Main Dish Soups

Meals are not commonly served as separate courses in Ghana, and a soup (or stew) is usually served as a main dish, accompanied by a filling starch. See for an overview of basic stocks used as a base in Ghanaian soups. Also included there is a recipe for a foundational “light soup” using goat. Light soups can be made with basically any clear stock, whether vegetarian, poultry, meat, or fish-based. Some “light” soups have added greens or fresh or dried vegetables such as eggplant (or garden eggs in Ghana), okra, tomatoes, and/or mushrooms. Another category of soups includes those thickened with ground seeds (like agushi, a kind of melon seed, or sesame seeds) or ground “nuts” (such as peanuts/groundnuts, beans, and palmnut fruit, the pulp or “creams” of the red oil palm).