Africa

Omo Tuo Recipe: Ghanaian Rice Balls with Groundnut Soup

Name: Omo Tuo Recipe: Ghanaian Rice Balls with Groundnut Soup
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Ghanaian
Ingredients: 300 g (about 2 rice-cooker cups) Rice; 900 ml Water; 1/2 tsp Salt; 500 g Bone-in chicken thighs or drumettes; 150 g Unsweetened peanut butter; 300 g Ripe tomatoes; 1 (about 200 g) Onion; 3 cloves (about 12 g) Garlic; 20 g Ginger; 1/2 Habanero or Scotch bonnet; 1 tbsp Red palm oil; 900 ml Water or chicken cooking liquid; 1 (about 150 g) Eggplant; 6 (about 70 g) Okra; 1 1/4 tsp Salt

Ghana's omo tuo are rice cooked soft, pounded, and shaped into balls to go with groundnut soup. How to cook rice without scorching the pot, how to tell when it is soft enough to shape, soups that change by region, choosing unsweetened peanut butter, storage and substitutions, adapted to both a home kitchen and the Ghanaian table.

Published: October 25, 2026Total: 1 hr 15 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 8

Wash the rice and let it take up water

Soaking 300 g rice in water in a pot, grains settled evenly, the preparation for omo tuo — Combine the rice with 900 ml water and salt, and leave it for 10 minutes before cooking

Put 300 g rice in a strainer, discard the first water right away, and rinse gently about twice. Put the rice, 900 ml water and 1/2 tsp salt in a pot and leave it 10 minutes. When the white centers have taken up water and the grains sit evenly on the bottom of the pot, start cooking. Soaking too long makes the water uneven at the bottom of the pot, so put it on the heat within 30 minutes.

STEP 22 / 8

Cook the rice soft

Rice in a pot absorbing water and being cooked soft over low heat until the center of each grain is gone — Cook the rice with no hard center, to a porridge-like state where the spoon track slowly fills in

Set the pot over medium heat and wait about 8 minutes until it boils. When it bubbles, lower to low heat, set the lid slightly ajar and cook for 20 minutes. Turn the bottom over once with a wooden spoon. When there is no hard center in the rice and it is a porridge-like state where the track of the spoon slowly fills in, turn off the heat, cover, and rest for 5 minutes. Even if some liquid remains, the pounding step will bring it together, so don't pour it off.

STEP 33 / 8

Start the chicken and aromatics

Cooking onion, garlic, ginger, chili and chicken in red palm oil, the first step of the groundnut soup — Move the aroma of the aromatics into the oil and cook until the chicken surface turns white

While the rice cooks, cut 500 g chicken to an even 3–4 cm (1 1/4–1 1/2 in) size and rub with 1/2 tsp salt. Put 1 tbsp red palm oil in a pot and warm it over medium heat for 1 minute, then add 1/2 thinly sliced onion, 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, 10 g ginger and the chili and cook for 5 minutes. When the aroma rises and the onion is translucent, add the chicken and turn it for about 4 minutes until the surface turns white.

STEP 44 / 8

Add the tomato and aromatics paste

Making a coarse red paste of tomato, onion, ginger, garlic and chili and adding it to the pot of chicken — Add the paste with some tomato texture left and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes

Cut 300 g ripe tomatoes into 3 cm (1 1/4 in) pieces and blend for 30 seconds to 1 minute with the remaining 1/2 onion, 1 clove garlic and 10 g ginger. Don't remove all the texture; stop where a thick red paste runs in a heavy stream. If you have no blender, crush the tomato in a mortar and add it to the pot where the chicken is cooking. Pour in 600 ml water or cooking liquid, bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. You are done when a bamboo skewer goes halfway into the thick part of the chicken.

STEP 55 / 8

Loosen the peanut butter with hot cooking liquid

Adding hot cooking liquid a little at a time to unsweetened peanut butter to turn it into a smooth peanut sauce — Add the liquid in 3 portions and loosen until it is lump-free and runs thickly

Put 150 g unsweetened peanut butter in a bowl and add 250 ml hot cooking liquid from the pot in 3 portions. Work it with a wooden spoon for 1 minute each time, and mix for 5 minutes in all until the pale, stiff paste becomes a sauce that runs in a thick line when lifted. Adding all the liquid at the start makes it separate easily, so add the next portion each time the heaviness is gone.

