African cuisine is splashed with a complex array of influences, ingredients, and inspirations. But, as with much of history, the contributions of some groups are under-appreciated, or overlooked.
Over the last few years, Africa has seen a steady growth in people going vegan. While it is true that many African cuisines have a strong tradition of meat-centric dishes, there is a delightful surprise awaiting vegans who venture to the continent.
There are even chefs like Nicola Kagoro, also known as Chef Cola, who is on a mission to make veganism accessible. Kagoro is a woman on a mission to make the vegan lifestyle more accessible in Africa.
In 2016, Kagoro founded African Vegan on a Budget, inspired by her growth in the culinary industry and her mission to inspire people to follow healthy vegan and plant-based diets without breaking the bank.
One of her primary aims is to spread awareness of vegan culture across Africa and give people the tools and knowledge to actively integrate plant-based eating into their lifestyles.
When asked why spreading veganism is important to her and how it is changing people’s lifestyles, she said working alongside rural communities in Zimbabwe showed her that unfortunately, people do not have access to meat and fresh products as compared to city-centre individuals.
Below we look at some of the African vegan foods you should try at least once.
Puff puff
This famous street food is sweet fried dough. It can be served two ways in Nigerian cuisine and that is sweet or savoury. There are too many versions of puff puffs out there to count. It can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or dessert.
It can be eaten in various ways. In Ghana, it is eaten as breakfast where it is paired with fermented corn pudding, or akamu in Nigeria.
Puff puff can also be eaten as a dessert when paired with custard, smoothie, yoghurt, condensed milk, chocolate sauce, caramel and different flavours of jam. Others sprinkle powdered sugar on it to give it a sweeter taste.
Falafel
Even though these protein-packed chickpea fritters are listed as one of Israel's national dishes, and are a staple in many Middle Eastern countries including Palestine and Lebanon, it is often suggested that falafel might have evolved from the Egypt dish known as ta’ameya.
By the 1950s, to earn a living, Yemenite immigrants in Israel started making falafel in the streets, selling it wrapped in paper, which eventually transformed this ancient dish into an early form of Israeli fast food.
As an alternative to the Israeli version, the Egyptian ta’ameya uses fava beans instead of chickpeas, while the mixture is typically flavoured with parsley, coriander, cumin, and onions.
Today, both in Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, falafel fritters are most commonly enjoyed in pita or laffa flatbread sandwiches, topped with fresh or pickled vegetables, and coated either in hummus paste, tahini dip or a zesty, garlic-flavoured yoghurt sauce.
Falafel. Picture: Pexels/Michael Burrows
Gomen kitfo
Ethiopian cuisine has so much more to offer than the well-known sour bread and creamy stews. This lesser-known dish is made with collard greens, vegan butter and spices. People often enjoy gomen kitfo on Meskel, a popular holiday.
More than a dietary trend, Afro-veganism advocates for a more equitable food system and is spurring innovative solutions from entrepreneurs across the continent
The narrative surrounding plant-based diets often centres on Western experiences, inadvertently side-lining the rich, diverse culinary traditions of other regions. It’s an oversight that becomes increasingly significant against the backdrop of demographic shifts predicting that by 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African.
While demand for beef, chicken and pork are on the rise on the continent, Africans consumed just 9.6 kilograms of meat per capita from 2020 to 2022 compared to North Americans’ 78.6 kilos. Grains like millet and maize form the backbone of African cuisine, but they merely hint at the continent’s diverse culinary landscape. Take Nigeria, where okra, fufu (made from yam or cassava) and vibrant leafy greens like ewedu and spinach grace daily meals. In Ethiopia, teff injera, a gluten-free flatbread, pairs with lentil-based stews (wats) bursting with vegetables, while Kenyan ugali (cornmeal porridge) is served with sukuma wiki greens and indigenous fruits like tamarind and baobab. These food cultures, intricately connected with geography, climate and tradition, showcase the ingenuity and adaptability of African communities.
Deep cultural and spiritual threads are woven into the fabric of plant-based diets in many African nations. Abstaining from certain foods serves as ritual cleansing, ancestor veneration or a way to strengthen community bonds. It underscores the profound connection between food, faith and cultural identity in many African communities. Understanding these nuances is crucial as Africa’s food systems evolve.
Parallel to this, in the United States, African American women have emerged as leading voices in the vegan movement, illustrating a profound and transformative cultural shift. A 2015 Harris Poll survey found that 8% of Black respondents were vegetarian or vegan, while that was true for just 3% of the overall population. This movement is not merely a dietary trend but a significant cultural renaissance, echoing a broader historical narrative in which African American dietary customs, shaped under the harsh conditions of slavery, resulted in soul food that originally comprised scraps from the slave owners’ tables, fried to make them more palatable.
