Senegalese
Thieboudienne, yassa, peanut stew — West African cuisine's most cosmopolitan kitchen.
Thieboudienne
Fish and rice cooked together in a tomato-onion-tamarind broth. The national dish of Senegal — UNESCO heritage.
View page →Senegal is West Africa's culinary capital. The Wolof teranga (hospitality) tradition centers the meal around a single large platter set in the middle of the room; everyone gathers and eats with their right hand from their own section. Thieboudienne — Wolof for 'rice and fish' — is the national dish: red rice tinted with tomato, palm oil, fish, cassava, carrot, eggplant, and the dried-fermented-fish funk of guedj and yet, all simmering together for hours. Yassa is grilled chicken or fish drowning in onions cooked down in vinegar, lemon, and mustard — sour, savory, and unmistakable. Mafé is West Africa's peanut stew. The cuisine is generous, communal, and built on rice, peanut, fish, hibiscus, and the deep Lebanese-French-Portuguese trade-route influences that still shape Dakar today.
Three Regions
Three regional kitchens — Wolof Dakar canon, palm-oil Casamance south, pastoral Toucouleur-Fulani north. Tap a region to see its table.
The dominant Senegalese kitchen — thieboudienne the national dish, mafé peanut stew, the rice-fish-tamarind backbone of Dakar.
Southern palm-oil and mangrove-seafood kitchen — yassa was born here, fermented oyster rice riz au yet, palm-oil curries that distinguish the south.
Northern pastoral kitchen — Senegal River fish curries, Fulani fermented milk drinks, millet-and-dairy meals from cattle-herding communities.
The Palate
Start Here
Red rice cooked in tomato, palm oil, and fish broth, layered with stuffed fish, cassava, eggplant, carrot, and the salty-fermented guedj. Eaten communally from one platter.
Why start here · Thieboudienne is the dish around which Senegalese cooking organizes itself. Once you cook this, you understand teranga — Wolof for radical hospitality.
Marinated chicken grilled then slow-stewed with mountains of onions cooked down in lemon, mustard, and vinegar until the onions become a tangy-sweet jam.
Why start here · Yassa is the Senegalese answer to 'what do you do with onions?' — and the answer is: you turn them into the sauce that flavors the chicken.
West Africa's peanut stew — beef or chicken simmered in a deeply rich tomato-peanut-butter broth with cabbage, sweet potato, and okra. Served over rice.
Why start here · Mafé is the dish that travels — across West Africa, into the African diaspora, into Senegalese restaurants worldwide. Peanut sauce is the language; every region writes a different dialect.
The Pantry
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Grains & Staples
Sauces & Condiments
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How They Cook
Techniques that define this cuisine
Signature Dishes (40)
Drinks
7
Mains
18
