Hebrew Vocabulary: Basic Ingredients

During the pandemic, social media fueled us all to try our hands at baking banana bread, pancakes, and other delicious comfort food. Some of us might have even plucked up the courage to enter MasterChef because your family enjoyed your culinary creations! Getting baking in the kitchen would have required you to go to the supermarket to get all the ingredients to bake bread or to create an extraordinary lockdown birthday cake!

Apart from lockdown, being in Israel will inspire you to cook! The food here is simply delicious. And since our main goal has always been to teach you Hebrew, in this short article we will teach you Hebrew words to help you to shop for basic ingredients. Now you’ll be ready to spend a few days in the center of Beer Sheva or Herzliya and to buy all the ingredients you need for your homemade bread in the closest Israeli supermarket. So, whether you want to get baking or whip up a salad, many of the Hebrew words to come will be highly useful for you too.

Ready to learn the basic ingredients in Hebrew? Grab a notebook because you’ll learn a lot…

Bread Ingredients in Hebrew (and other healthy kitchen elements).

We are not assuring you of a good review from Gordon Ramsay, we are only here to help you learn these new words in Hebrew so you can bake a challah-bread, a nice pashtidah, or a delicious cake.

If you always wanted to bake something in Israel, either for yourself or for the entire family, these basic ingredients-related words in Hebrew will help you more than you think!

Ready to learn how to say these basic ingredients in Hebrew? Here we go!

1. Flour: Although sometimes it is fun to have a flour war, the best idea is to use it to prepare something you’ll later bake. Flour in Hebrew is קמח, it is pronounced keh-mach and you can find it in many different types: Organic, gluten-free, whole wheat, etc. With it, you can make bread, a nice cake, prepare some tasty and very typical Ashkenazi food, and a variety of other things.

2. Sugar: A very important word! And just like with flour you can find it in its different forms and types. Sugar in Hebrew sounds very similar to the way you say it in Spanish. In Hebrew, sugar is סוכר  and it is pronounced soo-car. If you add sugar to some baked goods while preparing them, something truly tasty could come out as a result.

3. Salt: A nice idea to remember how to say “salt” in Hebrew is to remember one of Israel’s most famous locations: The Dead Sea. In Hebrew, it is called “Yam Ha-Melach”, which literally means “The Sea of Salt”… Well… Salt in Hebrew is מלח, and it is pronounced meh-lach.

4. Oil: This ingredient can be used to prepare a nice dough or to add to your Israeli salad. Actually, the same word is used for your car oil! In Hebrew, oil is שמן, and it is pronounced sheh-men. How much שמן do you regularly add to your salads?

5. Eggs: Here’s an easy one! Eggs in Hebrew is ביצים and it is pronounced beh-tzeem. Only one egg is ביצה and it is pronounced beh-tzah. But since we are big fans of recipes, we know that for most of them you’ll need a few ביצים. How many eggs do you use in your favorite baking recipe?

6. Water: This is a very important word for everyday use, if you’re cooking or if you’re just watching your husband while he prepares the carrot cake you love so much. Water in Hebrew is מים, it is pronounced mah-yeem and, especially during the Israeli summer, you have to drink lots of it!

7. Yeast: One of our favorite ingredients to use (or consume) almost every day, unless it is Pesach. Yeast in Hebrew is שמרים, and it is pronounced shmah-reem. You can use it to bake a thousand different things, but if you are in Israel, we truly recommend you to bake something very Israeli… What do you say about a ‘Babka Cake’? Sounds tasty?

Learn Hebrew. Bake a cake in Israel!

Learning Hebrew has never been so easy, enjoyable, and engaging! In the live and online Hebrew classes offered by Rosen School of Hebrew you’ll master this useful and ancient language very quickly.

Become fluent in Hebrew and feel comfortable and relaxed during your next visit to the land of milk and honey. Who knows? Maybe you will indeed join MasterChef and be next season’s star in the Israeli version of the show.

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About the author

Arie Elbelman R.Arie was born and raised in Chile, and immigrated to Israel in his early twenties. He wants to take an active role in the development of this young and smart country. Arie believes that the best way to shape our present and future is to live with more horizontal hierarchies, to smile a whole lot, and to always, always respect each other.

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