Sauce d'Arachide Guinean

Easy·30 min active + 45 min resting

Guinean peanut sauce — chicken or beef simmered in peanut butter, tomato, onion, garlic, and ginger. Served over rice or fonio. The Fouta Djallon highland version emphasizes ginger.

Sauce d'arachide — peanut sauce — is shared across Francophone West Africa; the Guinean hand leans on ginger and often serves it over fonio, the ancient tiny Sahelian grain. Rich and nutty, it is everyday home cooking.

Guinean sauce d'arachide — peanut richness with extra ginger warmth (the Fouta Djallon touch). With fonio underneath, this is the highland Guinean meal.

Extra ginger distinguishes the Guinean version. Long simmer mellows peanut and integrates flavors.

Variations

With beef. With fish. With smoked meat (highland version).

On the Palate

Where Sauce d'Arachide Guinean sits in the Guinean flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 6

3 + 2 tbsp pasteTomato

How it's made

9 steps · 30 min active + 45 min waiting

1
4 min
Cube 700 g chicken; season.
2
9 min
Brown in 3 tbsp oil 8 min.
Watch out
Brown the chicken hard before it goes on — a deep seared crust is where the sauce gets its savoury backbone.
3
7 min
Add 2 onions chopped + 4 garlic + 2 tbsp ginger (extra for Guinean version); cook 6 min.
4
6 min
Add 3 tomatoes + 2 tbsp paste + 1 scotch bonnet; cook 5 min.
5
3 min
Mix 250 g peanut butter with 200 ml warm water; add.
6
2 min
Add 800 ml stock + 2 bouillon cubes + 1 tsp salt + 1 tsp thyme.
7
42 min
Simmer 40 min until creamy and meat tender.
Watch out
Simmer low and slow until the sauce turns creamy and the oil floats up — that's the peanut mellowed and the meat gone tender.
8
1 min
Add 2 tbsp cilantro + 1 tbsp lime juice.
9
3 min
Serve over fonio (or rice).