35 Delicious Recipe Ideas for Kwanzaa
Whether you’re gathering with your community for a holiday feast or sitting down with family for a small, at-home celebration, these recipes make it easy to bring the best to your table.
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Celebrate with Flavor
Kwanzaa is often marked by a vibrant spread of dishes that can have significant meaning to family celebrating and their history. If you're looking for some extra inspiration this year, start here. The first few recipes in this collection are from Food Network's digital series, The Kwanzaa Menu, hosted by Tonya Hopkins (who you might know as the Food Griot). She invited a line-up of guests to cook a recipe for each day of Kwanzaa and explore the stories and history behind the dishes.
For instance, take akara (a Yoruba and Igbo word referring to a bean cake or fritter), which has long been a popular street snack throughout West Africa and shows up prominently in Atlantic Creole cookery all over the New World, including the American South. The fritters are made with black-eyed peas, which are an ancient indigenous staple of the Senegambian diet and popularized by Black American cooks (many descendants of that region) after the Civil War. Representing resilience and blessings, black-eyed peas are a long-standing symbol of good luck.
Get the Recipe: Crispy Àkàrà with Savory Smoky Sesame Sauce
Good Deeds Greens
This recipe's medley aspect highlights collective work and responsibility come to life via all the extra hands needed to clean and dice up the greens! It’s also great to use three different types of greens for taste and texture diversity. And the integral layering of leaves, alliums and seasonings throughout the pot is another example of the collective work it takes to get to the top. For a festive flare, the recipe factors in more colors — red, yellow and orange bell peppers, as well as some green ones too, cut into circles and added towards the end of cooking — to be displayed on the uppermost layer of the greens in the serving dish on the table.
Get the Recipe: Good Deeds Greens
Amazing Hibiscus Mulled Wine Mocktail and Kwanzaa Mimosa
This mulled wine mocktail is a deliciously spiced blended beverage of African teas (red rooibos and bissap — or hibiscus) and ripe red fruit (tart cherry) yielding a seasonally appropriate (and culturally significant!) deep red color with aromatics of Ancient Africa (clove, pepper, ashanti pepper). Tonya Hopkins and Kenya Parham created this flavor-filled potion for Kwanzaa’s many planned (and improvised!) multigenerational gatherings of family and friends over the course of the holiday’s seven days and six nights. A reclamation of colonized, classic holiday season spices with both warming and healing properties, it’s a lovely ancestrally inspired aftercomer to the Christmas Eve and Day tradition of their Dad’s signature spiced hot cider. It looks and smells so amazing while being made that they love ladling steamy servings straight from the pot it just simmered up in. But because the flavors only get better each day, they suggest you also make a big enough batch for reheating in the days ahead — AND so it can morph from hot mocktail to a chilled cocktail (a Kwanzaa mimosa!) — complete with a zawadi (gift) cube! You’ll also be ready with two options for the kikombe cha umoja (unity cup) when it’s time for the holiday’s libations ceremonies.
Get the Recipe: Amazing Hibiscus Mulled Wine Mocktail and Kwanzaa Mimosa
Black Sable Rice Calas
Calas are semisweet fried rice cakes (an evolution of the beignet) seasoned with warming spices (e.g., ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg) and so appropriate for this Yuletide season. They are akin to rice pudding fritters, with a smooth and creamy yet textured interior and a satisfyingly crispy exterior. The word "cala" comes from one or more African languages. Calas were one of many foods made and sold by both enslaved and free women of color in New Orleans. They are a symbol of the frugality, inventiveness, self-reliance and entrepreneurial spirit of Black women food vendors throughout the Thirteen Colonies and entire Eastern Seaboard for centuries, not unlike several entrepreneurial ancestors in our family whose stories we remember during Kwanzaa and always. Sprinkled lightly with coconut crystal sugar while warm, or for an even sweeter treat, drizzled with a (preferably all-natural) syrup of your choice, they’re great accompaniments to a freshly brewed pot of Kenyan (or other African/Diasporic) coffee.
Get the Recipe: Black Sable Rice Calas
First Fruits Harvest Smoothie Bowl
The first fruits harvest smoothie is a great way to start any sequence of holiday days to feel good and energized! This fab festive green refresher has two non-dairy base options: pear nectar or coconut milk blended with fresh and frozen fruits along with high-water-ratio green veg from both land and lake. Cucumber (genetically related to watermelons, which are originally from Africa) and the Central African algae superfood, spirulina, are two of the green stars of this satisfying smoothie. Banana and pineapple add plenty of sweetness. This shake-like refresher appeals to vegan sensibilities and historically informed ingredients that originate from and/or are relevant to the African continent and the big, beautiful Black Diaspora that Kwanzaa was created to celebrate. The first fruits harvest smoothie can also be served as a reinterpretation/reclamation of the acai bowls popular today — complete with a red/'black'/green topper of red berries/the darkest chocolate/kiwi and granola of your choice —or one made from African super grains like millet, fonio or sorghum.
