Make These Creamy Nigerian Stewed Beans for the Legume Lovers in Your Life

My food journey fascinates me. My love of ewa riro, Nigerian stewed beans, did not start in my Nigerian home. No, it started with Heinz sweet baked beans, and even that took years for me to like—it wasn’t until I was nine years old that I had any interest in food at all. (The meal that converted me to a lifelong food lover, a sweet baked beans lover, and then, yes, a Nigerian ewa riro lover, was a meal at a Wimpy’s in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1985 while on holiday with my dad and older sister. Life…is strange!)

Today I can’t imagine not being passionate for stewed beans made Nigerian-style in a sweet pepper–and–palm oil sauce. The Yorubas from Nigeria’s southwest call this dish ewa riro, “ewa” meaning “beans,” and “riro” meaning “mixed” or “stirred.”

Ewa riro is full of soft, creamy beans in a thick slightly sweet and savory sauce of red peppers, palm oil, and crayfish. There is a range of possible textures, from thin and souplike to thick (and even thicker), depending on whether you leave the beans whole once cooked, or crush or puree some portion of the beans for a thicker, creamier version. In all cases, the beans should be soft, falling apart easily when pressed between two fingers.

It was a dish I began to enjoy (post our Edinburgh trip) either with dodo (fried plantains), fried fish, garri (cassava granules, either sprinkled over the top for a crunchy, sour contrast to the soft and creamy beans, or soaked to make a cereal of sorts with water, ice, and sugar cubes). I loved the contrast between saucy beans and cold, sweet garri.

The base sauce is a blend of onions, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and hot peppers, cooked down and, if desired, seasoned with ground crayfish, an essential seasoning across regional cuisines in Nigeria (read more about ground crayfish in my article on essential Nigerian pantry ingredients). Crayfish, actually small dried shrimp and prawns, bring sweet, fermented funk—like Thai fish sauce—to Nigerian soups, stews, sauces, and more. Sometimes, people substitute dried fish or smoked fish. You can skip the crayfish if you want, or, if you like, you can add a teaspoon or two of ground seaweed or nori flakes for a similar sea-salty flavor. You can serve this the way I enjoyed it growing up: with dodo, fried fish, and either dried garri sprinkled over the top or soaked garri on the side. You can also eat it with plain, boiled rice; fried yam, sweet potatoes, or potatoes; soft, white bread like Agege bread or milk bread; and more. 

The one thing I don’t ever eat ewa riro with is meat. In our house, cooked beans were on rotation twice a week: Wednesdays and Fridays. I’m not sure if there is a reason for eating beans on Friday, but in many Christian Nigerian homes, beans with fish (and no meat) on Fridays is a staple. To this day, I cannot eat these Nigerian-style beans with meat, be it beef, goat, poultry, or any other kind. I am happy to eat ewa riro on its own, though, and if there’s fish, I’m happy to have that alongside.