African Beef Stew
African Beef Stew – a popular mouth-watering stew and a traditional West African Stew that is often prepared in most homes, in a number of different ways. A must-have for Christmas gatherings and in everyday meal.
This is a popular and traditional West African Stew that is often prepared in most homes, in a number of different ways in countries like Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana – by varying the quantity of tomatoes, onions and spices.
Quite a lot of oil is used to cook the stew – often used to fry the tomatoes for a period of time to reduce the amount of acidity present in tomatoes. You know what? A good West African stew is flavorful and is rarely acidic.
You may remove some of the excess oil at the end before serving.
Rice and stew was once considered the quintessential West African Christmas meal. Of course, no Christmas table would be complete without it and an array of sumptuous dishes. Oh, how times have changed!
This tantalizing beef stew has evolved into an everyday meal, cooked with different cuts of meat and seafood and always present on restaurant menus. But to most people Christmas would never be complete without stew.
Here is my take on this mouth-watering African beef stew. Feel free to add vegetables such as carrots, green beans or green pepper. In Nigeria, it’s most often paired with African yam – fried or boiled. Rice and fried plantains are another good side dish option for this African beef stew.
Enjoy!
Watch How to Make It
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Tips and Notes:
- You can also let the meat simmer for about 3 hours for a fall-off-the-bones tender texture.
- You may replace canned tomatoes with fresh tomatoes but make sure you fry the sauce until it has completely dried before adding liquid. You might have to add more oil and watch out for burns.
- You can leave out the roma tomaotes; it works fine without.
- If you don’t have beef cubes on hand, you may replace it with bone-in beef meat.
- As suggested by one of the comments below, if you’re cutting back on the fat (oil), you can “cook off the water in the tomatoes by boiling the tomatoes until all the water is gone. Once the water cooks off, add some oil (olive oil works well) to fry the tomatoes.”
- Substitute Maggi powder with chicken bouillon.
Recipe was first published on Feb 2014 and has been updated with new photos, tips and notes and a video.
African Beef Stew
Ingredients
- 1-2 pound stew beef , cut in small pieces
- 1/2 -1 cup oil (Canola, Vegetable or Corn) , adjust as needed
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 4 roma tomatoes , they are less acidic
- 4 peeled garlic cloves
- ¼ cup chopped parsley
- 3-4 tablespoon celery leaves
- ½ -1 scotch bonnet pepper , optional
- 1-2 basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
- 1 canned tomatoes sauce , 14 ounce
- ½ teaspoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1-2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon Maggie powder or beef bouillon powder
- 1-2 green onion , sliced
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil beef with salt, pepper and some chopped onions in a medium pot until tender. It will take approximately 30 minutes or more, depending the cut of beef and how you like your beef cooked. I sometimes use the pressure cooker to shorten the process. Reserve the stock for later use.
- Add 1 cup oil to the pot/pan and brown the beef for about 5-10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
- In a blender, blend the onions, tomatoes, garlic, parsley, celery, thyme, basil and scotch bonnet pepper
- Gently pour the blend of puree ingredients, and tomatoes puree in the saucepan, add curry powder, white pepper , smoked paprika and bouillon powder bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.
- Then return browned beef and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes.
- Stir the pot frequently to prevent the sauce from sticking to the pot. -Occasionally adding beef stock or water as needed to prevent burns
- Finally add green onions. Adjust seasonings, sauce consistency with water/stock and salt.
- Serve warm with desired side dish.
Tips & Notes:
- Feel free to add vegetables such as carrots, green beans or green pepper
- You may remove some of the excess oil at the end before serving.
Nutrition Information:
I’m making this today for a Nigerian friend. The recipe calls for beef bouillon and in the instructions it says chicken bouillon to replace maggi seasoning. Which is it?
Hi Paula. Beef or chicken bouillon works fine.
Delicious beef – the best beef stew I have ever made! Frying the beef and then frying the pepper mix and combining them with fresh spices, made for perfection. This will definitely be a family favorite.
This is so delicious, my daughter who is a picky eater loved it so much and licked her plate literally
Hahaha 🙂 . Oh my! I used to do that a lot when I was a kid! I am so glad you loved this recipe. Thanks for the feedback.
This looks and sounds amazing!
If I want to use bone in beef, which kind do I purchase?
Thank you so much!!
I have a huge preference for neck bones because it has some fat and thereby adds flavor, but to be honor, any bone works. There are some cultures that utilize cow foot in that african stew and they love it. Can’t say i’ve tried that… but use whatever you have in your home and essentially with the ingredients the outcome should be the same. Please come back and let me know how it turned out.
Another good one!
Would this be a good stew to go with fufu? When I was a kid there was a couple from Africa that babysat me and they had made fufu and some sort of stew to go with it. It was spicy yet sweet and had sooooo much flavor. To this day I still crave that meal and have been wanting to try making my own
Yes, this pairs well with any starchy side like fufu, rice and plantains.
In Ghana, we eat Fufu with soups and not stews.
My mother is Congolese and we ate Bukari (fu fu) with nearly everything.
Is there an adequate substitute for celery leaves?
Celery stalk would work or leave it out completely.
the stems are better than leaf
I loved this! I accidentally put too much habanero, so it ended up being pretty spicy. The flavors were unlike anything I’ve tried before; this is definitely something I will be making again. Thanks for sharing!
Do you have the instant pot recipe for this dish?
Hi, Jasmine. I haven’t tried it in an instant pot yet. So can’t provide you exact times and procedure.
I just made this and it is delicious! Thank you for the recipe! My whole family loved it.
This looks beautiful! I’m going to try it. You mentioned it can be made with other meats? Would I follow the same recipe if I made this with chicken?
I like it but I have nobody to make it for me
Hello
Can this be made in a slow cooker? If so what are the steps?
Thanks
Hi Marcy
I haven’t tried it in a slow cooker yet. So can’t provide you exact times and procedure.
Hello Dear, where do you reside? If U.S.A, let me know, so that I will be coming to your house to carry food.
where is that our cameroun type of Christmas rice and stew sister .this days I don’t understan this spicy .pls give me that our 1990 stew version
I made the stew and it was wonderful,servred it with rice
Glad it turned out great for you, Cynthia!
Hi, can you clarify serving amount? Maybe in cups or ladles. Thank you
I made this dish over the weekend and it tasted great. Thank you!
Thank you for letting me know, Lala! Glad it turned out great for you. 🙂
I tried the African Beef Stew yesterday for dinner. Only issue i had was finding white pepper but other wise the dish came out excellent. Thank You for Sharing these great recipes!
My pleasure, so happy to hear it worked out well for you.
This is very healthy more of herbs thanjs for sharing
Thank you for dropping by!
Excellent instant pot recipe. You may need to use corn starch mixed with water or chicken stock to thicken the sauce.
Actually, that is not required for thickness
I tried it and everybody loved it, Thank you
Yaaay! Glad it was a hit. Thanks for letting me know.