Best Lebanese Stuffed Grape Leaves Recipe (Warak Enab) (2024)

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Lebanese Stuffed Grape Leaves (warak enab) are a Mediterranean favorite! They taste the very best homemade. My recipe includes rice, meat, and lots of lemon to make the most tender, flavorful grape leave rolls.

There may be no more beloved, well known Middle Eastern dish than stuffed grape leaves. This favorite recipe among myLebanese recipes makes a large pot of lovingly rolled grape leaves, a tradition we turn to for every major family feast.

My husband Dan loves to tease me thathisShaheen clan reigns with the Lebanese grape leaves experts. I can’t deny that the grape leaves they make are luscious. Yet my Aunt Hilda was also a grape leaves expert, and I learned plenty from her growing up…. She arrived for every feast with a huge pot of her melt-in-your-mouth grape leaves. I cherish making them with her at her kitchen table, talking about all of the family and whatever party was about to take place. It’s a lot of fun making them with people you love, a labor of love that delights in a gathering.

Read my story about tasting grape leaves from our family village in Lebanonhere!

Lebanese stuffed grape leaves taste delicious with meat and rice stuffing as in my method here, as well as vegetarian versions. Try my vegetarian stuffed grape leaves recipe here. The difference for the vegetarian version is the filling, which is a rice mixture made with fresh parsley and other fresh herbs. Both ways are packed with savory flavor, not to be missed.

Find success with this special, traditional Lebanese recipe for grape leaves following my tried and true instructions.

Watch my video tutorial to see how it’s done:

Ingredients for Lebanese Stuffed Grape Leaves

• Grape leaves. They are available jarred and fresh. Jarred grape leaves can be found in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean grocery stores. Depending on where you live, some of the big grocery stores like Kroger or Publix also carry jarred grape leaves.

  My mother-in-law used one jarred brand and one only: Orlando. The leaves are consistently good. I notice that Orlando brand is also often called Yergot.

  To pick fresh leaves, you must find edible grape leaves which come from wild vines. Follow my guide and my video on how to identify, pick, and store fresh leaves here.

• Rice. Recipes for grape leaves call for different types of rice: long grain white rice, medium grain white rice, and short grain white rice. I prefer medium grain rice for this but any of these varieties will work!

• Spices. Simple here: salt, pepper, and cinnamon. The cinnamon can be substituted with Lebanese 7 Spice, an aromatic and traditional Arabic seasoning. Check out my custom 7 spice blend here.

• Ground beef or lamb. Use lean ground beef or lamb for stuffed grape leaves (80% lean). I like to use grass fed ground beef for my grape leaves. Grass fed beef is “cleaner” in that it is lower in saturated fat.

• Lemon juice. Lots of it! This is where a juicer comes in very handy. Juice your lemons so you have a good two cups of juice for this.

• Chicken broth. We are huge fans of the added flavor that chicken broth adds. Water is also typical and works just fine instead, if you prefer.

• Bone-in chicken or pork chops. These are used to line the base of the pan and cooked along with the rolls. Use chicken thighs or wings. More fabulous flavor!

• Butter or olive oil. This makes for fabulous savory flavor, added to the filling.

How do you make Lebanese Grape Leave Rolls?

Here are the steps to make excellent homemade grape leaves:

Step 1: Make the Filling

Rinse the rice. Add salt, pepper, cinnamon, and melted butter to the rice. Mix the rice with the ground beef or lamb thoroughly (hands help here!).

Step 2: Prepare the leaves

For jarred leaves: the leaves are packed tightly in the jar in a few bundles. Pour the liquid from the jar and discard it. Carefully remove the bundles of leaves. Place the leaves in a big bowl of cool or tepid water and agitate them to rinse and soak them. Repeat this twice, pouring off the water entirely after the second rinse.

For fresh picked or frozen fresh leaves: Place the leaves, fresh or frozen, in a large bowl or pot of boiling water. Blanche, gently cooking the grape leaves for 5 minutes to soften them. Fresh leaves roll more easily and stay closed if they are softer from cooking.

Cut the stems. Either stack the leaves in bunches all in the same direction or lay them out individually on the countertop or work surface. Use scissors to trim off the short stems all the way to the edge of each leaf.

Step 3: Prepare the cooking pot

Use a 4-6 quart heavy pot. Line the bottom of the pot with pieces of chicken (legs, thighs, anything bone-in), bone-in pork chops or lamb chops. Lay any torn grape leaves or just a few of the largest leaves over the top of the chicken layer.

Step 4. Roll the grape leaves

See the photos below picturing the following steps for how to roll grape leaves:

Lay multiple leaves out on a flat surface with the vein side facing up so the veins end up inside the roll. The stem end should face you.

Use about 1 teaspoon of the filling per leaf, give or take depending on the size of the leaf. This may seem like very little filling, but this is all you need for a cigar-sized roll. Shape the filling across the stem end of the leaf in a log, leaving enough leaf on either side of the meat for folding.

Don’t roll the leaves too tightly—allow room for the rice filling to expand, which it will during cooking.

Fold each side of the leaf over the meat like an envelope. Roll securely, away from you. Tuck any leaf points into the fold as you go.

End with the tip of the leaf facing down.

See Also

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Step 5. Fill the pot with rolls, broth, and lemon juice. Cook!

