Cooking traditional African meals can be a serious labor of love, often involving hours of prep work, slow simmering, and a long list of ingredients. Why the stress? You might wonder but the rich flavors, bold spices, and hearty textures that make African foods really African make every minute worthwhile.
However, these days, you can bring these delicious dishes to life faster without sacrificing their authenticity. At My Sasun African Market, we understand the need for convenience in today’s busy world while keeping the essence of African cuisine intact. So, let’s explore some practical cooking hacks to help you enjoy your favorite African meals in record time!
Also Read: 30 Staples of African Kitchens
1. Batch Cooking: Make It Once, Enjoy It Twice
African stews and soups are the stars of the cuisine—whether it’s Nigerian Egusi, Ghanaian Groundnut Soup, or Ethiopian Doro Wat. These dishes often require slow simmering to develop deep flavors, but a great trick is to batch-cook them.
Here’s how:
Cook large portions of stews, soups, or sauces and freeze them in small containers. When you're ready for a quick meal, simply defrost the portion you need and heat it up. This method saves you from starting from scratch every time, giving you a home-cooked meal in half the time.
2. Pre-Chop and Store Ingredients
Traditional African dishes like Jollof rice, Efo Riro, or Senegalese Yassa often require chopping multiple vegetables and meats. Instead of preparing your ingredients every time you cook, pre-chop and store them for later use.
Hack:
- Dice onions, peppers, garlic, and ginger in bulk and store them in airtight containers in the fridge for up to a week.
- For longer storage, place your chopped vegetables in freezer bags and freeze them. They thaw quickly and cut your prep time dramatically.
Also Read: 27 Delicious West African Soups
3. Instant Pot and Pressure Cooker Magic
Many African dishes, from beans and rice to stews and meats, benefit from slow cooking to enhance flavor and tenderize tough cuts. However, an Instant Pot or pressure cooker can help you shave hours off your cooking time while delivering the same delicious results.
Perfect for:
- Cooking tough proteins like goat meat, cow foot, or oxtail. Instead of simmering them for hours, a pressure cooker can cook them to tenderness in under 45 minutes.
- Legumes such as black-eyed peas, chickpeas, and lentils are also ready in a fraction of the time compared to traditional methods.
4. Use Store-Bought Spice Mixes and Pre-Blended Pastes
In African cooking, homemade spice blends are key to the rich flavors we know and love, but making these spice blends from scratch can be time-consuming. Enter store-bought spice mixes and pre-blended pastes—game changers for fast meal prep!
Time-savers:
- Look for pre-blended spice mixes like berbere (Ethiopian), suya (Nigerian), or ras el hanout (Moroccan) to save time.
- Pre-made tomato or pepper pastes can be used as the base for Jollof rice, stews, and sauces, cutting down cooking time by reducing the need for lengthy sautéing.
At My Sasun African Market, we offer a variety of high-quality, authentic spice blends and pastes to make your cooking experience quicker without compromising on taste.
5. Pounded Yam and Fufu Flour
One of the most beloved staples in many African households is fufu, a starchy side dish made from ingredients like cassava, yams, or plantains. However, making fufu or pounded yam from scratch is a labor-intensive process that requires constant stirring and mashing.
Quick Tip:
- Invest in instant fufu or pounded yam flour, which allows you to prepare this dish in minutes using the microwave. Simply mix the flour with water, stir, and heat it for a fast, smooth, and stretchy version of the traditional dish.
Also Read: Which African Food is Good for Diabetes?
6. Blanch Vegetables for Faster Stir-Fries
Dishes like East African Sukuma Wiki (collard greens) and Nigerian Efo Riro (spinach stew) require hearty greens to be cooked until tender. Blanching the vegetables beforehand helps speed up the cooking process.
How to blanch:
- Boil water and briefly submerge your vegetables in it for 1-2 minutes.
- Immediately transfer them to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. When you’re ready to stir-fry or sauté, your vegetables will cook much faster.
7. Stock Up on Canned and Frozen Ingredients
Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of waiting for dried beans to cook, or for fresh tomatoes to simmer into a rich sauce. That’s where canned and frozen ingredients come in handy.
Examples:
- Canned tomatoes: Save time on Jollof rice, stews, and soups by using canned tomatoes, which have already been cooked and softened.
- Frozen vegetables: If fresh vegetables aren’t available or are too time-consuming to prepare, frozen options like spinach, peas, or carrots can be used with little to no prep.
Using canned or frozen options for certain ingredients ensures that you still have a fresh-tasting meal without all the extra steps.
8. Make Stock in Advance
Rich, flavorful stock is the base for many African dishes, whether you’re making pepper soup, ogbono soup, or chicken Yassa. Instead of making stock every time you cook, prepare a large batch in advance.
Pro Tip:
- Freeze the stock in ice cube trays. When you need some for cooking, just pop out a few cubes, and you're good to go. This adds depth to your dish without the time commitment of making fresh stock.
9. Rice Cooker
African cuisine includes a wide variety of rice dishes like Jollof rice, pilau, and fried rice. Rather than watching over the pot to ensure your rice doesn't burn or overcook, a rice cooker can be your best friend.
Why use it?
- It ensures perfectly cooked rice every time, without needing constant attention.
- You can set it and forget it, giving you time to focus on other parts of your meal or even relax!
Also Read: 11 Must-Try African Vegan Dishes
10. Embrace One-Pot Cooking
One-pot meals are a fantastic way to cut down on the number of dishes you need to wash and the time it takes to prepare food. Many African dishes, such as Tanzanian pilau or Senegalese thieboudienne, can be easily adapted to a one-pot cooking method.
Hack:
- Combine ingredients in one pot to cook together. For instance, in Jollof rice, add your meats, vegetables, and rice into the same pot, allowing everything to absorb the delicious spices and flavors without the need for multiple pans.
Rounding Off
By implementing these hacks, you can cut down the time it takes to prepare traditional African meals while still enjoying the bold flavors and rich heritage of African foods. And most importantly, with stocking up on time-saving pantry items from My Sasun African Market, making authentic African dishes has never been easier.
Don’t let a busy schedule stop you from cooking the meals you love! With a few smart shortcuts, you’ll have hearty, flavorful African meals on the table in no time.
Do you have your own time-saving tips for African cooking? Let us know, and check out our My Sasun African Market for all the ingredients and tools you need to bring these hacks to life!
Also Read: 5 Essential Nutrients From African Foods
