Ever tested Uganda Food? Uganda recipes are the best in Africa. On this page we will guide about common Ugandan Traditional food and how to prepare them.
Uganda food is the best in Africa .We have been moving in many countries on tour and studies, but hardly do we find places that can give you variety of fresh food compared to Uganda. Yummy banana dishes, stews, pastes and juicy fruits and drinks
Uganda’s culture weaves a thread of variety not only through the manner of dress, language and other characteristics but also in its variety of dishes.
Nearly every tribe or region has a delicacy or specialty and I will encourage you not to go for big hotels if you want to test Ugandan traditional dishes.
When you get to Uganda try out the local restaurants or the homes of residents who should be able to prepare or treat you to some of the relishes and foods made from the numerous vegetables, yams, potatoes, bananas and fruits.
Ugandan Respected Recipes
Many highly rated hotels and restaurants try out the traditional dishes in form of buffets but often come within a short distance of really preparing authentic traditional dishes, here don’t misquote me because cooking traditional food requires some tact, secrets and traditional processes which big hotels don’t either have the time, patience or knack for.
One popular local dish is matooke (bananas of the plantain type) which are cooked boiled in a sauce of peanuts, fresh fish, meat or entrails. Matooke really goes with any relish, except that the best and most respectable way the Baganda cook it is to tie up the peeled fingers into a bundle of banana leaves which is then put in a cooking pan with just enough water to steam the leaves.
Real process of Preparing Luwombo in Uganda
When properly ready and tender, the bundle is removed and squeezed to get a smooth soft and golden yellow mash, served hot with all the banana leaves around to keep it hot. In Buganda, the food production process revolves around the banana tree.
Tender banana tree shoots are removed from the plant and singed over fire to make a fine foil into which chunks of pork or beef are tied up and steamed on top of a bundle of bananas.
This style of cooking preserves all the flavours and cooks up food like a pressure cooker, if not better. Dry banana leaves are used like bandages when bundles of matooke are being wrapped up for steaming.
Strips and chunks cut from the banana tree stem can be used as a foundation at the bottom of the cooking pan so as to avoid the boiling water touching the bundle of the matooke being steamed.
One best thing is that Uganda is endowed with numerous lakes and rivers thus giving it the chance to enjoy different varieties of fish as a supplement of Uganda food varieties.
Many tribes in Uganda eat their fish smoked or fresh although some types of fish are not eaten by baganda clans, while others dry it after washing it in a salt solution and drying it in the sun for days. Sun-dried fish is a delicacy in the eastern region.
There are varieties of small fish which are highly nutritious (nkejje and mukene) which are sun-dried and cooked in a sauce of peanut or pre-soaked and fried. Their high flavour and nutritional value is highly prized.
This Uganda food is good for growing children as it is ground and mixed with floor to act as porridge it is nutritious for kids ,so when you go to any supermarket in Uganda,ask for soya beans mixed with Nkejje fish.
Lake Victoria is home to the Nile Perch, which is now the favoured and easily available fish dish. Perch has cannibalised many other indigenous species in the lake and for many years there has been little else to eat.
Some Ugandans shun, even ridicule it, but it is a big foreign exchange earner in Europe where fresh fish and organic food are popular Thus increasing the economic graph of Uganda.
A number of indigenous fish types fortunately seem to be on the rebound in the lake to the happiness of many Ugandans thanks to the falling numbers of Perch brought on by its own prolific breeding and feeding habits which have seen its increase go down.
Another common type of fish is tilapia which is often fried and served with chips in restaurants. When you get to Uganda food and drink selling stalls or restaurants especially in Kampala ask for Ngege and you will enjoy you day with this delicious fish delicacy.
Also, various types of vegetables(nakati and nsuigga), salty and bitter, are better tied up in a separate bundle of banana leaves and steamed together with the matooke. There are varieties of mushrooms which are eaten fresh or sun-dried.
One type called Kabaala, is pricey even in markets and is also used for various rituals. Among the Bagishu of eastern Uganda tender bamboo shoots (amaleewa) are a delicacy. After harvest, they are parboiled and sun-dried before cooking.
In western Uganda among the Banyankole , Bakiga and Batooro and most of the north and east like Acholi Alur Langi , millet bread is the favoured dish.
The milled flour is mixed among various tribes in different proportions with cassava to be cooked in a heavy paste which is served hot and many Uganda enjoy this Uganda food because it is quick to prepare.
Up north, little or no cassava at all is added while in the western region a proportion of fifty-fifty, or eighty-twenty (more cassava to the millet flour) is the ratio of mixture. The best relish to go with it would be smoked meat.
In the north, the smoked meat would be prized booty from hunting trips which men bring home. After lighting fires in the bushes during the dry season, the men chase edible rats which scuttle off into the safety of anthills. The anthill holes are plugged except one.
There the hunters wait patiently after smoking out the unlucky rats, some the size of small rabbits, which are clubbed on the head and collected in their dozens. In the north, smoked beef is skillfully seasoned with a rich sauce of milled sim sim (sesame) paste and dark green bitter vegetables.
In the eastern region, the people of Teso would add a light sauce of tamarind fruit which is plenty in those dry areas.
A variety of edible sorghum is often used by some tribes in the east and northeast where the climate makes it impossible to afford the luxury of growing millet. In western Uganda, equally tasty sauces are scraped out of cow butter and unclarified salt for a slurp millet meal. One tribe called the Nubians is great cooks.
Thick sauces made from slippery okra and other green vegetables are always fried in a lot of oil and added to meat. Chili sauce is often made from green mangoes and red hot pepper.
Meat is stewed in thick sauces and served with thin fermented flat rolls of bread made from cassava and burnt over a light fire. This chapatti-like bread has a tangy taste like the njera of Ethiopia goes well with thick highly seasoned sauces cooked with a high bite of pepper and even if you had never tested this Uganda food,you will enjoy it.
Surprisingly the Bahima of western Uganda are not a particularly meat-eating tribe like the Karimojong of the northeast – who enjoy it by the chunk – although they keep cows in their thousands.
Instead, they prefer a diet of milk, beans, matooke and some millet bread. Meanwhile the Batooro of western Uganda peel the skins off beans and mash them into a thick paste (firinda) to which they add cow butter and unclarified salt to make a really tasty relish that goes well with millet.
Fruits as a supplement of Uganda food
In Uganda there are lots of tropical fruits to eat which include mangoes, paw paws, oranges, tangerines, avocados, jack fruits, lemons, sweet banana (some types of which are used to brew banana wine laced with sorghum for yeast), sugar cane, varies types of berries both localised and wild, guava, pineapples.
If you are in the city, try Nakasero for most of Uganda food and fruits which are also exported overseas. Uganda’s fruit industry has not been well developed like that of Kenya so there is not a heavy production of hybridized fruits although some apples are now being grown on a small scale in Kabale in western Uganda.
Some temperate fruits from South Africa and Kenya find their way into Uganda and and on the quantity of Uganda food. Instead you will pleasantly be surprised to eat some wild mangoes and other fruits which although not having striking eye appeal have the juiciest taste you will ever dream of in the world.
There are varieties of fruits always in season and being sold on stalls all over the country especially on the roadside. Please remember to wash your fruit before eating it and any Uganda food.
