Nigerian food, dish by dish

A cold salad made from thin, dried strips of cassava that have been soaked to soften, then tossed with a seasoned palm oil dressing, ground ingredients and garnishes. It has a chewy, slightly firm texture and a savoury, tangy taste from the dressing.

Igbo

Beans and sweet corn cooked together until both are soft, finished with palm oil, pepper and onions. The corn keeps a slight bite and sweetness against the soft beans.

Yoruba

Afang Soup is made from finely sliced afang leaves (wild spinach leaves) combined with waterleaf, cooked with palm oil, meat, dried fish and stockfish. It has a dense, vegetable-heavy texture and is one of the signature soups of south-eastern coastal Nigeria.

Annang, Efik, Ibibio

A pale, pepper-forward soup thickened with pounded boiled yam rather than seeds or palm oil, so it stays close to white. It is heavily spiced with uyayak and utazi and cooked with goat meat, chicken or fish.

Efik, Ibibio

Peeled beans ground to a paste, whipped with onion and pepper until light, then deep fried in spoonfuls until crisp outside and airy inside. Known as kosai in Hausa and akara in Yoruba and Igbo.

Hausa, Yoruba

A dark brown swallow made by stirring yam flour into boiling water until smooth. The colour comes from the drying and roasting of the yam before it is milled, not from any added ingredient. A pale variant, amala lafun, is made from cassava flour.

Yoruba

The yam version of amala, made from elubo, yam that has been peeled, sliced, dried and milled. It is dark brown and smoother and more elastic than the cassava version, and is what most people mean when they say amala.

Yoruba

The pale variant of amala, made from lafun, which is cassava that has been fermented, dried and milled into flour. It is off-white to light brown, softer than yam amala and slightly sour from the fermentation.

Yoruba

A soft, thick porridge made from chunks of yam cooked down in a palm oil–based sauce with peppers, onions and seasonings until the yam breaks down slightly and thickens the mixture. It has a warm orange colour and a comforting, mildly spicy taste.

Yoruba

Atama Soup is a soup built around atama leaf, a strongly aromatic wild leaf, cooked with periwinkle, fish, meat and palm oil. Its distinctive character comes from the atama leaf's pungent flavour, which is milder than bitterleaf but similarly bracing.

Efik, Ibibio

A plate of rice served with ayamase, a green pepper stew made from unripe bell and chilli peppers bleached in boiled palm oil, loaded with assorted beef, tripe, ponmo and locust beans. The rice itself is plain, usually local ofada rice wrapped and steamed in leaves.

Yoruba

Banga Soup is a palm-fruit soup from the Niger Delta made by extracting fresh palm-fruit pulp and cooking it with a distinctive mix of spices, notably banga spice blend, along with meat or fish. It has a rich orange colour and a savoury, slightly bitter, aromatic flavour distinct from other palm-nut soups.

Igbo, Isoko, Itsekiri, Urhobo

Jollof rice made with basmati instead of the usual long grain parboiled rice. The grains are thinner and more fragrant and cook far faster, so the stew is reduced first and the rice is steamed briefly in it.

Beans cooked with the pot liquid until they break down into a thick, wet porridge, seasoned with palm oil, pepper, onions and often dried fish or crayfish. Unlike ewa riro the sauce is not made separately.

Bitterleaf Soup is made from bitterleaf that has been washed to reduce its bitterness, cooked with cocoyam or another thickener, palm oil, meat, fish and stockfish. The result balances a residual bitter edge against a rich, savoury stock.

Igbo

Boli is ripe or half-ripe plantain roasted whole or split over an open charcoal fire until charred outside and soft inside. It is typically sold by roadside vendors and served with a spicy sauce made from pepper, palm oil and often fish.

Rivers

Pepper soup made with fresh catfish cut into thick steaks and simmered briefly in the spiced broth so the flesh stays firm and the skin turns gelatinous. Scent leaf is added at the end.

Delta

Pepper soup made with chicken, usually hard or old layer chicken simmered long enough to soften, in a broth of ground pepper soup spices and scotch bonnet. The broth is lighter than the goat meat version.

Chin Chin is a fried dough snack made from flour, sugar, butter or margarine and sometimes nutmeg, cut into small pieces before frying until crisp and golden. It ranges from crunchy small cubes to softer, cake-like pieces depending on the recipe.

Beef that is boiled until tender, then shredded into fine fibres and fried with oil, spices and sometimes a little flour or potash until dry and fluffy. It has a soft, cotton-like texture and a savoury, well-spiced taste.

