Ghanaian cuisine

Vegetable side dishes in a Ghanaian restaurant including diced pineapple with sliced garlic and taro leaf salad.

Location of Ghana

Ghanaian cuisine refers to the meals of the Ghanaian people. The main dishes of Ghana are centered around starchy staple foods, accompanied by either a sauce or soup as well as a source of protein. The primary ingredients for the vast majority of soups and stews are tomatoes, hot peppers, and onions. As a result of these main ingredients, most Ghanaian jollof rice, soups, and stews appear red or orange.

Ghanaian foods heavily rely on traditional food crops grown in Ghana, combined with crops introduced through colonial and globalized cuisine.

Main staple foods

Ghanaian-style banku

The typical staple foods in the southern part of Ghana include cassava and plantain. In the north, the main staple foods include millet and sorghum. Yam, maize and beans are also staple foods across Ghana. Sweet potatoes and cocoyam are also important in the Ghanaian diet and cuisine. With the advent of globalization, cereals such as rice and wheat have been increasingly incorporated into Ghanaian cuisine notably in the form of bread. The foods below represent Ghanaian dishes made out of these staple foods.

Foods made with maize

• Akple, a traditional meal of the Ewe, is made with corn flour and can be eaten with pepper sauces, stews, or any soup. It is typically served with okra soup (fetridetsi) or herring stew (abɔbitadi). Akple is never prepared in the same way as banku. An important distinguishing factor between the two products is that banku requires the use of a special preformulated watery material called Slightly Fermented Corn-Cassava Dough Mix, cooked to a soft, solid consistency of corn-cassava dough, aflata, en route to a soft form of banku with further cooking, and the Slightly Fermented Corn-Cassava Dough Mix is never the signature material of any form of akple product. A variety of akple, known as dzekple, is cooked with oil and meat, crab or fish.
• Ba mi ku (banku) is a mixture of cassava dough, corn dough, water and salt mashed in a cooking pot.

LEAF in Dangme language is "BA" hence the final product earns its name "BA MI KU" as it was wrapped in leaves in and shaped into a ball. It is usually enjoyed with different kinds of soup, stew, or grinded pepper, onion and tomato grinder together. One particular clan of the Ga-Dangme (Adangbe clan) tribe is credited with the original recipe for the meal banku, a claim which may be argued among the other clans. Sometimes only corn flour is used, but in many areas, cassava dough is cooked together with fermented corn dough in different ratios.

• Fanti kenkey is wrapped in plantain leaves that give it a different texture. It is boiled for long periods into consistent solid balls.
• Banku cooked with cassava and corn dough mixture is called agbelimorkple by the Ewe people while the one without cassava dough mixture is known as kutornu-kple (Cotonou banku)
• Mmore is cooked fermented corn dough without cassava, prepared like banku among the Akan people.
• Kenkey/komi/dokonu is fermented corn dough wrapped in corn, originating from the Ga people of the Ga-Adangbe, who call it komi or Ga kenkey. Another variety originating from the Fanti people is Fante dokono, or Fanti kenkey, which is wrapped with plantain leaves that give it a different texture, flavor, and colour as compared to the Ga kenkey. Both are boiled for long periods into consistent solid balls.
• Tuo zaafi is a millet, sorghum or maize dish originating from Northern Ghana.
• Fonfom is a maize dish popular in south-western Ghana.
• Abolo, which is prepared by steaming corn dough and sugar mixture is a delicacy among the Ewes. It is eaten with various soups or sauces.
• Yoroyoro is widely eaten across Dagbon and many parts of Northern Ghana. It is made by boiling maize until it is softened. The food is eaten with pepper and onions.
• Nkyekyeraa is a Ghanaian dish made up of dry corn and few groundnuts, which is mostly found in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions. It is usually wrapped in corn leaves or a fresh leaf and boiled till it becomes soft enough chewing easily.

