country Essentials · 12 foods
Ghana Essentials
A considered first route through Ghana: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all Ghana foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
12 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Ghana
Ghanaian Jollof
Jollof
Aromatic rice cooked down in tomato stock until it takes the colour — and the argument with Lagos.
Ghana
Waakye
Ayimolou
Rice and beans stained red-brown by sorghum leaf, buried under shito, gari, spaghetti and egg.
Togo
Banku
Fermented corn and cassava beaten smooth and sour, eaten by hand with grilled tilapia and pepper.
Ghana
Kenkey
Kom
Fermented corn dough steamed in husks into dense sour balls, split with fried fish and pepper.
Cameroon
Palm Nut Soup
Abenkwan
Palm fruit pounded and simmered into thick orange soup with goat, snails or smoked fish.
Ghana
Groundnut Soup
Nkatenkwan
Peanut paste cooked out with ginger and chilli until it stops tasting raw, eaten with fufu.
Ghana
Red Red
Black-eyed peas in palm oil beside plantain fried almost black — two reds in one plate.
Ghana
Kelewele
Ripe plantain cubed with ginger and chilli and fried dark at the evening street fryers.
Ghana
Shito
Near-black chilli paste with dried shrimp and smoked fish that comes with everything and keeps for months.
Liberia
Fufu
Akpu
Cassava and plantain pounded in a wooden mortar until springy, then swallowed with soup, not chewed. Updated to the canonical shared item after the West Africa catalog audit.
Cameroon
Chichinga
Brochettes
Skewers rubbed in spiced groundnut powder before and after the coals — Ghana's answer to suya.
Ghana
Ice Kenkey
Fermented corn dough blended cold with milk and sugar; sour under the sweetness, and sold in sachets.