West Africa's best-known rice dish cooks in a tomato and red pepper sauce. This version uses brown rice and delivers 7 g of fibre per serving.
Written by
Ecem Akkaba · Dietitian
Dietitian, graduate of İstanbul Medipol University. She develops the recipes and nutrition values on FitZen.
Updated:
Nigerian Jollof Rice – Made with Brown Rice contains 395 calories per serving: 12 g protein, 66 g carbohydrate and 10 g fat. It takes 70 minutes in total and makes 6 servings.
Jollof is West Africa's most loved and most argued-over dish — the Nigeria-versus-Ghana debate over whose jollof is better has run for decades. The common ground is this: the rice cooks not in water but in a tomato and red pepper sauce.
The signature of the dish is the lightly scorched layer that forms at the bottom of the pot. In Nigeria it is called the "bottom pot", and it is the goal rather than a mistake — that is where the smoky flavour comes from.
This version swaps white rice for brown. Brown rice takes longer but holds the sauce better and lifts the fibre from about 2 g to 7 g per serving — enough to noticeably flatten the blood sugar curve.
Blend the tomatoes, bell peppers, red onion and chilli to a smooth sauce.
Boil that sauce uncovered in a separate pot over medium heat for 12-15 minutes. It should reduce and deepen in colour — skip this and the rice ends up wet.
Heat the oil in a wide, heavy-based pot and fry the chopped onion for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and fry 2 minutes more.
Add the reduced tomato sauce. Stir in the thyme, curry powder, ginger and bay leaves and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the rinsed brown rice and stir until every grain is coated in sauce. Pour in the hot stock and adjust salt and pepper.
Once it boils, turn the heat to its lowest setting, cover tightly and cook for 35-40 minutes. DO NOT STIR — stirring destroys the scorched layer you are after.
Take off the heat and rest, still covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve with parsley and red onion.
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