Today African American women are also leading a wave of plant-based start-ups and restaurants, such as Samantha Edwards’s New Breed Meats, with offerings like plant-based jerk chicken. More than just a dietary trend, Afro-veganism and African American veganism are vibrant movements that celebrate a plant-based diet’s cultural depth, ecological wisdom and culinary creativity. These movements are not just about choosing plant-based foods but about reclaiming and redefining African American food traditions.
Moreover, these dietary shifts are intertwined with broader discussions about food sovereignty, access to healthy foods in Black neighbourhoods and the environmental impact of food choices. Afro-veganism and African American veganism advocate for a more equitable food system that honours the planet and its people.
The challenges of expanding the plant-based economy in Africa – ranging from fragile infrastructure and food spoilage to deep-seated cultural preferences for animal protein – have spurred innovative solutions from local entrepreneurs. Among these, VeggieVictory stands out as a pioneering force. As Nigeria’s first vegan restaurant and plant-based food tech business, VeggieVictory is influencing the societal narrative around meat consumption, showcasing that plant-based foods can fulfil both nutritional and cultural needs.
With that in mind, the founder of VeggieVictory, Hakeem Jimo, helped spearhead ProVeg International’s expansion into Nigeria last year. As the director of ProVeg Nigeria, Jimo said he’s hoping to “transform the food system to help people transition to healthier, more climate-friendly diets.”
Nigeria isn’t the only African nation experiencing a shift. South Africa also has a ProVeg office, and The Plant Powered Show in Cape Town has quickly become one of the most successful food and lifestyle events on the South African exhibition calendar. All further evidencing the growing appetite for plant-based consumer choices.
The people who will benefit most from this transition are those in the Global South for whom land pressures from animal agriculture have forced them to leave their land.
- Hakeem Jimo, director of ProVeg Nigeria
As the continent evolves, so will its plant-based story, offering unique contributions to the global conversation on food, sustainability and cultural identity. With this evolution comes a web of opportunities and challenges. Increased global demand for plant-based products could empower local farmers, create new jobs and generate economic prosperity. Yet navigating this shift equitably is paramount.
Currently, land distribution is often skewed toward smallholder farms, which are vital for rural livelihoods and national food security. Research from the non-profit Grain and the International Land Coalition highlights how large-scale land acquisitions by corporate entities are increasingly prevalent, particularly in regions primed to expand plant-based crop production. These acquisitions often prioritize export markets and can undermine the economic and social fabric of rural communities. To counteract these potential disparities, policies and frameworks that prioritize equitable land distribution, support for smallholder farmers and sustainable agricultural practices are crucial.
“The people who will benefit most from this transition are those in the Global South for whom land pressures from animal agriculture have forced them to leave their land,” ProVeg Nigeria’s Jimo said in a statement. The group is pushing for a national strategy that implements “a better food system by encouraging food innovation, particularly in the plant-based egg, milk and protein spaces.”
“It’s all about the numbers,” Jimo said. “Nigeria is set to become the world’s third most populous country in the next couple of decades. But time is not on our side. To truly address climate change and health epidemics, we need to shift our diets today.
Sinenhlanhla Ndlela left a promising television career to launch Yococo, a guilt-free dessert experience that prioritises lactose-intolerant individuals’ wellbeing.
After eight months of determined effort, Yococo emerged as a dairy-free, artisanal ice cream company, with its inaugural offering, cookies and rooibos-flavoured vegan ice cream, gracing the shelves of the renowned Rosebank Market in Johannesburg.
But the reality of building a business proved to be different from her initial expectations. Sinenhlanhla once candidly admitted, ‘My first year in business was challenging yet enjoyable. Filled with doubt, I found it intimidating to confront the hurdles before me. I began with lofty aspirations, only to realise I needed to adjust my expectations. It dawned on me just how much effort was required to transform my dreams into reality.’
Undeterred, she sought solutions and discovered a business development program tailor-made to her specific needs. Sinenhlanhla, affectionately known as Sine, emphasises the significance of acquiring business acumen, particularly in the realm of financial management. But her most profound realisation came from within. ‘I recognised that personal growth is more important than expanding my business,’ she confides.
Yococo is now an African brand to be reckoned with and the ambitious pioneer behind it spoke to us about business, travel and life as a new parent.
Before anything, can we discuss the elephant in the room? Were you one of those lactose intolerant people who consumed dairy products and complained about the suffering afterwards? This is a safe space.