Hausa

A stiff, dough-like swallow made by stirring garri (granulated dried cassava) into hot water until it forms a thick, smooth mass. It has a light tang from the fermentation of the garri and a firmer texture than fufu, and is eaten as an accompaniment to soup rather than on its own.

Edo, Igbo, Yoruba

Edikang Ikong is a vegetable soup made from a generous mix of pumpkin leaf (ugu) and waterleaf, cooked with palm oil and a variety of proteins including meat, dried fish and stockfish. It is known for its dense green colour and rich, layered flavour.

Efik, Ibibio

A dark green soup made from editan, a bitter wild leaf that must be washed and squeezed to reduce its bitterness before cooking. It is cooked with palm oil, periwinkle, dried fish and meat and is thicker than afang.

Annang, Efik, Ibibio

A Yoruba vegetable stew of shredded leafy greens simmered in palm oil with peppers, onion and locust bean, loaded with assorted meat, fish and shellfish. The name means, roughly, stirred greens.

Yoruba

A thick soup built on ground melon seed, which swells and curdles into soft lumps as it cooks in palm oil and pepper. Leafy greens, meat, fish and sometimes locust bean are added, producing a rich, nutty, textured soup rather than a smooth one.

Igbo, Yoruba

A steamed cake of peeled beans, ground and whipped with water only, with no pepper, oil or seasoning in the batter. It steams to a plain white, springy block, which is why it is called white moi moi.

Yoruba

Plain steamed ekuru served with agoyin sauce, a dark, very hot pepper sauce made by frying blended dried peppers, onions and sometimes locust beans in a generous amount of palm oil until almost black.

Yoruba

Soft-cooked, lightly mashed brown beans served with a dark, intensely spicy pepper sauce made from dried peppers fried in a generous amount of palm oil. The beans themselves are mild and creamy, while the accompanying sauce is sharp, smoky and hot.

Lagos

Beans cooked until soft then stirred into a palm oil pepper sauce with onions, peppers and often locust beans, so the sauce coats the beans rather than sitting under them. The name means stirred beans.

Yoruba

A smooth, slippery green soup made from jute leaves beaten or blended until they break down into a light draw. It is thin, barely seasoned beyond iru and crayfish, and is meant to be eaten with something else rather than alone.

Yoruba

A rich seafood soup built on fresh fish, prawns, periwinkle and crab in a peppered broth thickened lightly with palm oil or ground crayfish. Everything goes in with the shells on, so the broth carries the whole catch.

Ijaw, Urhobo

A smooth, stretchy swallow made from fermented cassava that has been soaked, pounded or milled into a soft, elastic dough. It is white, mildly sour from fermentation, and has almost no flavour of its own, so it is always eaten with a heavily seasoned soup.

Edo, Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba

A pale yellow bean soup made by cooking peeled brown beans until they collapse, then sieving them into a smooth purée and finishing with palm oil, pepper and crayfish. It is thick, mild and slightly earthy.

Yoruba

Pepper soup made with bone-in goat meat, simmered long enough for the marrow and connective tissue to enrich the broth. It is the heaviest and most strongly flavoured of the pepper soups.

A thick soup thickened with ground roasted groundnuts, which give it a nutty taste and a pale brown colour. The paste is stirred into stock and cooked slowly so the oil separates and the soup loses any raw taste.

Hausa

The Yoruba okra dish in which chopped okra is cooked together with pepper stew rather than served beside it, so the finished pot is red-orange with visible okra pieces and much less draw than plain okro soup.

Yoruba

Rice cooked in a reduced base of blended tomato, red pepper and onion until each grain takes on the colour and flavour of the sauce. Nigerian versions favour long-grain parboiled rice, a heavy hand with pepper, and a deliberate layer of smoky scorching at the bottom of the pot.

Thin sheets of beef that are coated in a spiced peanut paste and sun-dried, then lightly grilled, producing a dry, chewy jerky-like snack with a strong peanut and pepper flavour.

Hausa

A smooth, lightly sweetened, non-alcoholic drink made from grains such as millet, sorghum or rice, or from tiger nuts, soaked, blended and strained into a thin, milky liquid. It is served chilled and has a mild, slightly grainy taste with hints of ginger or spices depending on the variety.

Fulani, Hausa

A small, round, spongy cake made from a fermented batter of rice or a rice-and-millet mix, cooked in a special moulded pan until golden on the outside and soft within. It has a mild, slightly sour flavour from fermentation and a texture similar to a rice pancake.

Hausa

A northern green soup made with alayyahu, the local spinach, cooked down with dawadawa, ground pepper, groundnut paste or kuli kuli and dried fish. It is mild and everyday, thickened only by the greens themselves.