Foods made with rice

• Waakye—a dish of rice and beans with a purple-brown color. The color comes from the indigenous grass, Sorghum bicolor. This side dish bears striking similarities to West Indian rice and peas. The rice is cooked and steamed with an indigenous leaf, coconut, and a pulse such as black-eyed peas or kidney beans.
• Omo Tuo/Rice ball—sticky mashed rice, often eaten with groundnut or palm nut soup.
• Plain rice—boiled rice accompanies many of the variety of red stews.
• Jollof rice—rice cooked in a stew consisting of stock, tomatoes, spices, and meat boiled together. This dish originated from the Djolof traders from Senegal who settled in the Zongos before the colonial period. Adapted for local Ghanaian tastes, it is typically eaten with goat, lamb, chicken, or beef that has been stewed, roasted or grilled.
• Fried rice—Chinese-style fried rice adapted to Ghanaian tastes.
• Angwa moo—also referred to as "oiled rice". This is unlike fried rice, in which the rice is cooked before frying. Oiled rice is cooked by first onion-frying the oil, then adding water after the onions have browned, giving the rice a different fragrance. The rice is then cooked in the water-oil mixture to give the rice an oily feel when ready. It may be cooked with vegetables or minced meat, added to taste. It is mostly served with earthenware-ground pepper, with either tinned sardines or fried eggs complementing it.

Foods made with cassava

• Kokonte or abete—from dried peeled cassava powder—is usually served alongside groundnut soup, consisting of a variety of meat such as tripe, lamb, or smoked served.
• Fufu—pounded cassava and plantains; pounded yam and plantain, or pounded cocoyam/taro. This side dish is always accompanied by one of the many varieties of Ghanaian soups.
• Gari is made from cassava. Often served with red red, a fish and black-eyed pea stew, or shito and fish.
• Attiéké or Akyeke— a culinary specialty of the lagoon people (Ebrié, Adjoukrou, Alladian, Abidji, Avikam, Ahizi, Attie) of southern Ivory Coast. It is popular among the Ahanta, Nzema and Akan-speaking people of Ivory Coast.
• Plakali—made from cassava and popular among the Ahanta, Nzema and Akan-speaking people of Ivory Coast.
• Yakayake, made from steamed grated cassava is a favourite among the Ewe people.It is eaten with various stews or soups.

Foods made with beans

A deviation from the starch and stew combination are Red red and tubaani, primarily based on vegetable protein (beans). Red red is a popular Ghanaian bean and fish stew served with fried ripe plantains and often accompanied with gari, fish, and pulses. It earns its name from the palm oil that tints the bean stew and the bright orange color of the fried, ripe plantains. Tubaani is a boiled bean cake, called moin moin in Nigeria.

• Koose

Foods made with yam

Locally made ampesie (plantain and garden eggs stew)

• Ampesie—boiled yam. It may also be made with plantains, cocoyams, potatoes, yams or cassava. This side dish is traditionally eaten with fish stew containing tomatoes, oil, and spices.
• Yam fufu—fufu made with yam instead of cassava, plantains, or cocoyam—is traditionally eaten with Ghanaian soup. It is popular in Northern and southeastern Ghana.
• Mpotompoto (yam casserole or porridge)—slices of yam cooked with much water and pepper, onions, tomatoes, salt and preferred seasoning.
• Yam balls - This super sweet delicacy takes the form of scotch eggs, but in this case, it has the fillings of meat pie, spring rolls, samosa, or shawarma.
• Fried Yam - Deep-fried yam can be served with a variety of stews and pepper sauces. The chips are fried such that the outside is crispy and the inside is wet, blissful, and yummy.
• Roasted Yam: This is one of the most popular street snacks. The white yam with brown bark is used to make this dish.

Soups and stews

Most Ghanaian side dishes are served with a stew, soup, or mako (a spicy condiment made from raw red and green chilies, onions, and tomatoes (pepper sauce)). Ghanaian stews and soups are quite sophisticated, with a liberal and delicate use of exotic ingredients and a wide variety of flavours, spices and textures.

Vegetables such as palm nuts, peanuts, cocoyam leaves, ayoyo, spinach, wild mushroom, okra, garden eggs (eggplant), tomatoes, and various types of pulses are the main ingredients in Ghanaian soups and stews and in the case of pulses, may double as the main protein ingredient.

