Jollof Rice | How To Cook Yummy Nigerian Rice Jollof (2024)

Jollof rice which double as Nigeria’s most popular foods and also the naional dish of Nigeria is actually one of the easy ones.

I want to show you how to cook Nigerian jollof rice, the way I do it in my own kitchen. If you can lay your hands on the right ingredients and this recipe, you will have it ready in just few minutes.

What are the secret jollof rice ingredients? I have made a list below. Spices like curry, thyme and ginger are unique for jollof rice.

4 cups of rice
1kg Chicken

1000ml of Ground Fresh red tomatoes.

50ml Ground shombo/tatashe peppers

fresh red pepper to taste.
1 Teaspoon Curry powder
1 teaspoon Thyme

1 teaspoon Nutmeg powder
2 seasoning cubes
2 cups of sliced onions

300ml vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 fingers of ginger
salt to taste.

Preparation time: 80 mins

Serving: 8 Persons.

These are some fresh ripe tomatoes and pepper (tatashe for red color).

Any species of tomato would probably serve the same purpose.

Step 1

This is just for display, you will need more tomatoes. You need around 1000ml of ground tomatoes for 4 cups of rice.

Just wash, squeeze out water inside the tomatoes, combine with the fresh red pepper and tatashe and blend, then set aside.

Step 2
Wash the chicken and precook using a teaspoon each of ginger and garlic powder, 2 seasoning cubes, a teaspoon of chicken seasoning spice, half a cup of sliced onions and a teaspoon of salt.

Add one cup of water and allow to sit and marinate for 20-120mins.

Cook the meat till it becomes soft. Using a kitchen fork, pick out the meat and set aside.

Set aside the chicken stock too.

Fry or grill the chicken.

Step 3
Parboil rice the normal way, boil about 7 cups of water in a pot, add the four cups of rice and allow boiling for 3 minutes.

Then pour out and wash thoroughly with clean water, then set aside in a bowl or plastic sieve.

Step 4
Once you are done with frying the beef, reduce the oil to 250ml (1 cup) or use fresh oil, just add the remaining one cup of sliced onions, stir for 1-2 minutes and add the ground tomatoes.

Frying the tomatoes would take about 20 minutes.
Fry until when you lift a portion with your frying spoon you will notice the oil continues to boil in the spoon.
You also notice the tomatoes turning dark.

Step 6
Once the tomato is well fried, add the meat water to the fried tomato in the pot, the ground ginger/garlic, a teaspoon each of curry and thyme, two teaspoons of salt then add 3 cups of water and a seasoning cube.

Step 7
Stir, taste for salt, you can add a little more. it should taste overly spiced (the rice will absorb the excesses).

Then add the rice.

Step 8
Then cover and let the jollof rice cook till it becomes soft for consumption, remember that you can add water occasionally.

Let it dry properly then turn and serve with the fried meat, salad and maybe a bottle of your favorite drink.

In this case, I grilled my chicken.

This is the best jollof rice recipe using my secret ingredients. I guess you can now make yours by using this same step-by-step instruction.

Note: If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, you could use canned tomatoes (tin tomato) or even a combination of both fresh and canned tomatoes.

Would love to see your comments below.