STEP 66 / 8

Simmer the soup to the aroma of peanut

Chicken, eggplant, okra and peanut sauce simmering together in one pot over low heat with red oil beads floating on top — Simmer over low heat and check for oil beads and a light thickness that coats the spoon

Return the loosened peanut sauce to the pot a little at a time and add the remaining 300 ml water or cooking liquid. Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes, tracing the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon every 5 minutes. Add the eggplant cut into 2 cm (3/4 in) cubes and cook 7 minutes, then add the okra cut into 1 cm (3/8 in) rounds and cook the last 5 minutes. When the soup has gone from reddish brown to orange, small beads of oil float on top, and it lightly coats the wooden spoon, keep the heat low and move on.

STEP 77 / 8

Pound the rice and shape it

Pounding the cooked rice with a wooden spoon to crush the grains into a glossy dough before shaping — Shape with wet hands once the grains have nearly disappeared and it is glossy and cohesive

Press the hot, rested rice against the sides of the pot with a wooden spoon and fold it over, repeating for 8–10 minutes. It is done when the grains are barely visible, the surface is glossy, and it follows the spoon as one mass when lifted. Divide the rice into 8, scoop each with wet hands and shape into balls 7–8 cm (3 in) across. If it slumps, knead 2 minutes over low heat; if it cracks, add boiling water 1 tbsp at a time and pound again.

STEP 88 / 8

Serve the soup and rice balls warm

Serving two omo tuo rice balls with chicken, eggplant and okra groundnut soup in a deep bowl — Pour the soup in first and serve with enough that it touches half of each rice ball

Pour the soup into deep bowls first and set 2 rice balls in each. Push the chicken, eggplant and okra to where they show, and stop when the soup touches half of each ball. Rather than breaking the whole rice ball at once, break off a little at a time and coat it with soup, so you taste the stickiness of the ball and the richness of the peanut in turn. Finish plating within 3 minutes and serve while the steam remains.

0 / 0

Ingredients

1 / 2

Rice balls

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Rice	300 g (about 2 rice-cooker cups)	Short-grain is easier to shape. Broken rice gets closer to an authentic texture
Water	900 ml	Amount for cooking in a pot, not a rice cooker. Add 50 ml if the pot is thin
Salt	1/2 tsp	A light seasoning for the rice. Keep it mild because it is eaten with soup

2 / 2

Groundnut soup

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Bone-in chicken thighs or drumettes	500 g	For white fish, shorten the simmering time. For mushrooms, make it with vegetable stock
Unsweetened peanut butter	150 g	Don't use peanut cream with sugar or syrup added
Ripe tomatoes	300 g	300 g if using canned diced tomatoes. Reduce a very acidic can a little longer
Onion	1 (about 200 g)	Half is simmered, half is blended into the soup
Garlic	3 cloves (about 12 g)	Finely chopped or crushed
Ginger	20 g	Scrape off the skin before use
Habanero or Scotch bonnet	1/2	One red chili also works. Remove the seeds to reduce heat
Red palm oil	1 tbsp	Can be replaced with a neutral oil, but color and aroma are lighter
Water or chicken cooking liquid	900 ml	Set aside 250 ml to loosen the peanut butter
Eggplant	1 (about 150 g)	Stands in for garden eggs. Cut into 2 cm (3/4 in) cubes
Okra	6 (about 70 g)	Cut into 1 cm (3/8 in) rounds. Add only for the last 5 minutes to keep it from getting slimy
Salt	1 1/4 tsp	Added in portions: to season the chicken, in the soup, and to finish

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The sound of rice scraping the pot, the signal of omo tuo

Press the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon and the whole grains slowly give way, turning into a glossy white mass. Wet your hands, scoop up the rice still holding its steam, and it comes together in your palm into a round ball. Omo tuo is a Ghanaian staple: rice cooked soft, pounded, and eaten with soup.

It is not something like a Japanese onigiri that wraps a filling and travels with you. The point is not to keep the grains but to build enough stickiness to catch a peanut or tomato soup on the surface. A University of Ghana study also records omo tuo as "rice cooked and made into balls, served with groundnut soup or palm nut soup."

Success with omo tuo depends less on skill at shaping the rice than on not stopping the cooking at whole grains. Use plenty of water so there is no hard center, and pound it while hot. Follow that order and even short-grain rice reaches a state that is easy to shape in a home kitchen.

