A tagine is two things at once: a slow-cooked Moroccan stew, and the shallow clay pot with a tall, cone-shaped lid that it’s traditionally cooked in. You don’t need the pot to make the dish. A heavy Dutch oven or casserole does the job well, and a slow cooker works too, with a few changes. This guide covers all three: how to choose, season and look after a clay tagine, how to control the heat, how much liquid to use, how long different meats take, and what to do when a tagine turns out watery, burnt or too salty.
For the spices themselves, see our Moroccan spice guide. For two recipes to practise on, try our chicken tajine with apricots and lamb tagine with prunes. Both give methods for a Dutch oven and a clay tagine.
How a clay tagine works
The base is a wide, shallow dish. The lid is a tall cone. As the food simmers, steam rises into the cool upper part of the lid, condenses, and runs back down the sides into the pot. Very little moisture escapes, so a tagine needs much less liquid than an ordinary pot, and the meat cooks in a concentrated sauce rather than a lot of broth.
Clay also heats slowly and evenly and holds its heat. That suits the gentle simmer a tagine needs, but it also means the pot reacts slowly when you turn the heat up or down. Small changes and patience work better than big adjustments.
Choosing a clay tagine
Tagines are sold for two different purposes, and they don’t always look different. Cooking tagines are made to go on the heat. Serving tagines, often brightly painted and glazed, are made to bring food to the table and may crack on a burner. Some decorative glazes aren’t meant for food contact at all. If you want to cook in it, buy one that is clearly sold for cooking, and look for a food-safe, lead-free glaze if it’s glazed.
- Unglazed tagines are traditional and porous. They need seasoning, absorb flavours over time and need a little more care.
- Glazed tagines are easier to clean and often need little or no seasoning, but they’re still clay, so the same rules about heat apply.
- Tagines with a cast iron base and a ceramic lid behave like a Dutch oven. They can be used on high heat for browning and usually work on induction. Check the maker’s instructions.
For four people, a base about 25–30 cm (10–12 in) across is a practical size. Smaller tagines look lovely but hold less than you’d expect, because the sides are so shallow.
Seasoning a new clay tagine
Always follow the maker’s instructions first. If there are none, this is a common method for an unglazed tagine, or for the unglazed parts of a glazed one:
- Soak the base and lid in water for at least 1 hour, or as long as the maker suggests.
- Dry them, then rub the inside of the base and lid, and any unglazed surfaces, with olive oil.
- Put the tagine in a cold oven, then turn it on to about 150°C (300°F, gas mark 2).
- Leave it for about 2 hours, then turn the oven off and let the tagine cool down completely inside.
Some cooks repeat the oil rub once or twice before the first use. Many tagines come pre-seasoned or glazed; for those, a soak and an oil rub may be all that’s needed.
Heat: diffusers, hobs and ovens
Clay cracks when it heats or cools too fast, or unevenly. Most problems with tagines come down to this. A few rules keep the pot safe:
- Use a heat diffuser on gas and electric hobs. A diffuser is a flat metal plate that sits between the burner and the pot and spreads the heat evenly, so there’s no hot spot directly under the flame.
- Keep the heat low to medium-low. A clay tagine should never go on high heat.
- Never heat an empty tagine. Put the oil, onions or meat in first.
- Don’t pour cold liquid into a hot tagine. Use warm or hot water or stock.
- Don’t set a hot tagine down on a cold or wet surface. Use a wooden board or a folded towel.
- In the oven, start the tagine in a cold oven and let them heat up together.
Most clay tagines don’t work on induction hobs, because induction needs a magnetic metal base. An induction adapter plate, a steel disc that heats up on the hob and passes the heat on, can make it possible, but it’s slow. On induction, a cast iron-based tagine or a Dutch oven is simpler.
Because the clay should stay on gentle heat, the meat in a clay tagine usually isn’t browned first. That’s normal in Moroccan cooking: meat is often cooked gently in fat with the spices and grated onion, rather than seared. In a Dutch oven you can brown first if you like a deeper, roasted flavour.
Liquid levels
Getting the liquid right matters more than any other step. Too much and you have soup; too little and the bottom catches.
In a clay tagine, the condensing lid returns almost all the moisture, so the liquid only needs to come part of the way up the meat. In an open-topped pot with an ordinary lid, more evaporates and you need more. In a slow cooker, almost nothing evaporates, so you need the least of all.
These are the amounts used in our recipes:
| Recipe | Dutch oven | Clay tagine | Slow cooker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken tajine, 1.2 kg bone-in thighs | 300 ml, about halfway up the chicken | about 200 ml | not given in the recipe |
| Lamb tagine, 1.5 kg bone-in shoulder | 750 ml, almost to the top of the meat | 400–500 ml | 400 ml |
If you’re adapting another recipe for clay, start with about two-thirds of the liquid it asks for and add a little warm water during cooking if it starts to look dry. It’s much easier to add liquid than to reduce a thin sauce later.
