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New Zealand Recipes

14 recipes

Food in Aotearoa New Zealand blends Māori traditions with British settler cooking and more recent Pacific and Asian influences. Māori brought kūmara (sweet potato), cooked food in the hāngī earth oven and gathered seafood such as pāua, kina and mussels, while later arrivals added roast lamb, pies, potatoes and a strong baking tradition. Pork and pūhā, a bitter wild green, became the base of the boil-up, a pot meal for feeding a crowd. Lamb, dairy products and shellfish are everyday ingredients, and whitebait fritters are a springtime favorite on the coast. Fried bread and rēwena, a potato-leavened loaf, are still made at gatherings and in many family kitchens. Baking is part of home life, from pikelets to biscuits like Afghans, and pavlova is a standard on festive tables. Shared meals, whether a hāngī at a marae or a Sunday roast, are about hospitality and feeding people well.

Staple ingredients

Appetizers

Main Dishes

Side Dishes

Breads

Desserts

Snacks

Common questions

What is traditional Māori food?

Kūmara, fern root, seafood, birds and later pork and potatoes, cooked in the hāngī earth oven or boiled in a pot. Today boil-up, fried bread, rēwena bread and hāngī are the dishes most often shared at gatherings.

What is the national dish of New Zealand?

There is no official one. Roast lamb with kūmara, pavlova, hāngī and whitebait fritters are all strong contenders, depending on who you ask and which season it is.

What is a hāngī?

A hāngī is a feast cooked in a pit with heated stones, with meat and vegetables covered and steamed for hours. It is used for special occasions and large gatherings, and home cooks sometimes copy the result in an oven.