Rice is one of the most common staple foods in Nigeria. Most families eat a rice dish at least twice a week, either for lunch or for dinner.

We have two ways of cooking rice in Nigeria: White, served with stew or sauce and Jollof which is where the ingredients are added into and cooked with the rice (one-pot rice recipes).

We use the long grain parboiled white rice also known as American rice to cook Nigerian rice recipes especially the rice recipes where the ingredients are added into the rice. If you use any other type of rice with the cooking directions detailed on this site, your Nigerian rice recipes may not turn out well. It is OK to use any type of rice when cooking white rice where the sauce or stew is separate from the rice.

Jollof Rice is something that is very close to the heart for Nigerians – the Nigerian Jollof Rice is cooked in each and every household of Nigeria. The signature dish of West Africa, Jollof Rice originated with the Wollof Community in Senegal but is now widely eaten at homes and parties throughout other West African countries.  So what if you can replicate the recipe with some magic? Ataro Foods and Spices brings to you the Jollof Spice Blend. Need the recipe? Head to Ataro Food.

Want to know what this spice blend contains? Here goes, the Ataro Jollof Spice Blend consists of: ginger, curry, white pepper, mixed herbs, onion, crushed pepper, salt.

For some inspiration, we bring to you a few authentic Nigerian rice recipes that you can cook with our West African Seasoning Mix. Spice up your meals with this seasoning and experience the vibrant flavours of West Africa. All you need to do is season to taste. The ingredients of this flavourful spice mix are: curry blend, paprika, rosemary, onions, nutmeg, coriander, white pepper, thyme, garlic, chilli, parsley.

Nigerian Coconut Fried Rice made by Nki Lily of Nigerian Food TV is an interesting recipe that you can try and instead of the spice powders that are added in this recipe, you can add the West African seasoning mix for an interesting flavour.

You can also try the Nigerian Fried Rice by Nki Lily of Nigerian Food TV  and add the spice mix as seasoning. Nigerian Fried Rice is not the usual fried rice recipe that you may come across in cookery websites or the one that you may eat at a Chinese restaurant. This is quite a novel method and you must try it and jazz it up with West African seasoning mix.

Have you heard of Nigerian Rice and Beans? Nki Lily of Nigerian Food TV brings us the wonderful recipe and we suggest you to add in the Ataro Jollof Spice Blend or the West African seasoning mix to spice up the dish, what do you think? Go ahead.. Try it out friends!!

Ok let us wind up this post with another authentic Nigerian recipe – the Ofada Rice and stew, also known as Ayamese. Now for this recipe given by Flo from All Nigerian Recipes, we suggest you use either of the spice mixes from Ataro Foods and give a nice kick to the authentic recipe.

By Ijeoma (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

So are you game to try something new today? Yes! That’s the spirit!

Now all you need to do is visit Ataro Foods and Spices and place your order for this heavenly blend of spices viz, Ataro Jollof Spice Blend and/or the West African Seasoning Mix. Hurry!

Ida