🇳🇬 How to Make Jollof Rice

Craving Jollof Rice? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Jollof Rice at home, in about 55 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 3 cups long-grain parboiled rice, rinsed until the water runs clear
• 6 plum tomatoes + 2 red bell peppers + 1 scotch bonnet, blended smooth
• 1 large onion, half blended with the peppers, half sliced
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp dried thyme, 2 bay leaves
• 3 cups chicken stock
• salt to taste

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Boil the blended pepper mix in an open pot for 12–15 min until it stops smelling raw and reduces by about a third. Skip this and the whole pot tastes sharp.
2. Fry the sliced onion in the oil until soft — groundnut oil is the traditional choice — then add the tomato paste and fry it hard for 4 min until it darkens to brick red.
3. Pour in the reduced pepper base and fry, stirring, for 10 min. It is ready when the oil separates and floats. This is the entire dish — do not rush it.
4. Add curry, thyme, bay and stock. Taste for salt now; you cannot fix it later.
5. Stir in the rinsed rice, level it, cover with foil then the lid, and cook on the lowest heat for 25–30 min without stirring.
6. In the last 5 min, let the bottom catch slightly. The faint smoky burn is the point — that is party jollof, and Nigerians argue with Ghanaians about it for sport.