Rural-urban migration, unemployment, and the recent sharp rise in living expenses, rental houses and food prices suggest that poor urban households have been forced to experience an ever-widening food gap, becoming a major urban problem in many Ethiopian cities. Living in urban environments has become a challenge for poor households in many developing countries, including Ethiopia. Despite its growing relevance and far-reaching implications, urban food security has received little attention from the government of Ethiopia. Traditionally, food insecurity is commonly expected in rural households. However, it is considerable in urban settings, too, which has been hardly recognized in the study area. Hence, the ability to prevent the shocks and anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recover from them in a timely and sustainable manner is paramount to securing food at the household level. The study's general objective was to analyse urban food insecurity and enhance household resilience to food insecurity in big cities of Northwest Ethiopia. A concurrent, cros-sectional parallel mixed methods research design comprising quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. The study relied on survey data from 365 systematically selected households. Primary and secondary data sources were used to collect the necessary data. Household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions were data collection instruments. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the collected data. Food security measures, such as dietary energy consumption (DEC) and household dietary diversity index (DDI) were used to identify food insecure households and reduced coping strategic (rCSI) were also used as a strategy when households face food security shocks. The binary logistic regression model was used to identify the determinants of household food security. More importantly, the Foster-Greek-Thorbecke model assessed the incidence, depth and severity of food insecurity at the household level. Multivariate techniques including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) are used to measure the level of households' resilience index. Likewise, a multiple linear regression model was employed to identify determinant variables of household resilience to food insecurity. Employing DEC, the survey found that 54% of the households consumed less than 2,100 kcal/AE/ daily and experienced food insecurity. A baseline of 2,100 kcal/AE/ day revealed that 56.7% of households in Bahir Dar and 52.7% of households in Gondar experienced food insecurity. The study revealed that only 31% of married households were food insecure, contrary to 80% of single-headed households. Besides, food insecurity is most prevalent among private house renters, 83%, as opposed to 28% who have their own houses. Based on DDI, less than four food items were consumed by 64% of households, which is far below the FAO's recommendation. The findings of rCSI also showed that Gondar is relatively better (40/63) than Bahir Dar (48/63). Accordingly, eating fewer meals daily, choosing fewer quality foods, and limiting portions were the most often used coping mechanisms during food shocks. The Foster-Greek-Thorbecke model revealed that food insecurity's incident, depth, and severity were 54%, 15%, and 5.6%, respectively. This implies that if the regional government can mobilize to cover 15% of the caloric needs of food-insecure households, it can bring them up to the recommended daily caloric requirement so that food insecurity can be eradicated. The binary logistic regression model indicated that sex, house ownership, income, marital status, remittances, and credit services significantly determine household food insecurity. The analysis and the finding from PCA revealed that while all turned out to be significant, adaptive capacity, asset income, and food access are the three resilience dimensions in terms of contribution to households' resilience to food insecurity. Though the majority of the surveyed households (55.1%) are non-resilient in general, the intercity based analysis revealed that there is variation among cities, where Gondar City is more resilient (46.7%) than Bahir Dar (43.2%). The particular characteristics and drivers of urban food security and the vast inequalities within big and emerging cities necessitate customized programs and policies