Photo: Xibitgh / CC BY-SA 4.0

Waakye

Traditional dish from Ghana

Must Try Street Food

About Waakye

Ghanaian food

Waakye is a Ghanaian dish of cooked rice and beans, commonly eaten for breakfast or lunch. However, others eat it for supper. The rice and beans, usually black eyed peas or cow beans, are cooked together, along with red dried sorghum leaf sheaths or stalks and kaun. The sorghum leaves and limestone give the dish its characteristic flavor and a red appearance and the sorghum is taken out before consumption. The word waakye is from the Dagbani language, and refer to a particular type of beans. In Hausa, the bean and the dish are called wake, a contracted form of the full name shinkafa da wake which means rice and beans.

Key Ingredients

  • table salt
  • drinking water
  • rice
  • bean

Cuisine Type

  • African cuisine

Components

  • Sorghum

Dietary Information

✓ Popular street food
✓ Must-try when visiting Ghana
Traditional Ghana cuisine

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