- Country of origin
- 🇪🇹 Ethiopia
- Category
- Main Course
- Difficulty
- ●●○ Medium
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cooking
- 5 min
- Servings
- 4 people
History
Kitfo is traditionally made from raw or barely warmed minced beef, blended with mitmita (a fiery Ethiopian spice mix) and niter kibbeh (spiced clarified butter) — part of a wider Horn of Africa custom of serving fresh raw meat on special occasions, prized as a mark of hospitality and reserved for guests or celebrations rather than everyday meals.
The dish is especially tied to Ethiopia’s Gurage people, though it has since spread nationwide and now appears on menus in Addis Ababa as well as in Ethiopian diaspora restaurants worldwide. For those wary of raw beef, a lightly cooked version called “leb leb” is commonly offered as an alternative, though purists consider the fully raw version the real experience.
Ingredients — for 4 people
- 500 g (1.1 lb) top-quality lean beef, finely hand-chopped
- 3 tbsp niter kibbeh (Ethiopian spiced clarified butter)
- 1-2 tsp mitmita (Ethiopian chili blend) or berbere
- Fresh Ethiopian cheese (ayib) or cottage cheese
- Injera, for serving
- Salt
Step-by-step Ethiopian kitfo recipe
- Finely chop the beef by hand with a knife until almost smooth.
- Melt the niter kibbeh gently, without letting it boil.
- Mix the chopped meat with the warm clarified butter and mitmita.
- Season with salt to taste and mix again to distribute the spices evenly.
- For a lightly cooked version (leb leb), sear the seasoned meat briefly in a very hot pan without cooking it through.
- Serve with fresh Ethiopian cheese and injera on the side.
Cooking method
Technique: hand-chopped meat seasoned raw in warm spiced butter, or very briefly seared for the leb leb version.
Traditional equipment: a sharp knife for hand-chopping, rather than a mechanical grinder.
Key point: the clarified butter should be warm, never hot, so it doesn’t cook the meat if you want the traditional raw version.
Nutrition, per serving
Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities, divided by four servings.
Notable amount: lean raw beef is a strong source of iron, roughly 2.9 mg per serving here (about 21% of the EU reference intake), and zinc at around 5.6 mg (about 56%), both concentrated in the meat itself rather than the spiced butter. Carbohydrate is essentially zero before injera; a typical piece of injera adds roughly 170 kcal and 35 g of carbs on top of the figures above, mostly from the fermented teff batter.
Economic context
Top-quality beef eaten raw, without the tenderizing effect of long cooking, calls for a cut and freshness well above what an everyday Ethiopian meal is typically built on — which is consistent with kitfo’s role as a dish for guests and celebrations rather than routine eating.
Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in Ethiopia generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.
Who this dish suits
Fits well with
- High-protein, very low-carbohydrate eating patterns
- Diets where iron and zinc intake are being tracked
Worth knowing
- Served raw or barely warmed; freshness and sourcing matter more than for a fully cooked dish
- 12 g of saturated fat per serving, from the clarified butter
- The “leb leb” version offers a lightly seared alternative for those who prefer it
Go further
Kitfo belongs to a small set of dishes built around raw, seasoned beef. Two Ways to Eat Beef Raw looks at kitfo alongside gored gored and what the tradition is actually about.
What about you?
In your opinion, where’s the best place or restaurant to enjoy good kitfo?