Top 10 Halal Food in Malaysia You Need to Know

Malaysia is a beautiful Islamic country. Thus, it is quite easy to find available halal food. Halal food can be found just about everywhere around Malaysia. Now that we know Malaysia has countless halal food, let us name you some of the best signature halal food that you can feast on in Malaysia.

First of is Malaysia’s national food, the nasi lemak. If its translated directly into English the results that you would get is fat rice. It is indeed rice and it is also fat. The rice is cooked with coconut milk or as Malaysians call it ‘santan’ and pandan leaves to create a sensational flavor and distinctive fragrant. It is then served with fried anchovies and nuts with fresh cucumbers and a hardboiled egg on the side. The best ingredient of nasi lemak is of course the sambal. Some might want to add fried chicken, rendang ayam and many more to go with their nasi lemak.

Coming in second place is nasi kandar which is popular in the northern states of Malaysia. The exquisite Penang island is where it originated from. Here is a little history on how nasi kandar got its name. Back in the olden days, the nasi sellers would carry two containers of rice on each end of a kandar pole. Hence, nasi kandar. Nasi kandar is hot rice served with lady fingers curry, fried chicken, beef or lamb curry, fish or squid eggs, vegetables and papadom. There are a lot more side dishes but if we listed all of them, this post would be too long. You can choose to eat plain white rice or flavoured rice such as briyani to eat with your side dishes.

Nasi kerabu is another significant Malaysian dish mainly common in the states of Kelantan and Terengganu. Nasi kerabu is unique looking due to its rice being blue in colour. The rice is blue because it is cooked with petals from butterfly pea flowers. It is served with sambal, pickles, fried chicken and vegetables making it sort of a nasi ulam. It goes swell with a little bit of keropok!

Nasi dagang is another dish that is famously common in Kelantan and Terengganu. Nasi dagang is rice prepared in coconut milk and served with fish curry, chili sambal, cucumber pickles, hard boiled eggs and never forgetting the special ingredient of this dish which is the shaved coconut. Without these remarkable ingredients, nasi dagang would not be complete.

Enough with all the nasi dishes. Let’s move on to something light. Pasembur or better known as Malay salad is a combination of fried spicy crab, shredded cucumber, boiled eggs, bean sprouts, potatoes, prawns and fried octopus showered in sweet spicy kuah kacang. Northerners especially Penangites would call this dish pasembur while people in other parts of Malaysia would call it mamak rojak. Although, there are two types of rojak. But we’re not going to get into that.

Next is keropok lekor. It is sort of a snack or Malaysian kuih. Terengganu is the father state of keropok lekor. It is made from fish, salt and flour all fried to become crunchy delicious fish crackers. They are a little bit greyish in colour but do not be alarmed by the colour, the taste is extremely satisfying. Fun fact, the word lekor came from the Terengganu malay slang meaning roll. It is best eaten with chili sauce.

Tempoyak is a malay cuisine widely known in the state of Pahang and is made from durian that has been fermented for at least three to five days. Tempoyak is usually not eaten on its own but it is used as a key ingredient for other Malaysian cooking such as gulai tempoyak. Indonesia is highly associated with tempoyak too.

Moving on to sweet halal food. This is to all you sweet-tooths out there. Why don’t you guys take a guess what we’re mentioning next. It is a dessert or kuih and it has two layers; the top layer is green and the bottom white. The top half is custard made from pandan leaves while the bottom is rice with coconut milk. If your guesses were the seri muka kuih, then you guys are right. Seri muka is considered an old traditional Malaysian kuih and the taste is to die for.

We’re sure that most of you have eaten this before especially when you go to a mamak stall. Yes, it is of course roti tissue. Basically, it is roti canai but way thinner making it crispy and chewy at the same time. It is usually served sweet with sugar, kaya or sweet condensed milk. It is designed into a cone-like shape. Roti tissue goes well with a hot cup of the Tarik.

And yes, the last in our list is teh Tarik. Sure it’s not actually food but this hot tea with milk drink just screams Malaysia; we just had to put it in our list of best halal food. It is regarded as malaysia’s national beverage. The name came to be due to the motion of pulling the drink as it is prepared.

As we said it before, all the food listed are halal. Talking about food is kind of making us hungry hehe. We think we might take a short break now. Bye-bye!

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Article is written by: 

Nur Jazima Binti Abdul Aziz, freelance writer of this blog at Zaahara. Interests include blog writing, academic writing and creative writing.

-Photos are taken from google images

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