layers of ground (minced) lamb or beef, sliced eggplant, and tomato, topped with a white sauce and baked. Turkish Musakka, unlike the Greek version, is not layered. Instead, it is prepared with sautéed and fried eggplants, green peppers, tomatoes, onions, and minced meat. It is eaten with Cacık and Pilav. There are also variants with zucchini, carrots and potatoes. In the Arab world, moussaka is a cooked salad made up primarily of tomatoes and eggplant, similar to Italian caponata, and is usually served cold as a mezze dish. The Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Romanian versions are made with potatoes instead of eggplant. Despite its Arabic name, moussaka is usually thought of as a Greek dish in the West.

In the standard (3-layer) Greek recipe, the bottom layer consists of eggplant slices sautéed in olive oil; the middle layer is ground lamb precooked with onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, herbs (bay leaf, oregano, thyme), and spices (cinnamon, allspice and black pepper); and the top layer is a cheese-flavoured béchamel sauce, or egg custard (probably introduced by Tselementes in the 1920s). The three layers are laid in a lightly buttered or oiled pan and baked until the top béchamel layer turns golden brown. No more baking is required as the bottom two layers are already almost cooked beforehand.

The butter in the béchamel can be omitted, used sparingly, or substituted by cream. In the rest of the Balkans, the top layer is often a custard. Grated cheese or bread crumbs are often sprinkled on top.

There are variations on this basic recipe, sometimes with no sauce, sometimes with other vegetables. The most common variant in Greece may include zucchini ( US) / courgette ( UK), part-fried potatoes or sautéed mushrooms in addition to the eggplant. There is even a fast-day version in the Greek cookbook by Tselementes which includes neither meat nor béchamel sauce, just vegetables (ground eggplant is used instead of ground meat), tomato sauce, and bread crumbs.