Exploring an island should be on everyone’s bucket list. Take a chance to taste a little of Sri Lanka with the island most finest food you must not miss out on. Check out the top 12 Sri Lankan food you must have while your stay on the island.
Who doesn’t know the island?
The place is known for its beautiful beaches, breathtaking scenic views, falls, wildlife, and FOOD. Rich in history and culture… this tropical island is located in southern Asia.
You may have heard, the shape and the location of the island earned its name as The Teardrop of India, The Pearl of The Indian Ocean, Ceylon, and the name Serendib.
The locals living on the island, in general, are very hospitable, their food is so delicious and considered very healthy.
The land is so rich in exotic fruits and vegetables, it’s surrounded by the ocean, so you can imagine the amount of seafood the ocean offers.
Life on the island…
While growing up on the island, I remember looking forward to sharing lunch meals with friends at school. After school, I rush out to find the old lady who sells achaar. Its pickled, sour, salted, spicy fruits.
Down the road on the way home, I use to grab a variety of seasoned salty nuts I bring home for my older sister. They are spicy, crunchy and salted. The little stores on the side of the road sell the tastiest bite-sized snacks.
At home, my mom will have a homemade heartwarming lunch ready. Typically it’s rice and curry. The type where you will zone off from enjoying a delicious meal. Followed by tea time and snacks.
Snacks are known as short-eats in Sri Lanka and they are finger-licking delicious. Some are savoury and some sweet.
We mostly home make them but at times we find the best food spot to snack on when hanging out with friends and family.
Life on the island is beautiful, the food is delicious, the people are friendly, the culture, the beaches, and the awe-inspiring nature experience are unforgettable.
Exploring an island should be on everyone’s bucket list.
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Spring is near, which means, summer is just around the corner. With kids’ school break nearing, families are starting to plan their next summer vacation spots.
I highly recommend the island, Sri Lanka. If you got the chance to visit, do sight-see, take a tuk-tuk ride, walk around the busy streets to shop for great deals.
Sample food from the roadside shops. go to the beach to soak up the sun, and explore the island while you indulge in the island’s finest cuisines.
Speaking of food…
Let me introduce you to the top most popular Sri Lankan food you must try while you are there. The best way to enjoy the island cuisine is to have a Sri Lankan freshly home cook them for you. If not, find street food spots to satisfy your island food cravings.
Let’s find out what are the top most popular Sri Lankan food you must have while enjoying your stay there.
- Seafood
- Coconut Milk Rice
- King Coconut
- Exotic Fruits
- Sri Lankan Hoppers
- Roti
- Kottu Roti
- The Coconut Sambal
- Short-eat Snacks
- Rice & Curry
- The Lamprais Meal
- Achaar
The top most popular Sri Lankan dishes
Seafood
As the island is surrounded by the ocean, it is easy to find unfamiliar seafood to try in varieties.
Ambulthiyal is a Sri Lankan seafood dish you must try. It’s a dry fish curry made with garcinia camogie, garlic, black pepper and a few other Sri Lankan spices and herbs.
The seasoned fish gets slow-cooked in a clay pot long enough to create a thick black pepper gravy.
This curry is sour, zesty and quite spicy due to the black pepper. The fish itself tastes light, rich with a milky flavour. This is why the gravy is thick and tastes full of strong sour spice flavour to balance.
Sri Lankan crab curry is another local’s most favourite. King Fish curry is another one you should definitely must-try during your stay. Like these amazing dishes, the island has a lot of exotic seafood you should stay to enjoy.
Check out the Ambulthiyal Recipe and King Fish Curry Recipe to recreate the dish from the comfort of your home.
Coconut Milk Rice
This coconut milk rice is a healthy breakfast, made out of long-grain rice and coconut milk for a creamy flavour.
This kiribath breakfast is special, as it is used as a symbolic dish of prosperity, good fortune and used for special celebrations on the island. For example, to celebrate birthdays, weddings, and graduations.
It is also made to mark the beginning of every year and is also used as infants’ first solid food when transitioning from milk.
