Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Tibsi
Cubes of beef seared hard with onion, green chili and berbere until the edges brown, an Eritrean celebration dish eaten with injera.
Eritrean · medium · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 20 min
~549 cal · 46g protein · 10g carbs · 34g fat · 2g fiber · 4g sugars · 16g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Tibsi, also called qulwa, is the Eritrean way with a good cut of meat: cubes of beef or lamb thrown into a scorching pan with niter kibbeh and seared fast so the edges brown and the inside stays juicy. Onions, green chili, garlic and go in with it, and the whole thing is more sizzle than sauce, meat that keeps its own texture rather than melting into a stew.
It is a dish of occasion. Where the everyday table leans on long-cooked stews, tibsi is what appears when there is something to celebrate, a guest to honour or a holiday to mark, and it carries the smell of a hot pan and browning fat through the whole house. Restaurants in Asmara serve it hot and spitting, sometimes on a clay dish set over embers to keep it going at the table.
You eat it by hand from , tearing off pieces of the tangy flatbread to grab the meat and the softened onions. A little extra on the side is there for anyone who wants the heat pushed further.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, 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 beef (or lamb), cut into bite-sized cubes
3 tbsp niter kibbeh (spiced butter)
2 medium onion, sliced
2 green chilies, slit
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, grated
1 tbsp spice blend
Hard to find? sweet paprika and cayenne with ground fenugreek, coriander and a pinch of cardamom - a rough rebuild of the blend; keep the fenugreek, which is the flavour most people notice is missing
1 sprig rosemary
1 tomato, diced
to taste salt
Instructions
1
Get a heavy pan very hot and melt the niter kibbeh (or infused oil) in it.
2
Add the meat (or mushrooms) in a single layer and sear undisturbed for a few minutes to build a browned crust before turning.
✎ Chef’s note
Do not crowd the pan or the meat steams instead of searing. Work in two batches if you need to, since the browned edges are the whole point of tibsi.
3
Add the onion, green chili, garlic and ginger and stir over high heat until the onion softens at the edges.
4
Stir in the berbere, rosemary and diced tomato and cook a few minutes more, just until the tomato slumps and glazes the meat without turning it soupy.
5
Season with salt and serve straight from the pan with injera and extra berbere alongside.
Asmara tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Asmara. Eritrean injera is often called taita, and it is not always teff: sorghum and barley go into it just as often, depending on what the highlands have produced that year. The plateau sits above 2,000 metres, which keeps the city cool and slows every ferment down.
🗺️
Eritrea. Eritrean cooking mirrors Ethiopia's, spicy stews (tsebhi) scooped with the sourdough flatbread injera, with an added Italian colonial twist of pasta. Berbere spice and communal platters define the table.
🌍
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 Eritrea
ZigniA fiery Eritrean beef stew built on berbere spice and long-cooked onions, eaten with injera.
Pasta al Sugo e BerbereSpaghetti tossed in silsi, the Eritrean tomato sauce spiked with berbere, the everyday pasta of Asmara.
Kicha Fit-fitShredded flatbread tossed with spiced clarified butter and berbere, a warming Eritrean breakfast.
Browse all Eritrea recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Best straight off the heat. Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and reheat well in a hot oven rather than the microwave.
Make it a Eritrea meal
Shahi EritreaDrink
Himbasha (Celebration Bread)Dessert
Hamli (Eritrean Spiced Greens)Lunch
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Tibsi?
Cubes of beef seared hard with onion, green chili and berbere until the edges brown, an Eritrean celebration dish eaten with injera.
Where does Tibsi come from?
Tibsi is a Eritrean dish from Asmara, Eritrea.
Can Tibsi be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Tibsi 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 Tibsi 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 Tibsi take to make?
About 40 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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