Here we make the rice balls together with a groundnut soup of chicken, eggplant and okra. Since home cooking in Ghana has no single fixed recipe, this is organized as a version built with unsweetened peanut butter, separating what to keep from what you may change.

Finished omo tuo: glossy rice balls and orange groundnut soup in a deep bowl — Break the rice ball and let it pick up the peanut soup a little at a time

Item	Guide
Yield	4 servings (8 rice balls)
Prep	25 minutes
Cooking	50 minutes
Total	about 1 hour 15 minutes
Flavor axis	Peanut richness, tomato acidity, chili heat
Heat	Medium-hot. Adjust with the amount of chili

The Ghanaian table, where rice balls catch the soup

Ghanaian cooking is built not by putting the staple alone on a plate but by combining a starchy staple such as rice, yam or cassava with soup or sauce and meat or fish. The Ghana National Commission on Culture explains that crops change with climate and region, which leads to differences in cooking, and that dishes vary with mealtimes and occasions too. The center of the table is the relationship between staple and soup.

What omo tuo is paired with is not a single thing either. Around Accra, serving rice balls alongside groundnut soup or fish dishes is described, and in Ashanti groundnut soup is listed as one of the regional dishes. In the north, there are examples of pairing omo tuo with leafy-green soup, beans and dishes made with shea nut oil, and in the northeast and northwest rice balls and tuo zaafi appear at the table. Regional differences show up not in competing over the shape of the ball but in which soup accompanies the same staple.

A comparison inspired by tables in Accra, Ashanti and northern Ghana: rice balls, groundnut soup, leafy-green soup and bean dishes in separate bowls — In Ghana, the pairing of regional crops and soups makes the difference between tables

In the University of Ghana research, ingredients were bought at markets in Greater Accra and 20 common dishes were cooked in a commercial kitchen on campus. The list includes both omo tuo with groundnut soup and omo tuo with palm nut soup. Because these are dishes standardized for research, they do not represent the taste of every home. Even so, it shows that omo tuo is treated not as a rice dish by itself but as a plate combined with soup.

Local eateries are called "chop bars" and serve dishes that pair a staple and a soup, such as grilled fish, banku and fufu. The Ghana National Commission on Culture also presents serving food to a guest as an act that expresses relationships between people. Even when plating one portion at a time elsewhere, putting the rice ball on the plate first and pouring the soup from the side shows the structure of a staple receiving a soup.

Northern Ghana's tuo zaafi (in Japanese) is a staple stirred from corn, cassava or millet-type flour rather than rice. Though it shares the name "tuo," omo tuo is a dish of rice cooked soft and pounded. Compared with a staple made by stirring flour, the focus is on cooking the rice and judging the water.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Ingredients for omo tuo: short-grain rice, unsweetened peanut butter, chicken, tomatoes, eggplant, okra, red palm oil and chili — Prepare the rice-ball ingredients and the groundnut soup ingredients separately

Allergy and heat notes

This dish uses peanuts and chicken. Some households add dried shrimp or fish to the soup, but this version uses no shellfish and is built on chicken stock alone. If you have a peanut allergy, don't swap the peanut butter for another nut paste; treat that as a different dish. Habanero is hot even in small amounts, so start with half or less the first time.

Choosing unsweetened peanut butter

The peanuts in groundnut soup are a paste melted into a savory dish, not a sweet sandwich spread. Even when a recipe says unsweetened, salt and added vegetable oil vary by product. Read the ingredient list and confirm there is no sugar or syrup and that it is an unsweetened type suitable for cooking.

A jar of about 150 g of unsweetened peanut butter is easy to use up in this one soup, so the leftover paste does not linger in the refrigerator. If you use a salted type, reduce the salt in the recipe by 1/2 tsp and taste at the end. Chunky types also work, but a smooth soup is easier to coat onto the rice balls.

Shopping for unsweetened peanut butter, ripe tomatoes, ginger and garlic for the soup, telling a sweet spread from a cooking paste — Check whether it is unsweetened, and where the peanuts sit in the ingredient list

Red palm oil, or carry on with a neutral oil

Red palm oil is not an ingredient where the oil itself is the star, as in palm nut soup. In this soup it plays a supporting role, adding a red color and an earthy aroma between the tomato and the peanut. Because a little changes the impression, there is no need to put in 2 tbsp or more the first time.