[chuckles] Luckily not! However, when I was pregnant my body craved dairy and hated it at the same time! What actually led to me making dairy-free ice cream was wanting to remove all animal products from my diet in order to pin down what was affecting me emotionally.
Yococo was started in 2016 with the intention of bringing more joy and fun into life.
‘Our mission is to remind each and every one [of you] how divinely perfect you already are and bliss truly is all our birthright,’ Sine said.
Feature image: Yococo/Instagram
It is now close to seven years since you started Yococo and one of your main drives is the desire to ‘serve love’. How does one achieve that with ice cream?
Time really flies! So many people have food intolerances and can’t enjoy ice cream with no repercussions that’s how Yococo serves love in that space, we don’t use any animal products and we use biodegradable products where we can that’s how we serve love to the environment and last but not least We are sensory beings, smells and tastes have such an incredible power to weave our memories together, the way my mom and grandmother used ice cream as a way to connect and show love for me made an association for love with ice cream, my intention is for people to experience that connection as well with every scoop of Yococo.
What was the inspiration or story behind the name “Yococo”?
I remember writing a bunch of names on a piece of paper and saying each one to see if it had a ring to it. I always knew I wanted to make something coconut based so coco had to be in there and in case ice cream doesn’t work maybe I can make yoghurt [but] also this idea was motivated by my spiritual journey so I needed something alluding to that, yoga which means union or to connect popped up as well and so Yococo was born and sounded best honestly.
Moment of honesty: Recently tried to make my own ice cream and let’s just say unlike you, I don’t think I should quit my day job to do this full-time. How long did it take you to learn the trade of ice-cream making and do you still produce all of your ice-creams in-house?
[laughs] Don’t worry the first time I tried I also regretted quitting my job and jumped into bed and cried. Fortunately, it was too late to turn back so I had to keep trying! I’d say it took me about 2-3 months to feel confident to charge for the ice cream and I kept on learning for years, I’m always amazed by how obvious some things are now compared to when I started. We still produce everything in-house but now I have someone else help me make the ice cream.
I’ve been fortunate to indulge in your ice-creams over the years and two of my favourite flavours are Stracciatella and Salted caramel, although Beetroot Chocolate is a blend I’ve enjoyed too. How do you go about deciding on the flavours?
Ah, thank you! I used to try lots of different things, and when I make ice cream or food this amazing thing happens. My imagination takes over and I get ideas of what to mix and what’s missing. That’s how I come up with recipes and combinations.
Sine envisions running the largest and most enjoyable ice cream brand in South Africa. She also intends to utilize her steady growth to support her team and empower more women.
‘I want to provide people from rural areas with opportunities to grow within my company,’ she states. ‘I have been fortunate to meet numerous individuals throughout my journey, and my mother has been by my side every step of the way. I firmly believe that my team has carried me through the challenging times, making us stronger. They all grasp the process and contribute immensely.’
Mail & Guardian included you in the 200 young South Africans list in 2019 and your business has sold hundreds of tubs to ice-cream lovers across the country. Do you have ambitions of serving that love across the continent and, perhaps, even beyond?
Oh, absolutely I want to take Yococo all over the world.
Her family’s strong and determined women served as a great inspiration to her. Additionally, her passion for ice cream and her vision for the future motivates her.
‘I aim to demonstrate that ‘fun’ and ‘healthy’ can go hand in hand,’ she said. ‘That’s precisely what I’m achieving with Yococo’s dairy-free ice cream. I want to prove that we can change the world and spread love, even if it’s one scoop at a time.’
While on the topic of serving love to the world – it all has to start at home right? You are now growing into your journey with motherhood while also running a full-time business. Has this posed new challenges for you and if so, how have you created space to ground yourself in that time?
Motherhood has completely opened me up to a whole new world, I thought I had some things figured out before this new role and now I’m back to “what is going on? Where are the adults?” It’s fun though lots of learning and I’m grateful for all the internal work I did with raising my first baby Yococo I can now use some of those skills here such as being open to learning, having grace for myself when things are uphill, asking for help and taking care of my mind, body and spirit.
The palate has to travel to gather inspiration. Has there been a country you have visited that you feel serves you the best ice cream to date?
In Amsterdam, I tried quite a bit of dairy-free ice creams and you know what I’m biased towards Yococo.
If you were ever to make a flavour that tasted like South Africa, what would go into it?
I’m thinking turmeric a hint of chilli and pineapple. South Africa for me is such a bright, fun and buzzing place we have so much variety and it’s a friendly country with spice!