Hausa

The northern okra soup, made from fresh or dried and ground okra cooked with dawadawa, ground pepper and dried fish or meat. Dried okra gives a darker, less slippery soup than the fresh southern versions.

Hausa

Miyan Kuka is a northern Nigerian soup made from powdered dried baobab leaves, giving it a distinctive slightly sour taste and a smooth, slightly draw-like texture similar to okra. It is usually cooked with meat or dried fish, ground spices and a base of stock, and is a familiar everyday soup across Hausa households.

Hausa

Miyan Taushe is a Hausa pumpkin soup made using the flesh of a squash-like pumpkin (kabewa) cooked down with ground melon or groundnut, vegetables and often dried fish or meat. It has a thick, mildly sweet base from the pumpkin and is a common everyday soup in northern Nigerian homes.

Hausa

A northern bean soup in which cooked beans are the body of the dish, seasoned with dawadawa, ground pepper, onions and dried fish or meat, and loosened with stock rather than puréed smooth.

Hausa

A northern soup made from yakuwa, the sour green leaf of the roselle plant, cooked with dawadawa, ground pepper and dried fish or meat. The sourness of the leaf is the point of the dish.

Hausa

A soup made from zogale, the leaves of the moringa tree, cooked with dawadawa, ground groundnut, pepper and dried fish. The leaves are small and tender and taste faintly bitter and grassy.

Hausa

A steamed pudding of peeled brown beans blended with pepper, onion and oil, poured into leaves, tins or moulds and cooked until firm. Fillings of boiled egg, fish or corned beef are common.

Yoruba

A one-pot rice cooked in palm oil rather than tomato stew, with dried fish, periwinkle, crayfish and vegetables cooked into the same pot. The colour is deep orange-brown and the taste is smoky and shellfish-heavy rather than tomato-sweet.

Efik, Ibibio

A soy-sauce version of fried rice, darker than Nigerian fried rice and made with soy or oyster sauce, spring onions, cabbage and sausage or shrimp instead of curry powder. It borrows its seasoning from Chinese cooking but is fried and seasoned to Nigerian taste.

Rice cooked in coconut milk instead of plain stock, which leaves it faintly sweet and richer than white rice. It is made either plain and white or in a tomato-based version that looks like jollof but tastes of coconut.

Lagos

Rice stir-fried with diced vegetables, liver or shrimp and curry powder, which gives the grains their yellow-green colour. The rice is parboiled and cooked in seasoned stock so that the grains stay separate rather than soft.

Cow foot cooked until tender and tossed in a thick, pale yellow sauce of palm oil emulsified with potash, seasoned with ehu seed and pepper, and finished with sliced onion and utazi leaves. Served warm in a wooden bowl.

Igbo

Nsala Soup, often called White Soup, is a peppery soup made without palm oil, giving it a pale colour, thickened with yam or a similar starch and traditionally cooked with fresh catfish. It is known for its light appearance but intensely spiced, peppery taste.

Igbo

A soft pale swallow made by cooking oat flour or blended oats into a stiff paste. It is looser than eba and slightly sticky, and is usually made in small quantities for one person.

Unpolished locally grown rice from the Ogun State area, short and speckled, with a distinct earthy aroma that divides opinion on first encounter. It is served with ayamase, a green pepper stew cooked in bleached palm oil with assorted meat.

Yoruba

Ofe Akwu is an Igbo palm-fruit soup made from freshly extracted palm-fruit pulp cooked with meat, fish and seasonings. It has a rich, orange colour and a smooth, savoury character built on the natural oil and flavour of the palm fruit.

Igbo

A soup built on finely shredded okazi leaves, a tough forest vine leaf, thickened with achi or ofor and cooked with palm oil, meat and dried fish. The leaves are sliced very thin because they never fully soften.

Igbo

A dense, protein-heavy soup thickened with cocoyam and ofor, combining ugu and okazi leaves with a large amount of assorted meat, stockfish and dried fish. It is the most expensive of the Igbo soups to cook properly.

Igbo

Ogbono Soup is made from ground ogbono seeds (wild mango or African bush mango kernels), which give the soup a thick, glossy, slightly stretchy texture when cooked. It is typically prepared with palm oil, meat, fish and leafy vegetables, and is one of the most widely eaten soups in southern and central Nigeria.

Edo, Igbo, Yoruba

Oha Soup is made using oha leaf, a soft leaf that is torn rather than cut so as not to bruise it, cooked in a base thickened with cocoyam alongside palm oil, meat, fish and stockfish. It has a smooth texture and a mild, distinctive vegetable flavour.