Red palm oil in a small dish beside the tomato and peanut ingredients, choosing a seasoning — Start red palm oil at 1 tbsp and use it by watching aroma and color

With a neutral oil, you get a lighter flavor in which the peanut and tomato come forward. To make up a little of the red color, reduce the tomato 5 minutes longer. Adding paprika, however, does not reproduce the oil's aroma. Check that it is sold as an edible oil, its size and whether it is unrefined; if you dislike aromatic oils, it is also fine to decide not to force yourself to buy it.

The grinding tool decides the texture of the soup

Articles on Ghanaian cooking in local media describe crushing aromatics and chili in an earthenware mortar with a wooden pestle. If you have a blender, tomato and onion can be made smooth in a short time. The point of a mortar is not to display an old tool but to decide with your own hand whether to leave bits of chili or some tomato pulp.

Crushing tomato, onion, ginger and chili in a granite mortar into a coarse paste — A mortar lets you make the soup paste while watching the coarseness of the aromatics

If you use a blender, don't add water from the start. Add 1 tbsp at a time only when the tomato's own liquid won't turn, and stop when the paste runs from the spoon in a thick stream. If you choose a mortar, check the inner diameter of the bowl, whether it comes with a pestle, and the weight. In a bowl that is too small the tomato escapes, and a stone bowl that is too large needs a place to wash and store it.

How to make it

Make the rice and the soup in the same window of time. If you start simmering the chicken soup while the rice is cooked and resting, and overlap the last low heat of the soup with the time you pound the rice, the rice balls cool less.

Where to go back when it goes wrong

A side-by-side repair comparison: rice that is too firm to shape, a smooth rice ball, and a separated soup — Before fixing the look, check the rice's moisture and the soup's heat

Omo tuo is not a dish you fix by adding seasoning. Look at where it drifted: the water in the rice, the temperature you pound at, or the speed at which you put the peanut into the pot.

Condition	Main cause	How to fix
Rice cracks as you shape it	Undercooked, cooled, not pounded enough	Add 1 tbsp boiling water, knead 2–3 minutes over low heat, then pound while hot
Rice runs in the hand and won't form a ball	Too much water	Return it to the pot and knead 2 minutes at a time over low heat with the lid off. Don't add flour or potato starch
Grains remain on the surface of the ball	A hard center remained in the rice	Add 50 ml boiling water, cover, cook 5 more minutes over low heat, then pound
Lumps of peanut in the soup	Liquid was added all at once	Mix a ladle of hot soup in a separate bowl until smooth, then return it to the pot
Burnt smell from the bottom of the pot	High heat, sediment of paste, not enough stirring	Don't scrape the bottom; move only the top soup to another pot, add 50 ml boiling water and bring back over low heat
Oil floats like a large pool	Too much red palm oil, boiled too hard	Add 50 ml boiling water and stir slowly over low heat for 3 minutes. Stop when it is back to small beads of oil
Chili too strong	Used with seeds, too much	Add 100 g tomato and 100 ml water and simmer 5 minutes. Adjust the salt last

Avoid scraping the bottom of the pot when you find a scorch. Stirring in the burnt part spreads bitterness, not toastiness, through the whole soup. Taste in the pot you moved it to: if it is thin, cook off the liquid; if it is heavy, add boiling water a little at a time.

Switching the staple, matching the thickness of the soup

Omo tuo laid out with groundnut soup, palm nut soup and a light tomato soup on a Ghanaian table — How the rice ball takes up liquid changes with the soup it is paired with

In Ghana omo tuo is paired not only with groundnut soup but also with palm nut soup. Groundnut soup is rich, and making it a thickness that clings slowly to the surface of the rice balls gives a satisfying plate. If you switch to palm nut soup, don't add peanut butter to the same pot; change the soup itself.

When you change the pairing elsewhere, adjusting the soup's liquid is easier than remaking the rice balls.

Paired with	Where the soup ends	How to handle it at the table
Omo tuo	Falls from the spoon in a thick line	Pour over half of the ball and coat small amounts as you break it
White rice	Slightly thicker. Doesn't run on the plate	Spoon over only one side of the rice and add more as you go
Fufu	Falls thick and slowly	Tear off fufu and coat it with soup
Banku	A little looser than for omo tuo	Match the fermented tang, keep the tomato aroma

If you replace chicken with fish, fish breaks down easily, so add it in the second half after the tomato and peanut have simmered. Goat changes aroma and toughness, so for a home kitchen it works better to simmer it first in plain water until tender and then join it to the soup. For a plant-based build with mushrooms, the chicken stock is gone, so cook the onion and tomato a little longer. These are not a way to fix Ghanaian home cooking into one version but substitutions to keep the relationship of texture and aroma using ingredients available in your kitchen.

