Fried and grilled
Fried wagasi
West African fresh Fulani cheese, set with plant juice, fried until golden and eaten as a snack or in sauce.
Wagasi, called wara in Yorubaland, is a fresh soft cheese made by Fulani herders in Benin, Nigeria, Togo and Ghana. It is set with the sap of the Sodom apple plant, Calotropis procera, rather than animal rennet. It is often fried in oil until golden and eaten as a snack, or simmered in tomato and pepper sauce like meat.
What goes in
- Wagasi747%, Fresh, sliced.
- Vegetable oil320%, For frying.
- Salt17%, Seasoning.
- Chilli and onion213%, In the sauce version.
- Tomato213%, In the sauce version.
Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each ingredient's share of the dish.
Made step by step
Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house; this is one traditional way, in outline.
Step 1: Grate Slice the wagasi into thick pieces and pat dry. Step 2: Fry Heat oil in a deep pan. Step 3: Fry Fry the slices until golden and puffed. Step 4: Rest Drain and salt them. Step 5: Simmer Serve as a snack, or simmer in a tomato, onion and chilli sauce. Finished Fried wagasi, by share.
Fulani cheese
The Fulani are pastoral cattle herders spread across West Africa. Women traditionally make and sell wagasi in markets, especially in northern Benin around Parakou and in Nigeria. The milk is heated with leaves or sap of Calotropis procera until curds form, then shaped in small baskets. In Benin the rind is often dyed red with sorghum leaf, which also helps it keep.
In the kitchen
Because it does not keep long, wagasi is often fried soon after purchase. Slices are deep-fried until golden outside and springy inside, then salted. Fried wagasi is sold by street vendors and eaten with bread or on its own. It is also cut into cubes and cooked in a stew of tomato, onion and chilli, a vegetarian version of a meat sauce.
Where it is used
The cheeses in it
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Sources and further reading
Original text and drawings by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and kitchen makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Wagasi: Noahalorwu, CC BY-SA 4.0, source