And finally, where is the Yococo currently based and how can people get a hold of the sumptuous tubs of ice cream?
We are based in Riversands right now, Riversands incubation hub unit 65, we are also online we supply Jackson’s in Kyalami and Bryanston, Thrupps in Illovo and The Pantry in Rosebank.
When Nicola Kagoro returned to Zimbabwe after a five-year stint as executive chef at one of Cape Town’s premier vegan restaurants, her vision had been to take what she had learned about affordable plant-based food and bring it home to Harare.
“Our dinners were six-course vegan meals with an international vegan chef: me,” she says. However, she soon had a bruising realisation: back in 2016, when she was first setting up, local people simply had no interest in buying what she was selling.
“There was no vegan culture in Zimbabwe,” says Kagoro, founder of the cookery businessAfrican Vegan on a Budget, who goes by the professional name Chef Cola. “[People] didn’t understand how you could have a six-course meal without meat. We were literally charging just US$1 for people to come to the dinners.”
After a while, however, attracting people to Kagoro’s table became less of a struggle. Her reputation from Cape Town reached the Zimbabwean capital and veganism, or at least plant-based food, became almost trendy. “[The dinners] went from $1 to me charging close to US$60 [£50] to have a seat at the table,” she says.
Now Kagoro, 34, has fronted a cooking slot on Zimbabwean television, islaunching a takeaway servicein March, and has thousands of followers on social media to whom she extolls the virtues – ethical, health and economic – of ditching animal products. “I think there are more African vegans coming out of the closet now,” she says. “They just didn’t speak about it before.”
For the past 40 years or so, Africa’s middle class has been growing, albeit with huge geographic variations – and linked to that growth are changing lifestyles and consumption patterns. Fast-food giants arrived on the continent and tapped into a clientele with more disposable income than ever before.
One of the results, say vegan entrepreneurs, chefs and activists, is that in many places meat and dairy have gone from rare luxuries to everyday staples. And that, they say, is not good for anyone: not for the planet, for animals, for people’s health – or their wallets. Together, they are trying to fight back, and although the number of people identifying as vegan is still tiny, the 1.2 billion-strong continent could yet prove vital for the direction of the global vegan movement.
“Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world in 25 years,” says Hakeem Jimo, 51, co-founder of Nigeria’s first vegan restaurant, Veggie Victory. “So all the veganism in the UK and the Netherlands … sorry, it’s great, but the numbers are going to be decided somewhere else.”
Veggie Victory’s Vcafe became Nigeria’s first vegan restaurant when it opened in 2013. Photograph: Veggie Victory
What gives people such as Jimo and Kagoro hope is that while the term “veganism” is still viewed by most Africans as a diaspora-driven western import, plant-based diets are deeply embedded in the continent’s traditional way of life.
Marie Kacouchia, the Franco-Ivorian author of the cookbook Vegan Africa, published in English last month, says that during her research she did not encounter anyone calling themselves a vegan in Ivory Coast “who was really from [there] and not an expat”. But she did meet a lot of people who stick steadfastly to a plant-based diet simply because that is what they have always known. “They will not label themselves vegan, because … it’s not something that is in their representation,” she says.
That does not mean they are any less vegan. Kacouchia recalls a woman in her family’s village who told her she could not even conceive of regularly eating meat or other animal products. “She did not grow up eating meat and her diet would be completely transformed if she had to include it,” she says.
Kacouchia’s book is replete with coconut milk and cacao, plantain and cassava, watermelon and mango, at least in part a capturing of her childhood memories: of her mother’s fragrant stews, of fried plantain on the beach after church. It is also, she says, an attempt to bust some myths about the traditional African diet, namely that it is inherently meat-heavy and unhealthy.
“It was about inspiring Africans and people of African heritage to look at their diet differently and to also understand their origins, away from this European-centric vision that we have that is narrated by colonialism,” she says. “We want to make African people proud again, and we want them to regain faith in themselves, and to reinvent a veganism that is not European-centric.”
One country with its own distinctive form of veganism is Ethiopia, where the Orthodox Christian community (with about 32 million members, according to a 2007 census) fasts for at least 180 days a year. When breaking their fast, or tsom in Amharic, the nation’s Orthodox Christians must not consume any animal produce and therefore eat a diet that is vegan by another name.
For Helen Mebrate, a UK-based Ethiopian vegan who shares mouthwatering recipes on Instagram as @Ethiopianfoodie, this rich food tradition provides all anyone could need, from shiro wot (roasted and ground chickpea stew) to alech (seasoned carrots, potatoes and beetroot).
