- Country of origin
- 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso
- Category
- Main Course
- Difficulty
- ●●○ Medium
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cooking
- 45 min
- Servings
- 6 people
Economic context
Riz gras earns its “fatty” nickname by being noticeably richer than the daily baseline of rice and vegetables: a full 600 g of meat cooked into the broth, for a dish reserved for weddings, baptisms, and other gatherings. It sits well above Burkina Faso’s everyday cost-of-a-healthy-diet figure precisely because it is not meant to be an everyday meal.
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 Burkina Faso generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.
History
Riz gras (“fatty rice”), rice cooked in a meat broth enriched with tomato, onion, and spices, is a festive dish found widely across French-speaking West Africa, and Burkina Faso has made it one of its most common gathering dishes, served at weddings, baptisms, and major family occasions.
Its preparation calls for patiently cooking the rice directly in the fragrant broth, pilaf-style, which gives it a characteristic red-orange color and a flavor deeply infused with meat and vegetables.
Ingredients — serves 6
- 1.1 lb (500 g) rice
- 1.3 lb (600 g) beef or chicken
- 4 tomatoes
- 2 onions
- 1 bell pepper
- Tomato paste
- Oil, bouillon cube, salt, pepper
Riz Gras, step by step
- Brown the meat, cut into pieces, in oil with one minced onion.
- Add the crushed tomatoes and bell pepper, then the tomato paste.
- Cover with water, add the bouillon cube, and simmer until the meat is tender.
- Remove the cooked meat and set it aside, keeping it warm.
- Cook the rice directly in this colored broth until the liquid is fully absorbed.
- Return the meat to the rice, mix gently, and serve hot.
Cooking method
Technique: rice cooked by absorption in a long-simmered tomato broth, a pilaf method widespread across West Africa.
Traditional equipment: a large aluminum pot used for communal festive meals.
Signs it’s ready: the rice should take on a uniform red-orange hue and stay slightly sticky without becoming soggy.
Nutrition, per serving
Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, divided by six servings.
The bouillon cube used to season the broth is worth noting as a sodium source, alongside the salt added directly — both soak into the rice as it cooks by absorption, rather than staying on the surface the way they would in a plain boiled rice. Protein and fat sit at a moderate, balanced level for a dish built on 600 g of meat across six servings.
Who this dish suits
Fits well with
- Balanced meals combining rice, meat, and vegetables in a single pot
- Occasional, festive-style eating rather than a daily routine
Worth knowing
- Bouillon cubes are a concentrated sodium source; the broth carries most of the dish’s salt
- 72 g of carbohydrate per serving comes almost entirely from the rice
- Using chicken instead of beef lowers the saturated fat figure
What about you?
In your opinion, what’s the best place or restaurant to try good riz gras?