what is ghana's national dish?

Ghanaian cuisines refer to the meals of the Ghanaian people. The main dishes of Ghana are organized around starchy staple foods, which goes with either sauce or soup accompanied with a source of protein. The main ingredients for the vast majority of soups and stews are; tomatoes, hot peppers and onions. Most Ghanaian soups and stews are red or orange in appearance as a result of the main ingredients used.

The typical staple foods in the southern part of Ghana include cassava and plantain. In the northern part, the main staple foods include millet and sorghum. Yam, maize and beans are used across Ghana as staple foods. 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. The foods below represent Ghanaian dishes made out of these staple foods.

A variety of akple known as dzekple is cooked with oil and meat, crab or fish.

A deviation to 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 plantain 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 plantain. Tubaani is a boiled bean cake, called moin moin in Nigeria.

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 liberal and delicate use of exotic ingredients, 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.

They include crab, 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 adverts targeted at those oils. They are now mostly used in 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 or abolo (steamed corn dough) or yakayake (steamed cassava dough).

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, sweet, and often eaten with koose or bread with groundnuts.

In large Ghanaian cities, working-class people would often take fruit, tea, chocolate drink, oats, rice porridge/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 breakfast 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.

There are many sweet local foods which 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 plantain (kelewele) sometimes served with peanuts. Koose made from peeled beans (and its close twin acarajé or akara made from beans which 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 barbecues and can be made from beef, goat, pork, soy flour, sausages and guinea fowl. Other roasted savoury foods include roasted plantain, 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 whilst sweet bread, (plantain cake), and 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 is a modern favorite. It is a blend of gari (dried, roasted cassava), sugar, groundnut (peanut) and milk.

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, bisaab/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 food is very popular in both rural and urban areas of Ghana. Most Ghanaian families eat at least three times a week from 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 raw steak, boiled corn cob, boflot (ball-float) 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.

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

Although Ghana is a relatively small country in Western Africa, it has a population of 30 million and was the first sub-Saharan country to achieve independence from colonialism. The country is not only famous for their great leaders, but also for a cuisine that is deeply rooted in their culture and history.

With the prevalence of tropical ingredients such as corn, beans, millet, plantains, cassava, hot peppers and tomatoes, most dishes utilise at least one of these in their preparation. A starchy staple such as yams, corn dough or plantain is typically paired with a stew or soup along with meat or beans.

So without further ado, here are the most popular traditional foods of Ghana, along with our favorite recipes for you to try yourself.

Banku is a solidified mixture of fermented corn dough and cassava dough that is combined and swirled in boiling water. It is a delicacy in Ghana’s southern, eastern, and western regions.

Banku is served with a variety of soups, stews, and sauces, ranging from peanut butter to pounded palm nut soup. Okra stew or soup, on the other hand, is the most famous soup that matches well with banku. Cowskin, often known as ‘wele,’ is applied to any seafood of your preference.

Yam, like many other Ghanaian staple foods, may be used to create a bunch of dishes including yam pottage. Yams are boiled and cooked with tomatoes, peppers, onions, oil and herbs.

Dried sardines and salted dry tilapia are often incorporated into the dish to add extra flavor.

Kelewele is a side dish that consists of fried plantains that have been seasoned with a variety of spices and served alongside a stew or even just on their own. It is widely popular in Ghana and in neighboring countries due to its fragrant flavors and versatility.

Fufu is a renowned delicacy throughout Ghana and its neighbouring countries. In Francophone areas, it is known as foufou or foutou, whereas in English-speaking areas, such as Nigeria, it is known as fufu.

Fufu is made with a mixture of simmering tropical cassava and plantain or yam, and is served with a mild soup. Peanut butter soup, pounded-palm-nut soup and vegetable soup derived from spinach or cocoyam leaves are all good combinations for fufu. Snails, mushrooms and fish are common ingredients in such soups.

Waakye is a dish of Ghanian style rice and beans. White rice and beans like black eyed peas, cow peas or red beans are boiled along with waakye leaves and a little salt until they are soft. While Waakye is the name of the dish, it is also the name of the leaves that give this dish its reddish color.

Pronounced “Waa-chee” or “Waa-chey”, the leaves can be millet, sorghum or red hibiscus flowers which is called sobolo in Ghana. As the leaves cook, they release a red pigment which colors the rice and beans.

Tuo Zaafi, or TZ, is a popular dish amongst the people of Northern Ghana, particularly the Dagombas. It is made by preparing three separate dishes and combining them to create a meat stew.

Wasawasa is a dish made from the peelings of dried yams which are ground into flour and then cooked. The dish is widely popular in Northern Ghana.

It has a sweet flavor and is typically served with a spicy black pepper sauce and a stew, topped with sliced onions and tomatoes.

Jollof rice, one of the most popular dishes throughout Western Africa, is made by cooking rice in a tomato stew. It is easy to make and can be done in about an hour.

Jollof rice is also a staple dish in Nigeria and Senegal, with each claiming to be the original creators. It is typically served with salad or with chicken, goat, or cow meat.

Kenkey is a dumpling-like dish made with a maize dough that is fermented over a number of days. It is therefore quite a time-consuming dish to make.

Kenkey is usually served with fried fish and pepper sauce or spicy black pepper sauce (shito).

Red Red, as you might imagine, is a dish of deep-red color made from black eyed peas and plantain. Fish, scotch bonnet peppers, onions and tomatoes are also added.

The most common fish used are pilchards or mackerel. It is then often served with rice or fried plantain.

Shito, also known as shitor din, is a Ghanaian hot black pepper sauce generally prepared using fish or vegetable oil, ginger, dried fish, prawns, crustaceans, tomatoes, garlic, peppers and many different spices. The ingredients are generally blended and prepared in vegetable or corn oil for more than an hour to make the sauce.

Omo Tuo are soft-boiled grains of rice that are formed into balls, cooked and served with a variety of soups. It is a versatile side dish that can be paired with plenty of meals.

Fufu is Ghana's national dish, a starchy side dish, a...