Cooking class with a family in the Ourika Valley

By the Ourika Valley team · Updated 1 October 2026

A hands-on cooking class in a family home in a village of the Ourika Valley, with private transport from Marrakech. You cook with the family (a tagine, bread baked in the clay oven, mint tea), then sit down and eat together. For curious cooks, couples, friends and families with children.

• You cook: this is not a demonstration
• A tagine, bread from the clay oven and mint tea
• In a family home in a village of the valley
• The meal is shared with the family afterwards
• Private transport from your hotel or riad in Marrakech

The day, stop by stop

1. Pickup in Marrakech and drive to the valley

   Your driver collects you at your hotel or riad in Marrakech. If you stay inside the medina, we meet you at the nearest point a vehicle can reach. The road crosses the Haouz plain to Tnine Ourika, then follows the river up the valley. On Mondays, the day of the weekly souk at Tnine Ourika, we can stop at the market on request before going up to the village.

2. Welcome in the family home

   The house is in a village of the valley, built of earth and stone like its neighbours. You leave your shoes at the edge of the carpets and are welcomed with a first glass of mint tea. The family shows you the house, the kitchen and the clay bread oven outside, and you see what will go into the pot: vegetables, meat if you eat it, spices, olive oil, preserved lemons.

3. Preparing the tagine

   You wash your hands and get to work beside the cook of the house. You peel and cut the vegetables, season the base of the dish, then build the tagine layer by layer before the conical lid goes on. The dish depends on the season and on what you prefer. The tagine then cooks slowly on its own, which is exactly why the bread comes next.

4. Bread in the clay oven and mint tea

   While the tagine simmers, you knead the dough, let it rest, then shape the loaves and help bake them in the clay oven, fed with wood. Hot bread comes out in a few minutes and is hard to resist. Then comes the tea: you learn how the family prepares it, with green tea, fresh mint and sugar, and how to pour it from high to raise the foam.

5. The meal together and return to Marrakech

   When the tagine is ready, everyone sits down around the same table and eats what you have cooked together, with the bread you baked and more tea. Nobody rushes this part. Afterwards your driver takes you back down the valley and drops you at your hotel or riad in Marrakech. Exact times are confirmed with your booking.

The best tagines in the valley are not served in restaurants. They are cooked at home, on a low fire, by women who learned from their mothers and never measured anything. This class takes you into one of those kitchens, not to watch but to work: you cook the meal with the family, and then you eat it with them.

What you cook

Three things, which together make a complete valley meal.

A tagine. You prepare it from the raw ingredients: the onions and spices at the bottom, the meat if there is any, then the vegetables arranged in a cone so that they steam under the lid. Which tagine depends on the season and on what you prefer, so there is no fixed menu. Tell us what you eat and what you do not, and the family chooses with what the gardens and the market offer that week.

Bread. Every house in the valley bakes, and the clay oven by the door is used most days. You knead, shape the round loaves and help bake them. The smell alone is worth the trip.

Mint tea. Not a tea bag in a glass: green tea, fresh mint, sugar, and a way of pouring that takes some practice. You will probably spill a little. Everyone does.

If you want the stories behind these dishes and three recipes to try again at home, read our guide to Berber food in the Ourika Valley.

How the class works

This is a family kitchen. There are no numbered stations and no printed recipe cards. You sit or stand next to the cook, she shows you a gesture, and you do it. Much of Moroccan home cooking is done close to the ground, on a low table or a stool, and vegetables are often cut in the hand rather than on a board. You can try it that way or use a board, as you like.

Quantities are given by eye and by hand: a pinch, a handful, a glass. If you want to cook the dish again at home, take notes or photos of each step as you go (ask first, see below). Your driver stays with you to translate questions and answers.

A tagine cannot be hurried. While it cooks you make the bread and the tea, and there is usually time to look around the house, step out on the terrace and see the fields below. This slow part is where most of the conversation happens.

Eating together, and a few customs

When the tagine is ready, it goes in the middle of the table and everyone eats from it. A few customs make things easy for everybody:

• Shoes come off before you step on the carpets of the guest room.
• Use your right hand if you eat from the shared dish with bread, and eat from the part of the dish in front of you. Forks are offered to guests, so nobody goes hungry.
• Photos: the food, the oven and your own hands at work are fine once you have asked. For people, always ask first, and accept a no with a smile, especially from women and older members of the family.
• Tea: accept at least the first glass. It is how a house says welcome.

Our page on the people and culture of the valley explains more about hospitality and daily life in Amazigh villages.

Cooking class or trek and lunch?

We run two outings that end around a family table, and guests often ask which to choose.

On the trek and lunch with a Berber family, you walk between villages with a local guide and arrive at a house where lunch has been cooked for you. The walk is the activity, the meal is the reward.

Here it is the other way round. There is no walk: your time goes into the kitchen, and the meal on the table is the one you made. Choose the class if you like to cook, if you travel with children who need something to do with their hands, or if walking on uneven paths is difficult for someone in your group.

Fair to the family

The family is paid for the class and for the meal, and that income stays in the village. We prefer to say it plainly, because it changes how you can feel as a guest: you are not imposing, you are expected. A tip at the end is a kind gesture and never an obligation. If you would like to bring something, fruit or pastries from Marrakech are more useful than gifts for the children.

Add a stop on the way

The roadside potteries are on the same road, and after cooking in clay you may want a tagine pot of your own: our pottery guide explains which ones are made for the stove. On a longer day, the class can also follow a morning walk to the waterfalls of Setti Fatma. And on Mondays, the souk at Tnine Ourika is an optional stop on the way up.

How to book

The class is booked by request. Send us your date, the number of adults and children, your hotel or riad and any dietary needs, by WhatsApp or by email. We confirm availability and the price for your group the same day. Cancellation is free up to 7 days before, as set out in our terms and conditions.

For our other private days in the valley, see the packages page.