montRakhineA baked sweet, made from millet, raisins, coconut and butter.
Nga pyaw thi baungRakhineBananas stewed in milk and coconut, and garnished with black sesame. Eaten either as a dish during meals, or as a dessert.
Ngapyaw baungငှက်ပျောပေါင်းMonBanana pudding dessert made from banana boiled in coconut milk and sugar.
HtamanèထမနဲMonSavory dessert made from glutinous rice, fried shredded coconuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, oil.
Duyin yoeဒူရင်းယိုMonDurian jam.
La montလမုန့်ChineseAn oily disk-shaped cake filled with either sugar or sweet bean paste.
Mont lone yay pawမုန့်လုံးရေပေါ်Glutinous rice balls with jaggery.
Thagu pyinသာကူပြင်MalaySago or tapioca pudding sweetened with jaggery and enriched with coconut.
Mont pyar thaletမုန့်ပျားသလက်Batter cake shaped like a honeycomb, made of rice flour with or without palm sugar syrup.
Mont kyoe leinမုန့်ကြိုးလိမ်Pretzel-like confection made of rice and bean flour.
Mont lay pwayမုန့်လေပွေThin large crispies made from glutinous rice.
Mont lin mayar or mont oke galayမုန့်လင်မယား or မုန့်အုပ်ကလေးSnack of rice flour batter fried to a hemispherical shape in a dimpled pan, and served in pairs.
Pashu montပသျှူးမုန့်MalayConfection of roasted glutinous rice flour mixed with sugar and coconut shreds.
Gadut montကတွတ်မုန့်IndianKind of Hindi sweetmeat in the form of a dumpling.
Bein montဘိန်းမုန့်Pancake made of rice flour, palm sugar, coconut chips, and peanuts, garnished with poppy seeds.
Khauk montခေါက်မုန့်Kind of circular pan- cake made of rice flour, palmsugar, coconut, etc. and folded to form a semicircle.
Aung bala montအောင်ဗလမုန့်Rice pancake topped with syrup.
Mont kywe theမုန့်ကျွဲသည်းPudding made of coarse rice flour boiled in palm sugar and lime water.
Yay montရေမုန့်Almost translucent sheets of rice flour folded around a filling of beans and coriander leaves.
Mont leik pyarမုန့်လိပ်ပြာThin rice dough skins with a centre filled with jaggery and coconut, and folded in squares.
Nan ka htaingနံကထိုင်IndianNankatai, an Indian cake made of saffron, flour, sugar and butter.
Ladu montလဒူမုန့်IndianSweetmeat of Indian origin in the form of a ball.
GyalabiဂျလေဘီIndianJalebi, kind of Indian sweetmeat.
Kulfeeကူလ်ဖီIndianFrozen dessert made of milk.
Dein gyinဒိန်ချဉ်Burmese style yoghurt served with jaggery syrup.
Shwe htaminရွှေထမင်းBaked sweetened glutinous rice and jaggery and garnished with coconut shavings.
Kao hlaingti montကောက်လှိုင်းတီမုန့်A snack made of sticky rice and local violet flowers as colouring.