Beef, pork, goat, lamb, chicken, smoked turkey, tripe, dried snails, and fried fish are common sources of protein in Ghanaian soups and stews, sometimes mixing different types of meat and occasionally fish into one soup. Soups are served as a main course rather than a starter. It is also common to find smoked meat, fish and seafood in Ghanaian soups and stews.

Koobi is dried tilapia that has been salted

They include crabs, shrimp, periwinkles, octopus, snails, grubs, duck, offal, and pig's trotters. Also oysters.

Meat, mushrooms, and seafood may be smoked, salted, or dried for flavour enhancement and preservation. Salt fish is widely used to flavour fish-based stews. Spices such as thyme, garlic, onions, ginger, peppers, curry, basil, nutmeg, sumbala, Tetrapleura tetraptera (prekese) and bay leaf are delicately used to achieve the exotic and spicy flavours that characterize Ghanaian cuisine.

Palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter, palm kernel oil, and peanut oil are important Ghanaian oils used for cooking or frying and may sometimes not be substituted for in certain Ghanaian dishes. For example, using palm oil in okro stew, eto, fante fante, red red or Gabeans, egusi stew, and mpihu/mpotompoto (similar to poi). Coconut oil, palm kernel oil, and shea butter have lost their popularity for cooking in Ghana due to the introduction of refined oils and negative Ghanaian media advertisements targeted at those oils. They are now mostly used in a few traditional homes, for soap making, and by commercial (street food) food vendors as a cheaper substitute to refined cooking oils.

Common Ghanaian soups are groundnut soup, light (tomato) soup, kontomire (taro leaves) soup, palm nut soup, ayoyo soup and okra soup.

Ghanaian tomato stew or gravy is a stew that is often served with rice or waakye. Other vegetable stews are made with kontomire, garden eggs, egusi (pumpkin seeds), spinach, okra, etc.

Among the Ewes, some soups are prepared with gboma (Solanum macrocarpa) and also yevugboma (European gboma). Water leaf) or ademe (jute mallow). These are eaten with the various varieties of akple, abolo (steamed corn dough) or yakayake (steamed cassava dough).

Breakfast

A bowl of tombrown with sausages, croissant pancakes, potatoes and an egg.

Making of koko (local porridge)

Most of the dishes mentioned above are served during lunch and supper in modern Ghana. However, those engaged in manual labour and a large number of urban dwellers still eat these foods for breakfast and will usually buy them from the streets. Another popular breakfast is called hausa koko (northern porridge). It is usually prepared in Northern Ghana, is sweet, and often eaten with koose or bread with groundnuts.

In large Ghanaian cities, working-class people would often take fruit, tea, chocolate drinks, oats, rice porridge or cereal (locally called rice water) or kooko (fermented maize porridge), and koose/akara or maasa (beans, ripe plantain and maize meal fritters). Other breakfast foods include grits, tombrown (roasted maize porridge), and millet porridge.

Bread is an important feature in Ghanaian breakfasts and baked foods. Ghanaian bread, which is known for its good quality, is baked with wheat flour and sometimes cassava flour is added for an improved texture. There are four major types of bread in Ghana. They are tea bread (similar to the baguette), sugar bread (which is a sweet bread), brown (whole wheat) bread, and butter bread. Rye bread, oat bread and malt bread are also quite common.

Sweet foods

Etor is a popular dish in south Ghana, prepared with plantain or with yam boiled and mashed, and mixed with palm oil. Groundnuts (peanuts) and eggs are used to garnish the dish.

There are many sweet local foods that have been marginalized due to their low demand and long preparation process. Ghanaian sweet foods (or confectionery) may be fried, barbecued, boiled, roasted, baked or steamed.

Fried sweet foods include cubed and spiced ripe plantains (kelewele) sometimes served with peanuts. Koose made from peeled beans (and its close twin acarajé or akara made from beans that are not peeled), maasa, pinkaaso, and bofrot/Puff-puff (made from wheat flour); waakye dzowey and nkate cake (made from peanuts); kaklo and tatale (ripe plantain fritters); kube cake and kube toffee (made from coconut); bankye krakro, gari biscuit, and krakye ayuosu (made from cassava); condensed milk, toffee, plantain chips (or fried plantain) and wagashi (fried farmer's cheese) are fried Ghanaian savory foods (confectionery).