Igbo

A steamed pudding made from ground bambara nut flour mixed with palm oil, pepper and water, then tied in leaves or poured into containers and steamed until firm. It sets bright orange from the palm oil and is denser than moi moi.

Igbo

A draw soup made from chopped or grated okra cooked briefly so it keeps its stretch, usually with palm oil, pepper, fish and meat. Cooking it too long kills the draw, so it is the shortest-cooked of the major Nigerian soups.

Owo Soup is a light, slightly draw soup from the Niger Delta made with fresh palm fruit extract and thickened using ingredients such as ground crayfish and cocoyam or similar thickeners, giving it a lighter consistency than Banga soup. It is typically prepared with fresh fish and seafood.

Itsekiri, Urhobo

Rice cooked with palm oil, pepper and dried fish so that the oil coats every grain. It is simpler than native jollof, often made with whatever protein and vegetables are in the house, and is a household rather than a ceremonial dish.

Igbo

A naturally fermenting, milky-white alcoholic drink tapped directly from the sap of palm trees, most commonly the raffia or oil palm. It has a slightly sweet, fizzy taste when freshly tapped that becomes more sour and stronger in alcohol as fermentation continues over the following hours or days.

Edo, Efik, Igbo, Ijaw, Urhobo, Yoruba

A thin, fiery broth with no thickener, built on a blend of dried seeds and barks known as pepper soup spice, with meat or fish simmered in it. It is served as a bowl of liquid rather than something to eat with a swallow.

A swallow made from unripe plantain that has been dried and milled into flour, then stirred into boiling water. It is a purple-brown colour and slightly sweeter than other swallows.

Boiled white yam beaten in a wooden mortar until it becomes a smooth, elastic, slightly sticky dough. It is the most labour-intensive of the Nigerian swallows and, by wide agreement, the finest textured.

Igbo, Yoruba

Puff Puff is a deep-fried dough snack made from a yeast-leavened batter of flour, sugar and water, dropped into hot oil by hand or spoon to form soft, airy, golden-brown balls. It has a light, slightly chewy interior and a crisp outer surface.

Rice and beans cooked together in one pot until both are soft, seasoned with palm or vegetable oil, pepper and onions. The beans are started first because they take longer, and the finished dish sits between a rice pot and a porridge.

Plain boiled white rice served with a red tomato and pepper stew cooked with meat or fish. The rice is cooked in water without seasoning, so all the flavour sits in the stew ladled over it.

A smooth, pale swallow made from semolina flour (processed wheat) stirred into hot water until it thickens into a soft, elastic dough. It is milder and slightly sweeter tasting than cassava-based swallows and has a very smooth, uniform texture.

Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba

Cooked rice tossed quickly over high heat with vegetables and a protein, so the vegetables stay crisp and the grains take on a slight char. Unlike jollof, the rice is cooked first and the frying is the final short step.

Thinly sliced beef, ram or offal threaded onto sticks, coated in a dry spice mix built on ground groundnut, and grilled over open coals. The spice mix, yaji, is what defines it: peanut, ginger, garlic, cloves and a great deal of chilli.

Hausa

A firm, pale-yellow swallow made from maize flour cooked and worked into a smooth, dense mass. It has a slightly grainy texture compared with rice tuwo and a subtle maize flavour, and is served warm alongside soup.

Hausa

A soft, sticky swallow made by cooking rice, often broken or overcooked, and mashing it into a smooth, rounded mass. It is paler and less elastic than cassava swallows, with a mild, slightly starchy taste that takes on the flavour of whichever soup it is served with.

Hausa

A northern swallow made from wheat, cooked into a soft, pale paste and moulded like other tuwo. It is smoother than tuwon dawa and lighter in colour, with a mild taste.

Hausa

A stiff northern swallow made from sorghum, also called guinea corn, cooked into a thick paste and moulded into rounds. It is darker and heavier than tuwon shinkafa and has a faintly sour, grainy taste.

Hausa

Fermented sliced seeds of the African oil bean tree, with a soft, slightly stretchy texture and a strong, pungent, fermented taste often compared to locust beans. It is used as a flavour-carrying ingredient in salads and stews rather than eaten as a standalone dish.

Igbo

A brown swallow made by stirring wholewheat flour or wheat meal into boiling water until stiff and smooth. It is denser and nuttier than semovita and holds its shape well when moulded.

A deep red, tangy drink made by boiling dried hibiscus (roselle) calyces in water, often with added spices, fruit and sweeteners, then straining and chilling the liquid. It has a tart, cranberry-like flavour and is usually served very cold.

Hausa