Ugali Recipe - Easy Kenyan Cornmeal

On a recent trip to Kenya I learned how to make this Kenyan ugali recipe from a Kenyan chef. This simple one-pot cornmeal or maize flour porridge is ready in just 15 minutes. It's a firm porridge with a soft and buttery mouthfeel that makes a great side dish for sautéed greens, stews, or curries.

4 ingredients & one-pot
Made in 15 minutes
Satiating
And super thrifty!

What Is Ugali?

Mayuri Patel has a great blog post with their ugali recipe. Their post provides more information about ugali and how it is enjoyed in East Africa. They explain that it is similar to a porridge but more dense and traditionally made from maize flour.

Ugali is a good source of fibre and high in carbohydrates so it has been a staple food that provides a longer lasting feeling of satiety. Most often, it is served alongside stewed vegetables or meat. Also, it traditionally acted as a natural spoon to pick up the stewed food.

Traditionally eaten with your hand, a lump of ugali is flattened with the fingers and a depression in the centre is molded. Then, the ugali is used to scoop up other wet foods. That said, you could certainly eat ugali with a spoon or fork and simply have it on the side of a meal, as you would rice.

Ingredients For This Kenyan Ugali Recipe

The main ingredient needed for ugali is maize flour or fine white cornmeal. In Canada, I can find fine white cornmeal in the international foods aisle of most large grocery stores.

1. Maize flour, maize meal, or fine white cornmeal
2. Water
3. Salt
4. Vegan butter
   • I use vegan butter to make this recipe plant-based but you could use any butter you enjoy. Alternatively, you could make this recipe oil-free by omitting the butter. The only difference will be that the ugali will taste less smooth and "buttery". You might be able to taste the slight graininess of the cornmeal.

Method

This one-pot Kenyan ugali recipe will be ready in just 15 minutes.

• Bring the water to a boil in a medium sized pot.
• Add salt and vegan butter and reduce the heat to medium low.
• Once the butter has melted, very gradually and slowly pour in the cornmeal. Stir constantly with a wire whisk to prevent clumps from forming.
• Switch to a wooden spoon when it becomes too hard to whisk the porridge and stir for 5 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pot as you stir the ugali. This can ensure it's not sticking too much. Press out any lumps that have formed by pressing the ugali against the side of the pot as you stir.
• After 5 minutes the ugali should start pulling away from the sides of the pot and holding its shape. Allow it to rest and cook for another 2 minutes.
• Remove the pot from the heat and keep the ugali warm until serving.

How To Serve This Kenyan Ugali Recipe

William, the Kenyan chef who taught me how to make ugali, told me that you can be creative with how it is served.

Traditionally, a large plate of ugali would be served family style and everyone would tear pieces as they ate. Nowadays, it is portioned out for each diner and formed into a smaller mound, a pie shaped slice, or a round. Chef William served ours in rounds. He told me that he uses aluminum foil to protect his hands from the warm ugali and roll it into a cylinder.

I like to scrape the ugali from the pot, using a rubber spatula, while it is still warm. Then I form it into a disc about 2 inches thick and smooth it out as much as I can. Alternatively, I use a silicone mat to protect my hands and I roll the ugali into a cylinder. Once the ugali has cooled a little bit and fully set, I slice the disc into pie shaped pieces or the cylinder into 1 inch rounds.

Chef William also taught me to make sukuma wiki which are sautéed collard greens often enjoyed alongside ugali. Make sure to try my other Kenyan dishes and make a whole vegan Kenyan feast! Have my ugali with sukuma wiki, githeri (which is a corn and bean stew), and delicious chapati!

Recipe Cost

Ugali is a great inexpensive side dish which is quick and simple to make. This Kenyan ugali recipe generously serves 4 and costs us just $1.15 Canadian.

If we were to omit the vegan butter then the cost of the cornmeal would be just 85 cents.

Let me know in the comments below if you try this ugali recipe or if you grew up enjoying this Kenyan staple!

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