I occasionally make kiribath on the weekends to satisfy our island food cravings. This breakfast is light on the taste palate but it can feel like a heavy meal. It keeps you feeling full for a longer period of time.
Check out this Coconut Milk Rice Recipe to prepare a heartwarming freshly homemade breakfast meal from scratch to celebrate your next special occasion.
King Coconut
The island is well-stocked with fresh king coconuts. Not the cooking kind, it’s the fresh kind that you can just pluck and drink.
Inside its filled with sweet-flavoured refreshing water and along with the drink it contains clear to white fleshy meat that you can scrape to enjoy after the drink.
Healthy, delicious and well-stocked all over the island. A drink and a snack all in one pack.
In a hot humid country, like Sri Lanka, it’s just the right beverage to quench your thirst. Remember to stay hydrated during your stay at the island.
exotic Fruits
Sri Lanka carries a rainbow of exotic fruits. Most are locally grown, healthy and delicious.
I am not talking about apples, oranges and berries. Exotic fruits like the wood apple, rambutan, durian, sweetsop, different types of mangoes and bananas, papaya, passion fruit, pineapple, java apple, jackfruit, guava, mangosteen, and the list just keep going.
They all carry healthy benefits and unique flavours to satisfy your taste palate.
Consider taking a walk through the local markets. You will witness the number of fruits, colourful vegetables and seafood this country offers. Some locals will let you sample the fruits so you can decide on your purchase.
Hoppers
Sri Lankan hoppers can be served in a variety of ways at any time of the day. Typically it is prepared for breakfast time.
There are milk hoppers and egg hoppers that can be served with spicy sambal or curry. The sweet hoppers are best made with jaggery.
The last one is the string hoppers. It looks like dry noodles served with curries and coconut sambal. Tastes amazing and fulfilling meals for breakfast. You must sample at least one of the hoppers from Sri Lanka.
rotti
You got to try the Sri Lankan parotta rotti. It is typically served with a chosen curry of your choice.
Look for the parotta roti that comes with parippu and fish curry. Thinking of the combination is making me drool.
There is a style of eating roti in Sri Lanka. You gatta first rip the roti into smaller bite-size pieces then pour the curries over it and mix. The roti will soon start to soak in the flavours of the curry while you begin to eat.
The best part of that meal is towards the very end. the last few bites would be the most delicious of all in a meal like this.
Don’t just stop with the parotta roti. Do try the coconut roti with coconut sambal on the side. Ask around for egg roti, veechu roti and of course one of the famous Sri Lankan specials, the kottu roti.
Check out my roti recipes to satisfy your food cravings. The 3-ingredient Chappati Recipe and Coconut Roti Recipe.
Kottu Roti
There are varieties of kottu to choose from these days. Chicken, mutton, beef, seafood, cheese and so on. The best ones can be found at the local street food corners.
It’s a dish made with roti, eggs, curries of your choice, and veggies. All heated together then chopped to bite-size during the cooking process.
You won’t miss the loud ear-popping clanking sound of the cook preparing the kottu even from far, on top of all the street traffic noises.
Some cooks are so good, their clanking turns into a rhythm, which is nice to hear rather than having to listen to the constant clanking noises.
The food is, of course, delicious.
Coconut Sambal
The majority of the Sri Lankan kitchen has a coconut scraper stored for use, as coconut plays a big role in the islanders’ daily cookings.
Coconut sambal is one of the dry dishes made using coconuts, spices and herbs. You won’t need to cook, it’s pretty easy with the right ingredients.
It goes amazingly with toasted bread, string hoppers, rice and coconut roti. This is a sambal you can enjoy for breakfast, lunch or even for dinner. It’s a delicious side for your main meal.
Remember to keep this on your list of must-try Sri Lankan food.
To make this in your kitchen, follow this easy Coconut Sambal Recipe to impress your family. Serve with a meal of your choice.
Short-eat Snacks
Short eats basically means snacks that are easy to grab on the go. Usually, it’s freshly made, fried or baked, and can be found all over the city, displayed in stores or roadside snack shops.
To name a few popular snacks that you must try are fish cutlets, samosas, rolls, vada, maalu banis, fish roti, and again the list of Sri Lankan snacks is pretty long.
