Nigerian cuisine consists of dishes or food items from the hundreds of Native African ethnic groups that comprise Nigeria. Like other West African cuisines, it uses spices and herbs with palm or groundnut oil to create deeply flavored sauces and soups.
Nigerian feasts can be colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are in abundance and varied. Bushmeat is also consumed in Nigeria. The brush-tailed porcupine and cane rats are the most popular bushmeat species in Nigeria.
Tropical fruits such as pineapple, coconut, banana, and mango are mostly consumed in Nigeria.
Nigerian cuisine, like many West African cuisines, is known for being spicy.
Entrees
Rice-based
Coconut rice is rice made with coconut milk, tomato puree and other spices. Concoction rice is a rice dish similar to Jollof rice that is made in palm oil. Jollof rice is a rice dish made with pureed tomato and Scotch bonnet-based sauce. Ofada rice is a popular South West Nigerian rice variety. It is eaten with Ayamase or Ofada sauce. Fried rice is typically mixed with an assortment of eggs, vegetables, meat, poultry or prawns. Pate is made with ground dry corn, rice or acha. Mostly combined with vegetables (spinach), tomatoes, onions, peppers, garden eggs (eggplants), locust beans, groundnuts, biscuit bones and minced meat are common in northwestern Nigeria, like Kano, Kaduna, Nassarawa and Plateau. Tuwo masara is a corn-flour dish eaten in Northern Nigeria. Tuwo shinkafa, thick rice pudding usually eaten with miyan kuka (a thick soup) and goat meat stew or miyan taushe, a pumpkin stew made with spinach, meat (usually goat or mutton) and smoked fish. It is primarily served in the northern part of the country. White rice—White rice and local rice is served with local pepper stews and sauces. It is widely served with a thick tomato and pepper-based stew. Banga rice is a traditional Nigerian rice recipe made from palm nut and rice. It is very common in the southern (Delta State) and eastern parts of the country. Palm-oil rice is often referred to as 'local rice'; usually prepared with fresh palm oil, assorted fish (dried fish and smoked fish), garnished with local spices like locust beans ('okpeyi' or 'dawa dawa'), onions and pepper. It could be made as jollof or as white rice with the palm oil stew separate. Curried rice is rice made with fresh turmeric or curry powder, onions, salt and seasoning to taste and then vegetable sauce is made to go along with it. Masa is made from 'tuwo shinkafa' rice that is blended after being destoned (onions and other spices are put in it). Then, yeast is added and it is allowed to rise. it is later cooked with low heat in a custom-made masa pot. Danbu rice is also a type of rice usually made in the North. It used to be ground and mixed with pepper.
Bean-based
Akara, a type of fritter made from beans
Gbegiri, a bean-based soup from Southwestern Nigeria
Abula soup
Moi moi, a steamed bean pudding made from a mixture of washed and peeled black-eyed beans, onions and fresh ground red peppers Ekuru, a steamed savoury bean dish from the South Western Nigeria Ewa aganyin, boiled beans eaten with a pepper sauce from South West Nigeria Okpa, a common breakfast food made from Bambara nut flour in Southeastern Nigeria Adalu, a bean and sweet corn pottage from South West Nigeria
Corn-based
Egbo, a Yoruba speciality that can be eaten alone with pepper sauce or paired with beans.
Meat
Meat is used in most Nigerian dishes.