Africa → The Gambia → Banjul
🍰 DESSERT
Chakery
Steamed couscous folded through sweetened, vanilla-scented yogurt with raisins and pineapple, a cool Gambian celebration dessert.
Gambian · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 15 min · plus 1 h hands-off time
~352 cal · 10g protein · 66g carbs · 5g fat · 3g fiber · 27g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Chakery (also spelled chakri or thiakry) is the sweet dessert loved across The Gambia and Senegal, a cool, creamy treat that appears at celebrations, naming ceremonies, and holiday tables. It takes the same or wheat used in savory cooking and turns it entirely to the sweet side.
The steamed grains are folded through a rich mixture of yogurt and sour cream sweetened with sugar and perfumed with vanilla and nutmeg, then studded with raisins and, often, pieces of pineapple. Served chilled, it is refreshing and indulgent at once, the tender grains suspended in the tangy cream. Chakery is festive food, the kind of dessert that signals an occasion in a Gambian home.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and egg- 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 6
- 2 cups
- 3 cups total plain yogurt and sour cream
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1/4 cup shredded coconut
- 1 cup total raisins and diced pineapple
Instructions
- 1Steam the couscous until tender and fluffy, then fluff it and let it cool completely.✎ Chef’s noteLet the couscous cool fully before mixing, or it will thin and warm the cream.
- 2Stir the yogurt and sour cream with the sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and coconut until smooth and sweet.
- 3Fold the cooled couscous through the cream along with the raisins and pineapple.
- 4Chill at least an hour and serve cold.
Gambian celebration tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Banjul. Banjul sits at the mouth of the Gambia River and is devoted to superkanja, a thick okra stew with palm oil, smoked fish, and meat over rice. Groundnut stews, benachin one-pot rice, and river fish are everyday.
🗺️
The Gambia. The Gambia is a river with a country around it, the smallest on mainland Africa, a strip a few dozen kilometres wide running inland along the water. That shape means almost everyone lives near the river or the coast, and it explains why fish, fresh, smoked and dried, appears in dishes that inland West African cooking would build on meat.
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Africa. Much of what reads as timeless African cooking is younger than the Atlantic crossings. Maize, cassava, groundnut, chilli and tomato all arrived from the Americas after 1500 and pushed older crops aside; millet, sorghum, teff, yam and fonio are the ones that were already here, and the map still shows the join.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from The Gambia
SuperkanjaThe Gambia's rich okra stew with palm oil, smoked fish, and meat, spooned over rice.
TapalapaThe Gambia's daily bread: a crusty, dense baton of mixed millet, maize, and wheat flours, baked in a clay oven and torn open for breakfast.
DomodaThe Gambian groundnut stew: meat simmered in a thick, tangy peanut sauce with tomato and pumpkin, served over rice.
Browse all The Gambia recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Steamer.
Storing it: Keeps 2 to 3 days refrigerated. Resteam or warm through gently to serve.
Make it a The Gambia meal
BenachinDinner
Bouye (Baobab Smoothie)Drink
Similar dishes from around the world
Latchiri e KossamGuinea
Ngalakh (Baobab & Peanut Millet Cream)Senegal
DucanaAntigua and Barbuda
Guava DuffBahamas
ConkiesBarbados
Thayacha (Andean Frozen Oca)Bolivia
Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Chakery?
Steamed couscous folded through sweetened, vanilla-scented yogurt with raisins and pineapple, a cool Gambian celebration dessert.
Where does Chakery come from?
Chakery is a Gambian dish from Banjul, The Gambia.
Can Chakery be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Chakery recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Chakery 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Chakery take to make?
About 1 h 35 min in all: 20 minutes prep and 15 minutes cooking, plus 1 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.
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