Food of Nigeria

Smoky, tomato-red party rice cooked in a pepper-and-onion base and the star of every celebration.

Boiled yam pounded into a smooth, stretchy dough that is torn and dipped into soups.

Thick soup of ground melon seeds, greens, palm oil and meat or fish.

Local unpolished rice served with a fiery, deep-red pepper sauce and assorted meats.

Rich Yoruba vegetable stew of spinach cooked in pepper sauce with palm oil, fish and meat.

Slippery, savory soup of chopped okra with meat, fish and crayfish, eaten with swallows.

Thick, draw soup made from ground wild mango seeds with meat and leafy greens.

Palm-nut soup from the Niger Delta, spiced with fragrant herbs and eaten with starch or rice.

Calabar soup of shredded afang leaves and waterleaf with palm oil, meat and fish.

Calabar soup packed with fluted pumpkin leaves and waterleaf for a lush green stew.

Peppery seafood soup from the Niger Delta with fresh fish, prawns and crabs.

Pasta cooked in the same smoky tomato sauce as party jollof rice.

Colorful fried rice with peas, carrots and green beans, often served at weddings.

Soft northern rice dough served with miyan kuka or miyan taushe.

Dark yam-flour swallow served with slippery ewedu soup and a spicy stew.

Firm cassava dough made by stirring gari into hot water, eaten with soup.

Spicy Igbo cow-foot dish in a palm oil and ground utazi sauce, often shared with friends.

Crisp fritters of seasoned black-eyed pea paste fried until golden, eaten with pap or bread.

Steamed pudding of peeled black-eyed peas, peppers and oil.

Smooth fermented maize porridge served with akara or moi moi.

Boiled or fried yam slices with a tomato and egg scramble.

Soft bread with mashed beans in a dark, spicy palm-oil sauce.

Thinly sliced beef grilled over fire with spicy peanut yaji.

Soft, sweet fried dough balls sold at markets and parties.

Corn on the cob roasted over charcoal and served with African pear.

Plantain roasted over coals and served with groundnut or fish sauce.

Gizzards and fried plantain tossed in a peppery tomato sauce.

Crunchy fried dough bites flavored with nutmeg and sugar.

Sun-dried, spiced beef jerky from northern Nigeria.

Flaky pastry filled with seasoned minced meat and potatoes.

Thin, fiery spiced broth of goat, chicken or catfish.

Light, peppery Igbo soup thickened with yam and flavored with utazi.

Igbo soup of oha leaves thickened with cocoyam and rich with meat and stockfish.

Hearty salad of lettuce, cabbage, beets, boiled egg and baked beans, drizzled with salad cream.

Shredded dried cassava tossed in palm oil, ugba and spices, a celebratory Igbo dish.

Chewy coconut chunks cooked in caramelized sugar.

Hot sweet dodo plantain slices over vanilla ice cream, a modern favorite.

Crunchy peanut cakes made from pressed roasted groundnuts.

Chilled hibiscus drink steeped with ginger, pineapple and cloves.

Sweet-sour millet or sorghum drink from the north, flavored with ginger.

Creamy, naturally sweet drink made from tigernuts and dates.

Non-alcoholic mocktail of orange soda, grenadine, cucumber and citrus slices.

Millet balls in thick soured milk, drunk from calabashes in the north.

Cooked ripe or unripe, fried, boiled or roasted as a staple side.

Large tuber and the national staple, boiled, fried, roasted or pounded.

Purple fruit roasted or boiled and eaten with corn.

Sweet, tangy fruit grown across the south and sold fresh in the streets.

Juicy fruit with the cashew nut attached, eaten fresh or made into juice.

Seasonal fruit eaten fresh from roadside baskets.

Refreshing fruit sold sliced on hot days.