Kebabs are popular barbecue foods and can be made from beef, goat, pork, soy flour, sausages, and guinea fowl. Other roasted savoury foods include roasted plantains, maize, yam and cocoyam.

Steamed fresh maize, yakeyake, kafa, akyeke, tubani, moimoi (bean cake), emo dokonu (rice cake), and esikyire dokonu (sweetened kenkey) are all examples of steamed and boiled foods, while sweet bread (plantain cake), meat pie similar to Jamaican patties, and empanadas are baked savoury foods. Aprapransa, eto (mashed yam), and atadwe milk (tiger nut juice) are other savory foods. Gari soakings are a modern favorite. It is a blend of gari (dried, roasted cassava), sugar, groundnut (peanut) and milk.

Beverages

Ghanaian beverages at a convenience store in Ghana

In southern Ghana, Ghanaian drinks such as asaana (made from fermented maize) are common. Along Lake Volta and in southern Ghana, palm wine extracted from the palm tree can be found, but it ferments quickly, and then it is used to distill akpeteshie (a local gin). Akpeteshie can be distilled from molasses too. In addition, a beverage can be made from kenkey and refrigerated into what is in Ghana known as ice kenkey. In northern Ghana, bisaap/sorrel, toose, and lamujee (a spicy sweetened drink) are common non-alcoholic beverages whereas pitoo (a local beer made of fermented millet) is an alcoholic beverage.

In urban areas of Ghana, drinks may include fruit juice, cocoa drinks, fresh coconut water, yogurt, ice cream, carbonated drinks, malt drinks, and soy milk. In addition, Ghanaian distilleries produce alcoholic beverages from cocoa, malt, sugar cane, local medicinal herbs, and tree barks. They include bitters, liqueur, dry gins, beer, and aperitifs.

Street foods in Ghana

Street food is very popular in both rural and urban areas of Ghana. Many Ghanaian families patronize street food vendors, from whom all kinds of foods can be bought, including staple foods such as kenkey, red red and waakye. Other savoury foods, such as meat kebabs, boiled corn cob, boflot/bofrot (puff-puff), and roasted plantain are sold mainly by street food vendors.

Ice kenkey is a popular chilled dessert sold by street vendors in open-air markets.

Kosua ne meko (eggs with pepper) is a street food sold mostly by street vendors.

Common Ghanaian dishes

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  Banku and grilled tilapia fish
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  Red-red: bean and fish stew with fried plantain
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  Beans, plantain, and chicken
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  "One Man Thousand": cooked shrimp and fried Tanganyika sardine
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  Ghanaian Kɔkɔ a y'atoto (nickname: Kofi Broke Man) charcoal-roasted ripe plantain
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  Ghanaian Banku Ne Mako (banku and pepper-tomato sauce)
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  Ghanaian style konkonte
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  Ghanaian fufu in palmnut soup with goat
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  Fufu and light tomato soup with meat
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  Fried yam with spicy chicken and kpakpo shito (ground green peppers)
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  Jollof rice with coleslaw and barbecue chicken
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  Kenkey with fried fish and chili pepper
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  Cooked yam and plantain, with "garden egg" (aubergine) stew and chicken
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  Ghanaian style spicy sauce
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  Ghanaian style spicy grilled kebab
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  Waakye (rice and beans) served with spaghetti and boiled egg
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  Ground red pepper, a Ghanaian delicacy, mainly an accompaniment for banku and kenkey
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  Tubaani
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  Tubaani wrapped in the leaves of Ewe eran

See also

• Chop bar
• West African cuisine
• List of African cuisines
• La Tante DC10 Restaurant

Further reading

There are some cookbooks which concentrate on Ghanaian food, including the following:

• Osseo-Asare, Fran (2018). The Ghana cookbook. Barbara Baeta. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-7818-1343-3. OCLC 896840053.
• Adjonyoh, Zoe (2021). Zoe's Ghana kitchen. New York: Voracious. ISBN 978-0316335034