Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Chabéu
Fish simmered in a thick red palm-nut sauce with onion, tomato, and chili, served over rice, a signature dish of Guinea-Bissau.
Bissau-Guinean · medium · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 35 min
~797 cal · 46g protein · 74g carbs · 35g fat · 7g fiber · 5g sugars · 19g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Chabéu is the fruit of the oil palm, and caldo de chabéu, the palm-nut stew built from it, is one of the defining dishes of Guinea-Bissau. The nuts are boiled until tender, pounded to free the seeds, then worked with water and pushed through a sieve into a thick, russet palm-fruit pulp, the sauce that gives the dish its color, body, and deep, distinctive flavor.
Fish, often a firm-fleshed sea fish or catfish, is simmered in that palm-fruit sauce with onion, tomato, lime, and hot pepper until it flakes and the sauce turns rich and glossy. Ladled over a mound of white rice, chabéu is warming and unmistakably West African, a dish of family lunches and celebrations across Bissau and the coastal villages, and a source of livelihood for the women who cook it best.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1.5 lb firm sea fish, in steaks
2 cups cream (canned palm concentrate), or fresh pounded and sieved
1 onion, chopped
2 tomato (or djagatu garden egg), chopped
1 hot pepper (), minced
1 lime, juiced
4 cups cooked rice, to serve
Instructions
1
If using fresh palm nuts, boil them until tender, pound to free the seeds, work with water, and push through a sieve into a thick red pulp; canned palm nut cream is a ready shortcut.
✎ Chef’s note
Chabeu is the palm fruit itself, not bottled palm oil. The sauce is the pounded, sieved pulp of the boiled nuts, and that is what gives the dish its body and flavor.
2
Season the fish with the lime juice and salt and set it aside briefly.
3
Simmer the palm nut pulp with the onion, tomato, hot pepper, and a little water into a thick, russet sauce, about 20 minutes.
4
Lower in the fish and simmer gently until it flakes, about 10 minutes.
5
Serve ladled over rice.
Bissau-Guinean home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Bissau. Bissau is a Luso-African capital built on rice, fish, and palm oil, most fully in caldo de mancarra, a peanut stew. Portuguese contact left bread and stews, while cassava, okra, and smoked fish keep it firmly West African.
🗺️
Guinea-Bissau. The cashew figure is startling: the nut has accounted for something like two thirds of merchandise exports and, by central-bank measures, the great majority of export revenue, with more than half of farming households growing it. The apple is eaten and fermented locally rather than exported, which is the half of the crop outsiders never see.
🌍
Africa. The structure repeats across most of the continent: one starch and one sauce. A grain or root is cooked stiff, torn or rolled by hand, and used to carry a stew of leaves, groundnut, okra or fish, usually from a shared bowl and with the right hand. UNESCO listings have followed that logic, inscribing couscous in 2020 as a shared Maghreb tradition and Ivorian attieke in 2024.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Guinea-Bissau
Caldo de PeixeA Guinea-Bissau fish-and-rice pot simmered with palm oil, tomato, and greens in one dish.
FidjósBissau breakfast fritters: a mashed-banana and flour batter fried into small golden puffs, sold in paper cones on the morning streets.
Papa de ArrozGuinea-Bissau's gentle rice porridge, the national grain simmered soft and loose, sweetened and served with a pour of milk.
Browse all Guinea-Bissau recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
Make it a Guinea-Bissau meal
Doce de Papaia (Papaya Sweet)Dessert
Caldo de PeixeDinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Chabéu?
Fish simmered in a thick red palm-nut sauce with onion, tomato, and chili, served over rice, a signature dish of Guinea-Bissau.
Where does Chabéu come from?
Chabéu is a Bissau-Guinean dish from Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.
Can Chabéu be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Chabéu recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Chabéu safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Chabéu take to make?
About 50 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 35 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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