What is shakshuka / chakchouka?
- Feb 7
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 11
A Maghrebi egg-and-tomato dish, its name, origins, and modern associations
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Definition
Shakshuka (Arabic: شكشوكة; French: chakchouka) is a Maghrebi and Eastern Mediterranean dish of eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, typically seasoned with garlic and cumin. The name derives from Maghrebi Arabic meaning “mixed,” reflecting the dish’s method and composition.
Name and spelling variants
The dish appears under several spellings across languages and regions. All refer to the same Maghrebi culinary category unless otherwise noted.
Variant | Language / Usage |
chakchouka | French; Maghrebi French |
shakshuka, shakshouka | English transliterations |
شكشوكة | Arabic |
שקשוקה | Hebrew |
şakşuka | Turkish (different dish; see disambiguation) |
There is no single “correct” Latin spelling; variation reflects transliteration conventions rather than distinct dishes.
For a focused explanation of why multiple spellings exist and how Arabic transliteration works across French and English, see Chakchouka vs Shakshuka.
Etymology
The word chakchouka / shakshuka comes from Maghrebi Arabic and means “mixed.”
The term is onomatopoeic, associated with mixing or chopping ingredients together, and describes the cooking method rather than a fixed ingredient list.
The word entered French usage by the late nineteenth century through North African contact. Etymology explains the name, not the precise historical moment when the dish took its modern form.
Disambiguation
Chakchouka / shakshuka should not be confused with:
Turkish şakşuka — a cold or room-temperature mezze of fried vegetables (typically eggplant) in tomato sauce, without eggs
Menemen — a Turkish breakfast dish where eggs are scrambled into tomatoes and peppers
Chakhchoukha — an Algerian dish based on torn flatbread and stew, unrelated in method
The similarity in names does not indicate a shared recipe or origin.
A detailed comparison of the Turkish eggplant mezze and the Maghrebi egg dish is available in Turkish şakşuka vs shakshuka.
Origins and early history
Food historians generally locate chakchouka/shakshuka in the Maghreb (North Africa).
The strongest regional documentation points to Tunisia and Libya, within a wider North African cooking tradition of vegetable stews prepared in olive oil.
In Tunisia, related egg-and-pepper stews such as ojja form a distinct but connected culinary category.
The tomato-and-egg form of the dish could only have developed after tomatoes and peppers reached North Africa following the sixteenth-century Columbian exchange. There is no evidence of an Ottoman egg-based predecessor; Ottoman şakşuka refers to a different, eggless vegetable dish.
Because early home cooking was rarely recorded in print, the dish’s history is reconstructed through linguistic evidence, ingredient history, and comparative culinary scholarship rather than a single founding text.
A fuller review of the historical evidence, including regional documentation and limits of early print sources, is provided in Origins of shakshuka.
Migration and modern associations
During the mid-twentieth century, Jewish communities migrating from North Africa—particularly from Tunisia and Libya—carried chakchouka/shakshuka into Israel, where it became widely prepared in homes and later popularized in cafés and restaurants.
From the late twentieth century onward, international media and cookbooks increasingly described shakshuka as part of Israeli cuisine. Food scholars distinguish this later national association from the dish’s earlier North African origins, noting that visibility and popularization do not determine origin.
For a structured analysis of migration patterns and modern national attribution, see Shakshuka: migration and modern identity.
Summary of origin claims
Claim | Status | Confidence |
Maghrebi (North African) origin | Supported by multiple sources | High |
Tunisia and Libya | Strong regional documentation | Medium–High |
Ottoman origin | Not supported | Low |
Yemeni origin | Adoption only, not origin | Low |
Sources and verification
This page is based on encyclopedic, lexicographic, and academic sources, with priority given to:
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Academic food historians and university-press publications
Secondary culinary history writing (context only)
The Oxford English Dictionary lists an early English citation for shakshuka from a 1930 issue of the Atlanta Constitution; however, the original article is not currently accessible in open archives, and the citation cannot be independently inspected.
Related topics
Technical preparation, cooking science, and nutritional analysis are treated separately to maintain clarity of definition. See how shakshuka is cooked properly and shakshuka nutrition explained.