Helen Mebrate, a UK-based vegan chef from Ethiopia. Photograph: Courtesy of Helen Mebrate
But she fears it is increasingly at risk. “It’s a bit sad to see so many burger places, so many meat places [in cities such as Addis Ababa]. And nowadays when you Google Ethiopian food … one of the first images that you see is meat dishes and I’m like, ‘since when did this become a thing?’ It’s changing so much. But when I was growing up, it was very much like a rainbow plate, with loads of pulses and greens.”
It is to try to fight back against this rapidly changing landscape that people such as Nabaasa Innocent, founder of the Uganda Vegan Society, are mobilising. In January the Kampala-based activist coordinated the first ever Africa Vegan Restaurant Week, an effort to showcase dozens of venues across the continent that are either vegan or offer vegan dishes.
“Some of these local restaurants don’t even have an online presence. So we thought as Africa it’s high time we united … [to] promote the options, because they are readily available,” she says. A concern for animal welfare drives Innocent’s veganism but more persuasive arguments for most Ugandans, she admits, are health and cost.
“Plant-based foods are more affordable and more available,” she says. “For example, to buy a kilo of goat meat I need about 20,000 Ugandan shillings [£4.50]. But then to buy a kilo of beans I need 5,000 Ugandan shillings or even less. Now that’s the best quality of beans but even at 3,000 Ugandan shillings, which is basically less than $1, I can still find a kilo of nice beans.”
In January, Africa vegan restaurant week showcased food in dozens of venues across the continent. Photograph: Africa Vegan Restaurant Week
A big part of the challenge, she and others say, is showing Africans that vegan food is not alien and not just about limp bits of bland tofu. “I mean, there’s only so much tofu one can eat, right?” jokes Olaoluwa Fashola, a British-Nigerian who moved to Lagos to open Casa Vegan, a business selling plant-based meat alternatives out of ingredients including jackfruit, cassava and locust beans: “That gives it that African-ness that we wanted.”
Born out of frustration with the lack of vegan options available to him when visiting family in Nigeria, Fashola’s vision was given extra impetus when his father died of cardiovascular disease in 2021. “It gave me the drive to push things forward,” he says, noting the health problems that a growing number of Africans face due in part to changing lifestyles and consumption habits, a connection that “a lot of people don’t appreciate”.
To begin with, Fashola says, his father had a typical reaction to his business idea: “If you speak to every African parent, they probably laugh at you when you say you’re vegan, and they offer you chicken or they offer you fish,” he says, laughing. “Initially, it was the same thing [with my dad]. It took a lot of education and I had to send him a lot of articles. And I think the more time he had to understand it, the more he came on board.”
Before he died, his father had come full circle, even nurturing a vision of a fully plant-based restaurant in a hotel he wanted to build. The change in his attitude, Fashola believes, could be mirrored across the continent. “He was coming along gradually. I think that’s the process within Nigeria, within Africa. I think it’s a slow burner. But with the right strategic influencers that can help us create the right noise … I feel like there’s a percentage of the market that would appreciate what we’re trying to do.”
There are some goals, however, that remain elusive, at least for now. Jimo, who spent years coming up with the right formula for his meat alternative – just chunky and chewy enough to suit the Nigerian palate – has now set his sights on something more complicated. “We’re still trying to fake a goat head,” he says, laughing. “That’s one of the delicacies here. The first plant-based goat head!”
Cauliflower yassa with olives
Cauliflower yassa with olives
Prep 15 min Rest 1 hr Cook 35 min Serves 4
You may have already heard of yassa, a traditional Senegalese dish made with chicken or fish. Yassa is a staple of west African cuisines. This is my vegan version using cauliflower. Its dense texture makes it a lovely substitute for chicken. Serve with white rice.
Juice of 1 lemon 2 tbsp mustard 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tsp freshly grated ginger Salt Black pepper 1 large cauliflower, chopped 6 medium onions, thinly sliced ½ cup (65g) green olives, pitted 3 tbsp olive oil 1 bunch parsley, chopped 1 tbsp coconut sugar 2 bay leaves
1 Mix the lemon juice, mustard, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add the cauliflower, onions and olives, and toss to coat. Marinate for at least an hour (or overnight in the refrigerator). 2 Remove the cauliflower from the bowl and set aside. 3 Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a non-stick saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onions and marinade mixture and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the parsley, sugar and bay leaves and mix well. Add 3 tbsp water, cover and simmer until the onions have softened, for 10 to 15 minutes. 4 Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower and cook until tender and golden brown, 15 minutes. 5 Stir the cauliflower into the onion mixture. Adjust the seasoning to taste and enjoy while hot.
