COPPERWhat is the national dish of Kenya?
Kenya has no official national dish. The one most often named is nyama choma, Swahili for roasted meat: goat or beef salted and roasted slowly over charcoal, chopped on a board and eaten by hand with ugali and kachumbari salad. Its main rival is ugali with sukuma wiki, a stiff maize-flour dough served with braised collard greens, the everyday staple in Kenyan homes.
Does Kenya have a national dish?
Not officially. Kenya is home to more than 42 ethnic communities, each with its own foods, and no single dish represents the whole country. Three foods, however, are eaten everywhere: ugali, sukuma wiki and nyama choma. Of these, nyama choma is the one most often described as Kenya's unofficial national dish.
Lists of national dishes name several candidates for Kenya:
- Nyama choma: charcoal-roasted goat or beef.
- Ugali with sukuma wiki: maize-flour dough with braised greens.
- Githeri: maize kernels and beans boiled together in a sufuria pot, the staple of the Gikuyu, Meru, Embu and Kamba peoples.
- Chapati: a flatbread that came from India and is now common in towns.
What is nyama choma?
Nyama means meat and choma means roasted. In Kenya goat is the preferred meat, though beef is also used, and wood or charcoal is considered the only proper fuel. It is sold everywhere from roadside inns to large restaurants, and it is a traditional Christmas Day meal. Nyama choma gatherings are informal: people gather around an open fire for any special occasion, which makes it as much a social custom as a dish.
The method is simple and slow. In our nyama choma recipe, bone-in goat is rubbed with salt and pepper only, with no oil or marinade, and set on a grate 25 to 30 cm above grey embers. It roasts for 45 to 60 minutes, turned every 10 minutes, until the fat has rendered and the meat pulls from the bone. It is then rested and chopped on a wooden board, bone and all.
Nyama choma is never cubed or threaded on skewers; that is mishkaki. It comes to the table with ugali and kachumbari, a raw salad of tomato, red onion, green chilli, lemon juice and coriander, and it is eaten with the hands.
Ugali and sukuma wiki, the everyday plate
If nyama choma is the meal of gatherings, ugali is the meal of every day. It is maize flour rained into boiling water and stirred hard for 10 to 15 minutes until it is stiff enough to pull away from the pot. In most Kenyan homes ugali makes up most of the meal, and every community has its own name for it: the Kalenjin call it kimyet, the Luo kuon, and it also goes by the informal name sembe. You pinch off a piece, press a hollow into it with your thumb and use it to scoop up the rest of the plate.
Its usual partner is sukuma wiki, Swahili for "push the week": collard greens, often mistaken for kale, cooked with onion and tomato. They are cheap and available all year, which is how they got their name. The same dish can also be made with cassava, sweet potato or pumpkin leaves. Our ugali na sukuma recipe gives both parts.
Pilau and the food of the coast
Kenya's coastal cooking is distinct from the rest of the country and highly regarded throughout it. Pilau is one of its rice dishes: basmati cooked with beef, potato and a home-ground pilau masala of cumin, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper.
Its brown colour does not come from a spice. Three sliced onions are fried for 15 to 20 minutes until deep brown, almost burnt, before anything else goes in, and that is what colours the rice. The rice is soaked for 20 minutes, boiled uncovered until the liquid is absorbed, then steamed for 20 minutes on the lowest heat. It is served with the same kachumbari as nyama choma.
Other dishes to know from Kenya
Food changes from region to region. Around Lake Victoria, the Luo eat ugali with fish; among the Luhya of the west, chicken with ugali is a favourite; the Kalenjin of the Rift Valley have long served mursik with their ugali. The Kikuyu of central Kenya eat many tubers, including sweet potatoes, taro (called arrowroot in Kenya), yams and cassava, along with beans. In towns, rice and stew and chapati are common working-family meals.
Nyama choma is just as popular in Tanzania, where it is also considered the national dish: see the national dish of Tanzania. For more of the region, read our guide to East African food, and find all three dishes with step-by-step methods on our page about the food of Kenya.
The recipes
- Nyama choma🇰🇪 Kenya · 1 hour and 40 minutes
Ugali na sukuma🇰🇪 Kenya · 30 minutes
Pilau🇰🇪 Kenya · 2 hours and 10 minutes
Questions people ask
What does nyama choma mean?
Nyama choma is Swahili for roasted meat. In Kenya it usually means goat, sometimes beef, roasted slowly over charcoal.
What is served with nyama choma?
Nyama choma is classically served with ugali, a stiff maize-flour dough, and kachumbari, a raw salad of tomato, onion, chilli, lemon and coriander.
Is nyama choma Kenyan or Tanzanian?
Both. Roasted meat is very popular in Kenya and Tanzania, and in both countries nyama choma is considered the national dish, though neither has made it official.
What does sukuma wiki mean?
Sukuma wiki means "push the week" or "stretch the week" in Swahili, because these cheap collard greens help a household get through to the end of the week.
Is ugali the same as fufu?
No. Ugali is maize flour cooked in boiling water until stiff. West African fufu is boiled cassava, plantain or cocoyam pounded into a dough.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Kenya: 13 dishes to know
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- What is the national dish of Eritrea?
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