Get the Recipe: First Fruits Harvest Smoothie Bowl
Yassa-Inspired Grilled Feast
This recipe from Tonya Hopkins and Michael Twitty is a "plethora of proteins" kind of approach to grilling both poultry (chicken) and seafood (snapper and spiny lobsters). It also dials up both the feast aspect of the 6th day’s karamu feast, as well as the notion of a "creative synthesis" (of spicing, marinating and technique — arriving at an African food fusion of sorts) that aligns with the kuumba principle of the day (creativity).
Get the Recipe: Yassa-Inspired Grilled Feast
Pan-Roasted Cassava with Ginger-Peanut Stew
Cassava, aka manioc or yuca, is a New World crop that was introduced and readily adopted in West Africa centuries ago, where it became a primary starch in the diet. It’s used in myriad ways in culinary cultures throughout the African Diaspora (e.g., pounded to make fufu, dried and powdered and used as flour or a starch thickener, sliced or cubed, roasted, baked or fried; additionally, its liquid or juice can be fermented). It’s the perfect base and medium in this dish for the spicy, gingery sauce and is a culturally relevant addition to any Kwanzaa celebration.
Get the Recipe: Pan-Roasted Cassava with Ginger-Peanut Stew
Curried Sweet Potato Puree
Get the Recipe: Curried Sweet Potato Puree
Stewed Okra and Tomatoes
Get the Recipe: Stewed Okra and Tomatoes
Gina's Best Collard Greens
Get the Recipe: Gina's Best Collard Greens
Sweet Potato Pie with Candied Pecans and Coconut
Get the Recipe: Sweet Potato Pie with Candied Pecans and Coconut
Individual Corn Spoon Breads
Get the Recipe: Individual Corn Spoon Breads
Yams with Toasted Spice Rub
Get the Recipe: Yams with Toasted Spice Rub
Grits and Roasted Vegetables with Hazelnut Butter
Get the Recipe: Grits and Roasted Vegetables With Hazelnut Butter
Spicy Black-Eyed Peas
Get the Recipe: Spicy Black-Eyed Peas
Oven-Dried Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Get the Recipe: Oven-Dried Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Vegetarian "Southern-Style" Collard Greens
Get the Recipe: Vegetarian "Southern-style" Collard Greens
Spicy Candied Sweet Potatoes
Get the Recipe: Spicy Candied Sweet Potatoes
Creamy Stove-Top Mac and Cheese
Get the Recipe: Creamy Stove-top Mac and Cheese
Classic Fried Chicken
Get the Recipe: Classic Fried Chicken
Moroccan Couscous
Get the Recipe: Moroccan Couscous
Apple-Cheddar-Squash Soup
Get the Recipe: Apple-Cheddar-Squash Soup
Onion-Ringed Fried Chicken
Get the Recipe: Onion-Ringed Fried Chicken
Vegetable Couscous with Moroccan Pesto
Get the Recipe: Vegetable Couscous with Moroccan Pesto
Carrot-Mushroom-Barley Stew
Get the Recipe: Carrot-Mushroom-Barley Stew
Blackened Tilapia with Black-Eyed Pea Salad
Get the Recipe: Blackened Tilapia With Black-Eyed Pea Salad
Coconut-Lime Pudding Cake
Get the Recipe: Coconut-Lime Pudding Cake
Braised Collard Greens
Get the Recipe: Braised Collard Greens
Beefy Mac and Cheese
Get the Recipe: Beefy Mac and Cheese
Stewed Collard Greens
Get the Recipe: Stewed Collard Greens
Southern-Style Collard Greens
Get the Recipe: Southern-Style Collard Greens
Turkey and Okra Skillet
Get the Recipe: Turkey and Okra Skillet Dinner
Sweet Onion Potatoes au Gratin
Get the Recipe: Sweet Onion Potatoes Au Gratin
Southern Cornbread Dressed-Up Chicken
Get the Recipe: Southern Cornbread Dressed-Up Chicken
Chard, Squash and Tomatoes
Get the Recipe: Chard, Squash and Tomatoes
