Za’atar and Labneh Spaghetti Recipe (2024)

Hunted down some real Labneh at a grocer who had it, and glad I did. I’ve cooked with Greek yogurt before in similar dishes and can confirm that the texture and flavor of the real labneh was different than cooking with yogurt. It was richer and more flavorful.Added diced zucchini to the hot oil for one minute before adding the garlic. Added fresh large-diced tomatoes and cherry tomatoes near end of garlic cooking time, before adding the pasta and water. Delicious.

Sarah, the za’atar is added once the pasta is plated. My question is “1/2 cup of za’atar? Really?”

You can make your own richer Labneh by pouring the yogurt into a coffee filter and letting it drip off the liquid. Takes about 15-30 mins. Worth the wait. A few layers of cheesecloth will also work. You can also add nighella (Black sesame seeds they are sometimes called) for additional flavor.

Easy, yummy, bright, creamy, delicious. Can’t get enough of this pasta. I subbed 1/4 cup diced onion instead of the garlic and it turned out great. Such an easy and adaptable recipe. Love, love, love!

I made this recipe for one cutting all quantities in half and it was quite good, using only Greek yogurt and TJ’s Za’atar spices I already had. It’s a simple meal, so good olive oil takes this dish a long way. Lemon juice for garnish really helped this dish not feel so heavy, because it’s quite filling.

Hot yogurt spaghetti? No. We threw it out. It was like baby spit-up. (Sorry!) And yes, I used real lebneh. Shudder.

Pasta is sold in 16 ounce boxes. Are cooks supposed to weigh the right amount of pasta for these recipes and discard the rest?

Feeling solidly okay about this dish. There’s this macarona b’Laban dish that we do with garlic, ground beef (fried with fresh cumin), and parsley that absolutely slaps, and this is definitely adjacent to this but hits the comfort food button a little less hard. Would definitely give this to the kiddos on a busy night though for sure.

all the haters are clearly delusional. this is one of the simplest and yummiest pasta's you will ever make. if you want to be a lil extra crazy, i would suggest a frying up some garlic in olive oil on the side and adding some breadcrumbs, parsley, and a little pecorino for an additional topping. and yes, 1/2 a cup of za'atar is needed.

Although skeptical at first, my family loved how rich and tasty this was--and how easy it was to make, if you carefully follow the directions. Zaatar and Labneh are two of my favorite ingredients so I had high hopes. The only place where I strayed from the recipe was to mix half the Zaatar into the pasta before taking it off the heat and spreading the remainder on the individual plates. I've saved this one!

You don't have to throw out the unused portion of a box of dried pasta. It's dry! Put a rubber band on the box and save it. It lasts a very long time.

What would be the point??

For another level of flavor and some crunch I added lightly-browned pine nuts that I sautéed separately then added along with the labneh.

I made this as a cold pasta salad, spooning the labneh/zatar into cooked bow ties along with roasted red peppers, pepper flakes, chopped red onion, cucumber, pinches of fennel and cumin seeds, and some barely cooked cold zucchini. Topped with a generous grinding of pepper and pinch of fresh sumac- delicious!

The Z&Z za’atar uses: wild thyme (za’atar), sesame seeds, sumac, and salt; with the wild thyme being the main ingredient. The Spicely Organics uses: sesame seeds, sumac, thyme, marjoram, and savory, with the s/s as the main. The Z&Z is more authentic and can be an acquired taste, would recommend halving to a quarter cup if using and adjusting before serving.

Really yummy and easy comfort food. For my taste I think another clove or two of garlic would be good. I used red lentil pasta, but whole wheat would be really good too. Go easy on adding the cup of pasta water to the oil, maybe a little less would be good. Do not skimp on the za’atar! I topped with low salt pistachios but slivered almonds or pine nuts would be good too. So good!

Made it and loved it. Thanks for your video, Chef Ham, I learned a few tricks!

Looked at the YouTube video for this recipe to make sure I made it exactly as the author intended. Unfortunately, I did not like the flavor profile at all. Strongly registered as yogurt pasta. Not pleasant. I just don’t think pasta, labne, and zaatar go altogether (and I love these ingredients, especially authentic zaatar). I think it’s just comfort food for the author based on how he grew up, per what he said in his video.

This is good; adding crispy prosciutto and fresh cherry tomatoes would raise it to outstanding.

I don’t understand all this fuss. It’s a great quick and easy comfort meal. The quantities are correct. And if you have good zaatar, it’s delicious! I made as directed and added red chilli flakes to the garlic. Yum!

Perhaps obvious, but seeing as the main spice is za’atar, your enjoyment of this dish will likely be strongly influenced by 1) how much you like za’atar, and 2) the quality and type of za’atar you use. I like za’atar and the za’atar I had on hand was good quality but not the best I ever tasted. The dish came out well, was good, but would not make it again. The yogurt sauce was nice and creamy- I used goat yogurt and it integrated well. Will keep looking for killer za’atar- and try again!

I love Ham’s passion and energy. And having married into a Lebanese family I can attest to the limitless inclusion of labneh and za’atar. But for me I needed a couple tweeks. (1) Before adding the water to the garlic/oil, add the spice off the heat. Let the spice oils release, because it makes it less grainy in the finished dish; and (2) I added a couple healthy pinches of Aleppo pepper once I added the pasta. Sa7tein!

This was surprising. How much flavor there was and how heavy it seemed afterwards. I do think the recipe calls for too much za’atar. If I make again, I’d try adding some lemon juice at the end

Outside of cities with large middle eastern populations, I have no idea where I would buy labneh, so i used greek yogurt which produced very disappointing results.

To make a gluten free and vegan version, I used red lentil spaghetti and cocojune’s lemon dill labneh. And I added zucchini. It was good! Not sure if I will ever make it again but it was an enjoyable dinner. The best zaatars on the market imho is New York shuk, Thrive Market, or Z&Z

I used labneh balls in a jar and cut the recipe in half for just 2 people. I loved the idea below of adding diced zucchini and added 2 zucchini to the hot oil before adding the garlic (thank you!). It was really delicious served with a salad of fresh salad leaves and rocket.

This is a really good labneh for this kind of recipe: Loveneh Labneh https://www.merionparkcheese.com/

This was delicious exactly as written—a lovely pick-me-up after a long day.

The technique of adding the pasta water to the sauteed garlic, and cooking it down worked brilliantly. So much flavor is infused in the pasta. I also used the idea of mixing half of the zaatar into the dish, half on top to blend the flavors better. One important addition: if using yogurt instead of labneh, be sure to add salt to the yogurt or it will taste very bland. I topped the dish with some fried eggs for protein and color.

I love pasta, yogurt and za’atar but unfortunately did not love this recipe. In their effort to churn out “new” recipes every day, NYT Cooking is losing some quality control. This was uninspired.