Guide

Traditional food of Liberia: 12 dishes to know

Liberian food is rice with a "soup" poured over it: stews of greens, palm nut cream or eggplant cooked in red palm oil with smoked fish and meat, and spiced with habanero and Scotch bonnet. Cassava, pounded into dumboy and fufu, is the other staple. The most emblematic dishes are palm butter soup, palava sauce, jollof rice and dumboy.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What Liberian food is built on

Rice is the staple, whether imported or "country" rice grown in swamps. It is eaten "dry", without sauce, beside chicken, luncheon meat or corned beef; with a stew poured over it; cooked into jollof; or ground into flour for "country breh", rice bread. Cassava comes next: the root is boiled and pounded into dumboy, or dried and made into fufu, and the leaves are stewed. Plantain, yams, eddoes (taro), sweet potatoes, okra, coconut and citrus fill out the market.

Liberians call most of their stews "soups". They are heavy, built on red palm oil, and spiced with habanero and Scotch bonnet chillies. Fish is a key source of protein, fresh or as small dried fish called bodies or bonnies, alongside chicken, beef and smoked meat. The cooking also carries African American influence through the Americo-Liberians, plus Caribbean recipes, which shows in a baking tradition of cornbread, sour bread, rice bread, banana bread and cakes.

The soups

Palm butter soup — Palm nuts are boiled, pounded and strained to extract a thick red palm cream, which is cooked with peppers, onions, smoked fish and meat. It is traced to the Grebo and Kru peoples and is one of the most popular dishes in the country, served with rice or fufu. The boiling, pounding and straining take time, and Liberian cooks remember it as a weekend job.
Palava sauce — Jute leaves, called "plateau" in Liberia, stewed in a broth with red palm oil, meat and smoked fish until the oil rises to the surface. Potato greens are also used, and it is eaten over rice.
Cassava leaf — Known as "gbassajama": cassava leaves ground fine, then braised in broth until tender and mixed with red palm oil. Chicken, beef, smoked meat or fish and a Scotch bonnet go in. Leftovers eaten the next morning with cold rice, "cassava leaf cold rice", are a Liberian favourite.
Potato greens — The leaves of the sweet potato plant, widely grown and eaten across the country, and cooked into one of the everyday soups served over rice.
Toborghee — African eggplants, including bitterball, a small bitter vegetable similar to eggplant, stewed and spiced with fermented palm oil. The taste is often bitter, and the dish is associated with the Lorma people of Lofa County.
Bitterleaf — Bitter leaves mixed with ground melon seeds, cooked into a soup eaten with fufu or rice.
Pepper soup — A spicy soup of meat or fish, eaten with fufu or rice. Fufu with pepper soup is one of the meals Liberian cooks list among the national favourites, next to toborghee and cassava leaf.

Rice and pounded cassava

Jollof rice — Rice cooked in a stew of tomato, onion, pepper and spices, with red palm oil giving the Liberian version its colour and taste. It seldom includes seafood; our version cooks chicken, salt pork and smoked ham inside the rice. Liberia is one of the countries that compete over who makes the best jollof, and it is often served with fried plantain and coleslaw.
Dumboy — Boiled cassava pounded into a smooth, starchy dough, eaten by hand with a heavy soup. In the northeast, a regional pounded-cassava dish called glea-gbar, known as GB or "geebee", is served with a spicy mixed-meat soup.
Fufu — Pounded cassava too, but made from dried cassava; it can also be made with plantain or taro. It is pinched off and dipped in pepper soup, palm butter or bitterleaf.

Breads and drinks

Palm wine, fermented palm tree sap, is the traditional drink. It is drunk as it is, used instead of yeast in bread, or kept until it sours into vinegar. A local sugarcane rum is called "cane juice" or gana gana, and ginger beer is a common soft drink.

Cassava bread — A dense, sweet bake in which grated cassava replaces most of the flour, spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. It belongs to the Liberian baking tradition, alongside banana bread and cakes.
Rice bread — "Country breh": rice ground into flour and baked into a loaf, part of the Liberian baking tradition along with cornbread and sour bread.

Regions and peoples

Many dishes are tied to one people or one part of the country. Palm butter is traced to the Grebo and Kru peoples, toborghee to the Lorma of Lofa County, and GB, the pounded-cassava dish, from the northeast. The baked goods, from cornbread to cassava bread, come from the Americo-Liberian settlers. Bushmeat is also widely eaten and is considered a delicacy, a practice that threatens endangered species.

Cook Liberian food at home

Dumboy, jollof and palm butter soup are the usual answers for the national dish of Liberia, which has none by law. Copper has full recipes for palava sauce, jollof rice and cassava bread, with ingredients and step-by-step methods, on our page about the food of Liberia, and the neighbouring kitchens are in our guide to West African food.

The same leaf stews and pounded starches run along the coast: compare with the traditional food of Sierra Leone and the traditional food of Côte d'Ivoire.

The recipes

Questions people ask

What is the most popular food in Liberia?

Rice with a soup poured over it. Palm butter soup, palava sauce, cassava leaf and potato greens are the classic soups, jollof rice is the party dish, and dumboy or fufu with pepper soup are the favourite pounded-cassava meals.

What do people in Liberia eat for breakfast?

Leftovers are a breakfast habit: "cassava leaf cold rice", the previous day's cassava leaf soup with cold rice, is a well-known way to start the day.

Is Liberian food spicy?

Yes. The heavy soups are spiced with habanero and Scotch bonnet chillies, and pepper soup is named for its heat.

What is the difference between dumboy and fufu?

Both are pounded cassava eaten with soup. Dumboy is made from freshly boiled cassava, while fufu is made from dried cassava, and sometimes from plantain or taro.

What do Liberians drink?

Palm wine, made from fermented palm sap, is the traditional drink. There is also a sugarcane rum called cane juice or gana gana, and ginger beer as a soft drink.

Keep reading

Sources

Download

← All articles