Vegetarian/Vegan Waakye Stew

This recipe provides an in-depth walkthrough on how to make one of our traditional red-based stews in Ghana.

What is Waakye Stew?

Waakye is a popular rice and beans dish eaten for breakfast or lunch in Ghana. Waakye consists of rice cooked with beans and sorghum stems served with coleslaw, protein, spaghetti, gari, and shitɔ (a Ghanaian hot sauce). A major component of a complete bowl of waakye is the stew. It is very similar to Ghanaian tomato stew but with a few embellishments that take it to the top. Waakye stew is rich, incredibly flavourful with lots of savoury and umami notes.

What you will need?

• Aromatics – Onion, garlic, and ginger: These are the base for many Ghanaian recipes as they add sweetness and savoriness to the dish
• Tomatoes and Peppers (both sweet and hot): Ripe red tomatoes are essential for the stew. Traditionally this stew is made with tomatoes and hot peppers like scotch bonnet pepper but since tomatoes here in Canada can be sour, I included a red bell pepper.
• Baking Soda (optional): To reduce the acidity of the stew, I added some baking soda to neutralize the acid in the tomatoes.
• Add-ins – Mushrooms and Tofu: Mushrooms will serve as the flavor base for this stew as well as ad-ins. Waakye stew is traditionally full of different cuts of meats so adding mushrooms and tofu is a great plant-based alternative

• Spices: Flavourful dishes require a good amount of spices. For this recipe, I reduced the guesswork by using my own homemade All-Purpose seasoning blend as well as an All-Purpose Ghanaian Blend. You can find the recipe for these spices here.
• Oil: Any oil with a high smoke point is best. I used avocado oil.

Print Recipe

Waakye Stew

Tomato-based stew made to accompany waakye — a Ghanaian rice and beans dish

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course: Sauce

Cuisine: Ghanaian

Ingredients

Mushroom Broth Base

• 3 large king oyster mushrooms
• 1 small pack of oyster mushrooms
• a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 vegetable bouillon cube
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp anise seeds
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 figernail sized ginger
• 1 shallot finely chopped
• 1.5 cup water

Tomato Stew Base

• 5 tomatoes
• 1 red bell pepper
• 3 medium onions 1 finely chopped, 2 roughly chopped
• 1 large thumb size ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1-2 scotch bonnet pepper
• 1 can of tomato paste I use a 156ml can
• 1 tbsp of ghanaian all purpose seasoning recipe on my blog linked above
• 1 tbsp of all purpose seaoning recipe on my blog linked above
• 1 block of extra firm tofu cut into cubes
• 1 cup oil I used avocado oil
• a pinch baking soda optional — only useful if tomatoes are sour

Instructions

Prepare the tomato sauce

• In a blender, blend the tomatoes and bell pepper
• Pour the mixture in a pot, cover it and let it boil at medium heat for about 30 minutes. You can add a pinch of baking soda if your tomatoes are not in season and are sour. We are giving the tomato sauce a head start to cook so that by the time we are ready to add fresh tomatoes to the stew, it has reduced in water volume.

Make the mushroom borth

• Next, grind the onion, garlic, ginger, and spices portioned for the broth in a food processor or mortar and pestle. (Please read notes if you do not have a mortar and pestle or food processor)
• In a pot at medium heat, add the king oyster and dried shiitake mushrooms with the water and let the water come to a boil
• Add in the vegetable bouillon cube as well as the grinded aromatic spices mixture
• Bring the broth to a boil and let it cook for about 10 minutes.
• After, add in your oyster mushrooms and let everything simmer at medium low heat till the dried mushrooms have fully hydrated. This should take another 5-10 mins. Once the mushrooms have softened, remove the mushrooms from the broth and squeeze out any excess broth from the mushrooms to get as much mushroom broth out of the mushrooms as possible. This is important for the frying of the mushrooms.

Cooking the stew

• In a pot, heat up the oil till warm then fry your mushrooms till crispy. The mushrooms will crisp up faster if all the broth has been squeezed out. Remove the fried mushrooms and set aside.
• Next, fry your tofu till crispy then set aside.
• After, add in your finely chopped onions. Allow the onions to fry till they turn brown then remove the onion from the pot and place in a blender with the roughly chopped onion, ginger, garlic cloves and scotch bonnet pepper.
• Blend everything together then return it back to the oil.
• Let the onion mixture fry for about 5-10 minutes then add in your tomato paste.
• Mix the tomato paste well and let it cook for another 5 minutes. This gets out the can taste.
• At this point, our tomato sauce from earlier has significantly reduced in size so we will be incorporating it into the tomato paste onion mixture. Mix everything well and let it cook at medium low heat for about 10 -15 minutes.
• Next, pour in your mushroom broth and spice blends and mix well. Then add in your fried mushrooms and fried tofu and mix well.
• Let everything cook for another 10 minutes or till the oil starts to separate to the top of the stew. The oil separation signifies that the tomatoes have fully broken down and the oil has reached its boiling point, which is a good indication that the stew is ready.
• Serve with waakye or rice

Notes

If you do not have a food processor or mortar and pestle, you can blend the ginger, onion, garlic and spices portioned for the mushroom broth with the water portioned for the broth in a regular blender.