Some food ingredients we add to Nigerian Jollof rice are a-must-add while some are just optional. Here is a list of spices and ingredients that are very necessary if you want your jollof rice to taste like jollof rice. Some people add curry powder to jollof rice but I don’t. Curry powder goes better with fried rice than Jollof.
Curry is not necessary when you cook Jollof especially if you want your Jollof rice to have a bright red colour. The taste and colour of curry powder align better with fried rice than jollof rice. So, on our list of important spices and ingredients for jollof rice, we won’t add curry powder.
Curry powder has the singular power to change the colour of Nigerian jollof rice from bright tomato red to something like local palm oil rice.
Below is our list of the 10 most important ingredients for Nigerian jollof rice.
NIGERIAN JOLLOF RICE INGREDIENTS YOU SHOULD NOT SKIP:
- Thyme leaves
- Bay leaf
- Chicken or beef stock (Well seasoned with onion and salt)
- Green pepper
- Onion
- Red bell Peppers
- Salt
- Seasoning cubes
- Vegetable oil
- Tomatoes stew or just fried tomato paste
With the above Nigerian jollof rice ingredients and spices, I am sure of delivering very well cooked tasty, colourful Nigerian jollof rice with no mistake.
There are also some optional ingredients we sometimes add to give the jollof rice a delicious twist or add more nutrition. Some of these optional jollof rice ingredients are gradually becoming something most people want to always see in their jollof meals. These are;
- Diced carrots
- Green peas
- Sweet corn (I’d rather have a sprinkle of sweet corn in my fried rice not jollof rice. Don’t even like sweet )corn in rice anyways)
- Curry (Some Nigerians do add curry powder to jollof rice recipes. I don’t and by the look, I always know jollof rice that’s loaded with Nigerian curry powder). I prefer without.
Before you leave, try our MEXICAN RICE RECIPE
Learn how to cook Nigerian party jollof rice with that secret ingredient. Many people now know the secret ingredient anyways. When there is no time to blend and boil tomatoes, we cook delicious jollof rice with tin tomatoes (Canned tomatoes/ tomato paste) and people love it.