Arrange stuffed leaves in rows in the prepared pan, alternating the direction of each layer of rows. Place a small plate face down over the top layer to prevent the rolls from floating.

Fill pot with a mixture of chicken broth and lemon juice up to the plate. Cover and bring slowly to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook on a gentle simmer for another 60-90 minutes, until rice and leaves are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed (there will be some liquid remaining after cooking).

Step 6. Cool!

It is not easy to wait until these juicy, mouthwatering bundles of love are cooled off to eat! But:

Lebanese grape leave rolls are meltingly soft while still hot! So that they don’t fall apart as you remove them from the pot, allow the rolls to cool with the lid off the pot for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Step 7. Plate and serve

Serve grape leaves one of three ways:

1. Serve directly from the pot, using tongs to pull each roll from the pot.
2. Flip the entire pot of rolls into a wide bowl by placing the bowl over top of the pot, then flip over quickly (and carefully!). Make sure to pour off the excess cooking liquid before flipping the pot. Remove the meat layer and serve that on the side or discard (it’s not pretty!).
3. Place the rolls on a serving platter, using tongs to transfer the rolls from the pot to the serving platter.

Important Tips for Making the Best Lebanese Grape Leave Rolls.

1. Rinse the uncooked rice.This quick step helps rinse off excess starch from the rice, contributing to a soft-yet-firm grape leaf roll texture.
2. Try to roll the leaves all about the same size. This means using the same amount of filling in each, and not too much! Also, if a leaf is very large, try cutting it in half and working with it that way. If a leaf is very small, use that one and the very large or torn leaves to line the bottom of the pan.
3. Be sure to place an inverted plate over the rolls and broth. This step is key to keeping the rolls securely in place so they don’t float and unravel as they cook. Use an old plate if you like; I use a salad plate from every day dishes and the plate cleans up back to normal afterwards, no problem.
4. Beware of adding lemon wedges to the pot. I always used to add slices of lemon throughout the pot of rolls, but I discovered that the lemon rind can add a bitter taste to the finished rolls. Now I use lemon juice only, not the lemons, to season the rolls.
5. Cool the pot of rolls before transferring them to a serving dish. They are very soft when hot right after cooking. Once they cool off a bit, they hold their shape and can be served easily without breaking apart.

Can I make them ahead of time?

To make grape leaves in advance, there are a couple of ways:

Refrigerate:

• Refrigerated, cooked, for up to 3 days. Cook them, cool, then refrigerate in the cooking pot for simple reheating on the stovetop. To reheat from another oven-safe container, add some lemon juice, cover, and warm in a low oven until heated through.

Freeze:

1. Cooked grape leaves can be frozen in an airtight container or ziplock bag. Thaw them in the refrigerator, then warm them in the microwave or oven, covered and spritzed with lemon juice or chicken broth, before serving.
2. Raw rolled grape leaves freeze well in a plastic airtight container such as a Rubbermaid container with a lid. Layer the rolls in the container and use wax paper between the layers. They will hold in the freezer for up to 3 months. To cook, transfer the frozen rolls one at a time to the prepared pan and proceed with the recipe from there. Increase initial heat and cooktime on the stove to get them boiling, then simmer on medium low heat for 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Are stuffed grape leaves really Greek or Lebanese?

Many cultures of the Mediterranean make grape leaves! Greeks, Turks, Persians, and many more.

Greeks call them dolmades and typically serve the rolls with avgolemono sauce, a lemony egg sauce that is very delicious!

Lebanese call grape leaves warak enab, which is Arabic for, you guessed it!, grape leaves.

If you love Greek food, you should try this spanakopita recipe!

Frequently Asked Questions.

Make Ahead: how to store grape leaves

Lebanese grape leaves take some time to prepare (and it’s so much fun!). Thankfully most if not all of the process are easy to make ahead. My mother-in-law always made her grape leaves about 4 days in advance of any feast. Follow the recipe all the way to placing the plate on top of the leaves. Refrigerate, covered. When ready to cook, add the broth and lemon juice and proceed.

To cook grape leaves in advance, simply cool the pot of rolls, then cover and refrigerate for up to 5 days. Reheat on the stove over low heat. Or, plate the grape leaves and reheat in the microwave or oven. Coat the rolls with some lemon juice and olive oil to revive the leaves before (and after) reheating.

To store leftover grape leaves, place them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Reheat as noted above.

What do you serve with Lebanese Stuffed Grape Leaves?

Lebanese grape leaves are traditionally served as part of mezze, small plates of appetizers. They are beautiful on this Lebanese Mezze Platter. We also eat them as one of many dishes for a main course as part of a meal.

Grape leaves are delicious with labneh, Lebanese thickened yogurt, either a dollop over the top or thinned out a bit with water or lemon juice, as a dipping sauce.

Serve stuffed grape leaves with flatbread and olives too.

It seems that whenever we have grape leaves, we also make:

Lebanese kibbeh

Tabbouleh Salad

Lebanese Salata

Smooth, Creamy Homemade Hummus

Lebanese Baba Ganoush

More Lebanese Recipes to Try:

Lebanese Cabbage Rolls

Chicken Shish Tawook, grilled chicken skewers

Grilled Kafta Skewers

Easy Chicken Shawarma

Mujadara, lentil and rice pilaf

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