Kolo & Dabo Kolo: The Art of the Ethiopian Snack

Snacking is universal; Ethiopia just does it better. Exhibit A: kolo, the roasted-grain handful that travels everywhere. Exhibit B: dabo kolo, the crunchy pellets that vanish from every bowl they're served in.

Kolo — the traveler's handful

Kolo is roasted barley, often mixed with roasted chickpeas, peanuts, and sunflower seeds — salty, toasty, endlessly munchable. It's offered to guests before meals, passed around at coffee ceremonies as buna kurse, carried on bus rides and pilgrimages, and sold in paper cones on every Ethiopian street. Where other countries reach for chips, Ethiopia reaches for kolo — whole-grain, protein-rich, and centuries ahead of the snack aisle.

Dabo kolo — the crunchy pellets

Dabo kolo ("bread kolo") is a dough of flour — often with native Ethiopian oats — seasoned with berbere and a little honey or sugar, rolled into ropes, snipped into tiny pieces, and toasted until deeply crunchy. Sweet-spicy-salty at once, it is dangerously poppable; batches are made in quantity because they need to be.

The sprouted cousins

The snack family runs deep: bekolt (sprouted beans, boiled and dusted with berbere or mitmita), gonqol (seeds soaked, sprouted, and roasted), endushdush (soaked and roasted), and baqela ashuk (fava beans roasted then boiled). Ethiopia figured out sprouted-grain snacking generations before it reached health-food shelves.

Make dabo kolo tonight

Knead flour with a spoon of berbere, a spoon of honey, a pinch of salt, and enough water to bind. Roll thin ropes, snip into pieces, and toast in a dry pan, shaking often, until brown and crunchy.

You need our Berbere — and maybe Teff Granola for the days you don't feel like rolling dough.