Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Snacks To Help You Survive Passover

We’re half way through Passover and if you’re anything like me, you’re starting to crave all of those delicious carbs that the Atkin’s diet and the rabbis frown upon this time of year — bread, pastries, cake, pizza, pasta and even beer.

In Israel, food companies and some creative chefs have found ways around the holiday’s restriction coming up with kosher for Passover chocolate wafers, soup croutons and even bagels — yes, bagels. Some of them work better than others, so here’s what to try and what to avoid during the last few days of the holiday.

“Afifiyot” Chocolate Wafers

Wafers are a classic in Israel. During Passover, the brand Elit brings out its “Afifiyot”. By the look, they are exactly the same as the regular chocolate wafer: rectangles indented with little square designs and filled with chocolate. In color, however, they are much less golden and more of a white with a grey undertone.

If you can get past the cardboard texture of the wafer, then you may actually find them better than the regular ones. It’s as if the makers of “Afifiyot” felt bad for not being able to provide us with the actual wafer and so they overcompensated with a rich dark chocolate. No complaints here!

“Klik” Chocolate Snack

Speaking of chocolate, the Israeli “Klik” also shows up on the kosher for Passover shelf. The regular “Kliks” come in many different shapes: little chocolate crunch balls, chocolate squares filled with more chocolate, triangles made with chocolate covered crunchy cornflakes. They are often sold at movie theaters. It is the kind of thing you eat without really being hungry — like popcorn.

During Passover, the company throws in a little bonus: instead of just milk chocolate flakes, this one has a mix of milk and white chocolate ones.

“Crunch” Cereal

The “Crunch” is that cereal that every Israeli kid craves — cylinders shaped out of chocolate filled with cream chocolate nougat — it’s more dessert than breakfast. Almost every household has a box and thankfully there’s a kosher for Passover version that tastes very close to the original. Same bite, same filling and same crunch. They may be just a little more airy. So for those who were worried about not being able to eat “Crunch”, worry no more!

“Shtuchim” flat pretzels

On the more savory end of things, one of Israelis’ favorite nibbles are pretzels, or “beygale” in Hebrew. They go down quite easily at a Tel Aviv Pub. A few years ago, Osem launched “Shtuchim” — basically pretzels that have been completely flattened out, a crunchier version of the traditional snack. The Passover versions come in square form (the originals are circles). They’re slightly less salty and a little more airy in their texture. The regular ones are completely flat but the Passover one are slightly more bumpy, like a cushion. According to the ingredients listed, the passover “Shtuchim” are corn-based, which can definitely be felt in the taste. They are also gluten-free.

“Shkedei marak” — Israeli Soup Croutons

In Israel, “Shkedei marak” are more than just a type of crouton to add to soups, they are a national pride. The small yellow crunchy squares made from flour and palm oil are an Israeli invention that is today sold internationally. The idea is based on the homemade crispy-fried squares of dough known as mandlach traditionally served with chicken soup in Ashkenazi homes.

For Passover, the flour is replaced with a mix of potato starch and dried potatoes, and the result is simply amazing. They taste like the best kind of potato chips, only crunchier and more addictive. I have to admit I couldn’t stop nibbling on them and by the time I finished this article, I had devoured an entire bag.

The Passover Bagel

Yes, you have read correctly. This year, the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem has introduced the Passover Bagel. The bagel was created by Executive Chef Andreas Marinkovits. The goal: come up with a perfect recipe to mimic the original New York style bagel. That includes the hard crust and fluffy middle.

Now, I haven’t had the chance to try this one out but if this is any similar to Passover bread and buns served in Israel, then it’s probably just mushy bread that has quite harsh effect on the stomach. Because Passover bread can’t rise, it is usually very dense, mushy and difficult to digest.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.