Frequently asked questions

Can I shape it with short-grain rice?

Yes. Use more water than for ordinary cooking and cook until soft through the center. It can also be made with long-grain rice, but the grains may loosen and be harder to shape. In that case add 50 ml water when cooking and pound 2–3 minutes longer.

Can I use sweetened peanut butter?

It isn't suited to the soup. The sweetness of sugar stays even after simmering and weakens the outline of the tomato and chili. Choose unsweetened, cooking-use peanut butter; if it is salted, reduce the salt and adjust at the end.

Can I make it without a mortar?

Yes. Blend the tomato and aromatics in a blender, adding water 1 tbsp at a time only when it won't turn. A mortar isn't essential equipment; its value is when you want to control how much texture is left or to crush a small amount of chili.

Can I pour leftover soup over white rice?

Yes. The next day, white rice is easier to handle than the rice balls, and if you warm the soup and loosen its thickness it can be eaten as a different staple. If you want a closer look at how the groundnut soup is made, see also Ghanaian groundnut soup.

Is it not authentic unless you eat with your hands?

The worth of a dish is not decided by the utensil. When the rice balls are hot, it is safer to break them with a spoon and scoop up a little soup. To understand the relationship between staple and soup there, what matters more is not to break the ball all at once but to coat its surface with soup.

If you store it, keep the rice balls and soup apart

A kitchen cooling rice balls separated one by one in containers and groundnut soup in another container — Cooling rice balls and soup separately keeps the texture better the next day

Rice balls are easiest to shape while hot, and once refrigerated they firm up and crack easily. Wrap the portion you can't finish one by one in plastic wrap and put them in a shallow container, apart from the soup. Don't leave the soup in the deep pot either; divide it into shallow containers and cool it fast.

FoodSafety.gov advises not leaving cooked food or rice at room temperature for more than 2 hours, refrigerating within 1 hour when the temperature is above 32 °C (90 °F), and cooling in shallow containers. Keep the refrigerator at 4 °C (40 °F) or below, and when eating, warm the soup to just short of boiling and heat the rice balls through to the center. If you reheat in a microwave, turn them partway and heat until the center reaches 74 °C (165 °F) or higher.

If you prioritize texture, eating by the next day is easiest. For refrigerated rice balls, sprinkle a little water, cover, microwave, and then lightly tidy the surface by hand. If the soup has thickened, add boiling water 50 ml at a time and stop before you dilute the peanut aroma too much.

Sources

Notes recording the background and cooking judgments of Ghanaian food, with rice, tomato and peanuts arranged in a still life — Reference materials checked against the food-culture record and the cooking judgments in the recipe

Ghana National Commission on Culture: The Ghanaian Kitchen (composition of staple and soup, dish examples from Accra, Ashanti, the north and elsewhere. Published: 2020-11-15. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
Ghana National Commission on Culture: Regional Representation and Diversity (differences in staples, soups and crops by region. No publication date listed. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
George Amponsah Annor, Kwaku Tano Debrah, Allen Essen: Mineral and phytate contents of some prepared popular Ghanaian foods (definitions of omo tuo and groundnut soup, cooking and survey method at the University of Ghana. SpringerPlus 5:581, 2016. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
Pulse Ghana: DIY Recipes: How to make Nkatiekonto (Groundnut soup with greens) (pairing with omo tuo, loosening the peanut with cooking liquid, using a mortar versus a blender. Published: 2021-12-08. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
The Guardian: Ghanaian groundnut soup – recipe (ingredients of Ghanaian groundnut soup, and the step of loosening the peanut sauce separately and simmering until the oil floats. Published: 2013-04-24. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
The Vegetarian Resource Group: Ghanaian Cuisine (terminology of om tuo and nkatenkan, examples of Ghanaian tables. Vegan Journal Vol. 44, Issue 2, 2025. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)
FoodSafety.gov: 4 Steps to Food Safety (chilling cooked food and rice, time at room temperature, refrigerator temperature, and the approach to reheating. Last checked: 2023-09-18. Accessed and checked: 2026-08-28 JST)