Looking for a hands-on cooking class in Amman? Spend the morning discovering Jordanian food from market to table. Start in Amman’s Old Downtown market with a local guide, tasting seasonal produce and learning about the ingredients used in Jordanian kitchens. Then join a local female chef for a hands-on Jordanian cooking class where you’ll prepare maqlubeh and a traditional side dish before sitting down together to enjoy the meal you’ve made.
Old Downtown Amman
3 – 4 Hours
Experience Jordanian food from market to table on this small-group cooking class in Amman. Your morning begins in the heart of downtown Amman, where you’ll explore a bustling local fruit and vegetable market and discover the ingredients that are part of everyday Jordanian cooking.
Start your experience wandering through one of Amman’s local markets with your guide. Browse colourful displays of seasonal fruits and vegetables, learn about ingredients commonly used in Jordanian kitchens, and experience a side of downtown Amman that many visitors simply walk past.
This isn’t a shopping tour. It’s a chance to see how locals shop, ask questions about unfamiliar ingredients, and learn more about Jordanian food culture before heading into the kitchen.
After exploring the market, it’s time to cook. Join a local female chef for a hands-on Jordanian cooking class where you’ll learn how to prepare maqlubeh, one of Jordan’s best-known traditional dishes, along with a seasonal side dish.
You’ll take part in preparing the meal while learning about the ingredients, techniques and traditions behind the food. No previous cooking experience is needed. The class is designed to be relaxed, social and approachable, whether you love to cook or simply love to eat.
Of course, the best part of any cooking class is eating what you’ve made. Once the cooking is finished, sit down together and enjoy your freshly prepared Jordanian meal.
More than simply learning a recipe, this experience offers a deeper look at Jordanian food and everyday life in Amman, from choosing ingredients at the market to sharing a meal around the table.
Experience the heart of Jordanian cuisine through a guided local market visit and hands-on cooking class in Amman. A journey that blends local culture, flavor, and connection, your group will visit the fruit and vegetable market and then learn a local recipe and enjoy a meal in the welcoming kitchen of a local female chef.
The star of your Jordanian cooking class is maqlubeh, one of Jordan’s most loved home-cooked dishes. Its name means “upside down” in Arabic, which makes sense as soon as you see how it is served.
Maqlubeh is a one-pot dish traditionally made by layering rice, vegetables such as eggplant, cauliflower and potatoes, and chicken or meat. The ingredients slowly cook together, allowing the rice to absorb all of those flavours and spices.
But making maqlubeh is only half the fun. The moment everyone waits for comes at the end.
The cooking pot is placed upside down over a large serving platter and carefully lifted away, hopefully leaving behind a perfectly formed tower of rice, vegetables and meat. It’s the famous maqlubeh flip, and getting it right is part of the experience!
Maqlubeh is the kind of dish you’ll find around family tables throughout Jordan. It’s hearty, comforting and meant to be shared, making it the perfect dish to learn while experiencing Jordanian food culture firsthand.
Along with maqlubeh, you’ll prepare a seasonal Jordanian side dish to complete your meal.
Before stepping into the kitchen, you’ll experience where a Jordanian meal really begins: at the market.
Downtown Amman is the historic heart of the city and one of our favourite places to experience everyday life in Jordan. Tucked among its busy streets are fruit and vegetable stands overflowing with whatever is fresh and in season.
What you see changes throughout the year. You might find piles of tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants alongside fresh herbs, citrus, dates, figs, pomegranates or other seasonal produce.
As you wander the market with your local guide, you’ll learn about ingredients used in Jordanian cooking, what’s currently in season and how locals shop for their families. Depending on the day, you may also encounter spices, pickles, olives and other staples of a Jordanian kitchen.
It’s colourful, busy and sometimes a little chaotic, which is exactly why we love it.
Rather than simply walking through as a visitor, you’ll have someone with you who can explain what you’re seeing, answer your questions and introduce you to a part of Amman’s food culture that is easy to miss on your own.
After exploring the market, you’ll head to the kitchen to cook alongside a local Jordanian woman who knows these dishes not simply as recipes, but as part of everyday life.
Our cooking experience is about more than following instructions from a recipe card. You’ll learn how Jordanian food is actually prepared, hear the stories and traditions connected to the dishes and have plenty of opportunities to ask questions along the way.
Amman Food Tours is proudly female-led, and creating opportunities for local women to share their knowledge, food and culture with visitors is an important part of what we do.
The atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming. Think less formal cooking school and more like being invited into a Jordanian kitchen, where cooking, conversation and eating all happen together.
You don’t need to be an experienced cook to join us. In fact, you don’t even need to be particularly good at cooking! Our small-group Amman cooking class is designed for travellers who want to experience Jordanian culture through its food.
It’s a great experience for couples looking for something different to do in Amman, friends travelling together, families with older children or teens, and food lovers who want to understand more about what they’re eating during their trip to Jordan.
If you’re visiting Jordan for the first time, we recommend doing the class early in your trip. You’ll leave knowing more about Jordanian ingredients, dishes and food traditions, which makes everything you eat for the rest of your journey a little more meaningful.
There are plenty of ways to taste Jordanian food in Amman, but learning how to make it gives you a completely different connection to it.
A Jordanian cooking class lets you slow down and understand what goes into the dishes you’ve been seeing on restaurant menus and family tables. You’ll learn about local ingredients, cooking techniques and traditions while spending time with Jordanians who can answer the questions you won’t find on a menu.
Combining a downtown market tour with a hands-on cooking class takes that experience one step further. You’ll see where locals shop, learn about the ingredients and then use that knowledge in the kitchen.
And unlike most souvenirs from Jordan, this is one you can recreate when you get home.
Long after your trip is over, you can make maqlubeh again, attempt the famous flip and bring a little piece of Jordan back to your own table.
