This Spicy Peanut Sauce from Benin is a delicious staple in Benin’s African cuisine. It can be enjoyed on meat, rice, potatoes, or vegetables, and is a great choice for spicing up any meal!
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Have you ever eaten peanut butter right out of the jar with a spoon? Of course you have. Because it ROCKS. Peanut butter is the ultimate food. As you might remember from my Belizean Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, I eat a banana every day. What I didn’t mention in that blog post is that that banana is ALWAYS accompanied by peanut butter. Peanut butter is a food I turn to quite often. There’s no other way to describe it than this: it just makes me happy.
Obviously, a banana and peanut butter is one of my very favorite snacks, but I love peanut butter in other forms as well. Normally I tend to enjoy my peanut butter in sweet dishes: cookies, pies, toast, ice cream… mmmm…. But this recipe is a GREAT savory recipe for peanut butter.
Controlling the Spiciness of Your Sauce
This Spicy Peanut Butter sauce is made with a blended onion base and a hearty helping of habanero pepper. Depending on your spiciness preference, you can range you habanero portion from “no addition” to “alllll the spiciness.”
I, of course, went for a very mild spice. I put about one half of a habanero pepper in my Spicy Peanut Sauce. If you’d like your sauce to be spicier, feel free to add a full habanero, or maybe even two. The spicier to Spicy Peanut Sauce, the more traditionally Beninese it is.
African Peanut Sauce vs Thai Peanut Sauce
The Peanut Sauce is a bit different than any peanut sauce I’ve had before. Traditionally, I’ve eaten Thai peanut sauce quite often (and loved it). Thai peanut sauce is normally mixed with soy sauce and is very sweet. This Beninese Peanut Sauce tends to stray from the “sweet.” The onions in the sauce and the spicy pepper make the sauce a great treat that’s different from any Asian peanut sauce you’ve tasted before.
How to Enjoy this Spicy Peanut Sauce
In Benin, they enjoy this Spicy Peanut Sauce on… almost everything. Rice, vegetables, potatoes, meat (when they eat it). It’s been said that this sauce is the Beninese form of ketchup… it goes on everything! My favorite way to serve the sauce was to roast some sweet potatoes and use this as a topping. Try whatever fits your fancy!
Did you like this recipe? If so, try out my recipes for Belgian Fries with Andalouse Sauce or my Chimichurri Sauce from Argentina. If you liked this recipe, leave a comment below! Please also feel free to take a photo and post it on Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #TheForeignFork and tag @TheForeignFork. Thanks for stopping by everyone!
Spicy Peanut Sauce (Benin)
Ingredients
- ½ Large, Yellow Onion , I used a Vidalia onion
- ½ Habanero pepper, more or less to taste
- 1 Beef bouillon cube
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 2 tbsp Tomato paste
- ¾ tsp Salt
- ¾ cup Water
- ½ cup Creamy all natural peanut butter, I prefer Smuckers Brand
Instructions
- Blend onion and habanero pepper together in a blender until smooth.
- In a frying pan on the stove, use oil to fry the blended onion and pepper with tomato paste, salt, and bouillon cube. Fry for about 5 minutes.
- Add peanut butter and water to the pan. Mix to combine.
- Reduce to simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.
- Use to top meat, vegetables, rice, or potatoes. Enjoy!
- Leave a comment on this post to tell me what you think!
Dea M Heffernan says
We are on our third batch of your recipe. It is SO delicious! The only thing I added to the second batch was a little sweetness. I mixed in about a tsp of maple syrup at the end. I’m sure honey would be a good sweet element too if you like that. Over all I give it a 5 star rating.
The Foreign Fork says
So so glad that you love the recipe, Dea! Adding a bit of sweetness is a great idea, I’ll need to try that next time. Thanks for leaving a comment!
Burks Rives says
Just wanted to point out that in your video, the subtitles say to let it fry for 45 minutes, but the written version says 5 minutes. Interesting looking sauce, am excited to try it.
The Foreign Fork says
Whoops! Thanks so much for point that out, Burks. You’re right, it should say 4-5 minutes, not 45 minutes. Unfortunately, once a video is on YouTube, it’s very hard to edit/change these things, but hopefully your comment will help other people know how it should be interpreted. Can’t wait for you to try the recipe!
Philip says
I have not made this yet but plan to try it over the weekend. To what consistency do you recommend blending the onion and habanero? Yellow onion or white? Thanks for sharing the details with me.
Alexandria Drzazgowski says
Hi Philip,
I’m so glad that you’re going to be making this recipe! I used a large, yellow Vidalia onion, and I blended the onion and the habanero until they were as smooth as possible… Almost like a paste. I will be updating the recipe to include answers to these questions. Leave me a comment when you make it and let me know what you think! What are you planning to put the peanut sauce on?