Timing by meat
Times are for a gentle simmer in a covered Dutch oven. A clay tagine on a diffuser is slower: allow roughly 10–15 minutes more for chicken and up to an hour more for lamb. Always cook to tenderness rather than the clock.
| Meat or main ingredient | Dutch oven, gentle simmer | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bone-in chicken thighs or legs | 45–60 minutes | Safe at 74°C (165°F); more tender at 80–85°C |
| Chicken breast | 20–25 minutes | Dries out easily; add it later, or use thighs |
| Lamb shoulder, bone-in chunks | 1¾–2¼ hours | In clay, allow 2½–3 hours |
| Lamb shoulder, boneless | from about 1½ hours | Start checking early |
| Beef chuck, large chunks | about the same as lamb shoulder | Cook until it falls apart |
| Goat shoulder | a little longer than lamb | Keep the heat low |
| Kefta (meatballs) in tomato sauce | 20–30 minutes | Eggs are often cracked in near the end |
| Firm fish | 10–15 minutes, on vegetables that are already nearly tender | Cook until it just flakes |
| Vegetables only | 40–60 minutes | Root vegetables underneath, softer ones on top |
Oven
A tagine or Dutch oven in a low oven needs almost no attention, and there’s less risk of the bottom catching. Our chicken tajine cooks at 170°C (340°F, gas mark 3) for about 40 minutes, then 15 more once the apricots go in. The lamb tagine cooks at 160°C (325°F, gas mark 3) for 2 to 2½ hours. If you use a clay tagine in the oven, remember to start it in a cold oven.
Slow cooker
A slow cooker works well for tougher cuts. Cook the onions, spices and meat in a pan first, so the spices lose their raw taste, then move everything to the slow cooker with much less liquid than a pot recipe asks for. Our lamb tagine uses 400 ml instead of 750 ml and cooks on Low for 7–8 hours or High for 4–5 hours.
Bone-in chicken thighs need less time; check them after about 4 hours on Low. Add dried fruit, preserved lemon and fresh herbs near the end, and reduce the sauce in a pan afterwards if it’s thin. Slow cookers don’t let liquid evaporate, so the sauce is nearly always thinner than a pot-cooked tagine.
How to tell when it’s ready
- Chicken: the meat pulls away from the bone easily, and the thickest part of a thigh reads at least 74°C (165°F) on an instant-read thermometer.
- Lamb, beef or goat: a piece falls apart when pressed with a fork, and the meat slips off the bone.
- The sauce: it should be thick enough to coat a spoon, with the onions melted into it. Our recipes take the lid off for the last few minutes, or reduce the sauce separately, to get there.
Fixing common problems
The sauce is watery
Take the meat out and boil the sauce on its own, uncovered, over a higher heat until it thickens, then return the meat. Boiling the meat in the sauce to reduce it makes it stringy. In a clay tagine, you can instead take the lid off for the last 10–15 minutes, keeping the heat low. Next time, use less liquid.
It caught or burnt on the bottom
Don’t stir or scrape. Lift out the meat and everything that isn’t burnt, move it to a clean pot, add a splash of warm water and carry on cooking over a lower heat. Taste the sauce: if only the very bottom caught, it’s usually fine. If it tastes bitter all through, the sauce is lost, but the meat can often be rinsed gently and finished in a fresh sauce. In a clay tagine, catching usually means the heat was too high or there was too little liquid.
The meat is still tough
It needs more time, not more heat. Keep it covered at a gentle simmer and check every 15 minutes. Boiling hard makes tough meat tougher.
The sauce is greasy
Lamb shoulder releases a lot of fat. Tilt the pot and spoon the fat off the surface, or chill the tagine overnight and lift off the solid layer the next day.
It’s too salty
Add more unsalted liquid and some extra cooked chickpeas or vegetables to spread the salt, and a squeeze of lemon to balance it. Remember that preserved lemon and olives are salty, so taste before adding more salt when you use them.
It’s too sweet
Add a pinch of salt, plenty of black pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Serve less of the fruit on each plate.
The clay tagine cracked
Small surface crazing in the glaze is common and usually harmless. A crack that goes right through, or a tagine that leaks, should no longer be used for cooking. Keep it for serving instead.
Caring for a clay tagine
- Let it cool completely before washing.
- Wash with warm water and a soft brush or sponge. For stuck-on food, soak it in warm water for a while, or rub with a paste of baking soda and water.
- Avoid detergent on unglazed clay, which can absorb the taste of soap. A tiny amount on a glazed tagine is fine.
- Don’t put it in the dishwasher.
- Dry it thoroughly, then store it with the lid off or propped open, or with a sheet of kitchen paper between lid and base. A tagine stored damp and closed can go mouldy.
- If an unglazed tagine smells musty, scrub it with baking soda, rinse, dry, then rub it with oil and bake it as for seasoning.
- Rub the inside with a little oil now and then, especially if it hasn’t been used for a while.
Storing and reheating a tagine
Tagines often taste better the next day. Cool the dish and refrigerate it within 2 hours of cooking. Don’t store food in the clay tagine itself; move it to a covered container. The cooked tagine keeps for 3–4 days in the fridge and freezes well for about 3 months. Reheat it covered over low heat with a splash of water until it bubbles and is piping hot all the way through, 74°C (165°F) in the centre. Our make-ahead, storage and freezing guide has more on cooling, freezing and reheating safely.
Serving
In Morocco a tagine is brought to the table in its pot and eaten with bread, used to scoop up the meat and sauce. A round loaf of khobz is traditional; crusty bread or warm flatbread does the same job. Couscous is a popular partner outside Morocco. A cold, crisp salad such as our Mediterranean chickpea salad balances the richness.
Ready to cook? Start with the Moroccan chicken tajine with apricots, which takes about an hour and a half, or plan a slower afternoon around the lamb tagine with prunes. Both live in our Moroccan recipes collection.