We examine the link between the pandemic and food security in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, highlighting the various channels through which COVID-19 impacts key pillars of food security: affordability, availability, and utilization. By estimating two equations with distinct indicators for food security and proxies for the effect of the pandemic, the study finds that higher confirmed COVID-19 cases and weaker national preparedness to handle the disease are significantly associated with increased food insecurity levels. The empirical assessment underscores the relative importance of the role of institutional and demographic prerequisites needed to handle the pandemic in explaining food insecurity variability across all countries, suggesting that these factors are more influential than the pandemic’s stringency per se. The findings indicate that the MENA region faces specific challenges that put it in a disadvantaged situation compared to other regions, including weak governance, high levels of corruption, and fragile health systems, making it particularly vulnerable. Consequently, the pandemic may act as a catalyst that would intensify the urgency to undertake radical reforms in food systems and to revisit several structural and institutional rigidities that have affected accessibility and utilization pillars in the MENA region.