Find the busiest food spots to sample some of them. Tourists spots like Golle Face or other popular beaches by the street carry stores that sell easy snacks to grab for a quick bite.
Whether I’m hungry or craving, Sri Lankan bite-size short-eats surely satisfy my taste palate, wanting for more as I eat.
You can follow these recipes to recreate the Sri Lankan snacks from the comfort of your kitchen. Check out the Chickpea Recipe, Maalu Banis Recipe, Parippu Vada Recipe, Fish Cutlet Recipe, Fish Roti Recipe, Fish Pastry Recipe, and The Deep-fried Cassava Recipe.
rice and curry
Typically, this meal consists of rice served with a few healthy vegetables and curries as sides for you to pick and choose. There may be pickles or chutney served as condiments.
Along with sun-dried curd chillies and papadam. Fried meat, seafood, chicken, or eggs can be added to complete this meal.
A complete rice and curry meal differ depending on the city or village you are in. If it is homemade you will get to enjoy all perks of this meal.
Going out to eat rice and curry may not include some of the dishes. It may mean you have to pay for some items.
Creating rice and curry meals at home may seem a lot of work, however, if planned and done right, it can be easy to cook one day and use what you made to prepare for the coming week’s meal plan.
More of that coming soon on another blog post. For now, if you like to explore a few recipes to recreate rice and curry meals, see an example of a meal below. Recipes are included check it out.
This rice and curry include white rice with onion sambal, cassava curry, fish curry, parippu, gotukola sambal, green beans, papadam and sun-dried curd chili. See recipe below.
- Onion Sambal Recipe
- Cassava Curry Recipe
- Fish Curry Recipe
- Parippu Recipe
- Gotukola Sambal Recipe
- Green Beans Recipe
Lookin’ for more flavorful Sri Lankan recipes?
Take a quick look at the recipe collection HERE.
Choose recipes from snacks & appetizers, curries & sides, sweets & dessertsto meals & more.
Find ways to create delicious meals to satisfy your food cravings.
Lamprais
The lamprais meal is rice and curry wrapped and baked in banana leaf. The rice parcel contains plain or flavoured rice in the middle with a few vegetables, curries, and fried meat or seafood assembled around.
Along with a boiled egg and a cutlet on the side. Papadam, pickles, and sun-dried curd chillies are optional.
As rice is one of the staple food on the island, you will find them just about everywhere there.
Rice and curry are mainly served on a plate or on a banana leaf while the lamprais has a few extra add-ons to the meal, then wrapped in banana leaf and baked in an oven to infuse a smoky flavour to the meal.
I can never finish one myself, I always have my partner next to me at times like this, to help me finish a meal.
It’s so delicious and full-filling, you won’t feel hungry or have any other food cravings after a meal like this.
The lamprais and the rice and curry meal is best eaten using your right hand. It’s not just food, it’s also the experience that comes with the meal you take with at the end.
This one is a must-try experience if you are on the island.
Check out my Lamprais Recipe to create your style of banana leaf-wrapped meal. Make enough to meal plan for the coming week.
Achar
I saved the best for last.
Achar is made with fresh fruits pickled in spices and other ingredients to infuse a sour spicy flavour. Not all fruits but a selection are mostly used to make achar.
These pickled fruits can be found on the side of the local streets, on tourist places by the beaches located with other busy food spots. You may even see a person carrying a basket over their head, walking down the road shouting what they are selling.
Of course, they are spicy, salty and some are so sour, very zesty but hands down they are super delicious food.
Spices are sometimes already come mixed but other times they carry a bottle with the spice mix you can request to add if you are into spicy food like me.
Sri Lanka is a beautiful island to explore.
With my relations, friends and family there, it’s one place I can never get enough of.
The locals, the beaches, the island’s breath-taking nature, its wildlife, the cultural vibe, more importantly, the FOOD.
There is so much more you can do and explore but these selections of food will give you a chance to taste a little of Sri Lanka during your stay there.
Head to the famous GolleFace in Colombo to relax by the sea while you snack on some of the best street food on the side road.
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