Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Sauce Gombo
Okra stewed with red palm oil and smoked fish into a glossy, savory sauce, spooned over rice in the Guinean style.
Guinean · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 35 min
~564 cal · 22g protein · 78g carbs · 18g fat · 9g fiber · 7g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Sauce gombo, sauce, is a cornerstone of the Guinean kitchen, especially along the coast around Conakry where and fresh seafood meet. , sliced and simmered, gives the sauce its signature glossy, slippery texture, a quality prized across West Africa for how it clings to rice and .
Guinean cooks build depth with red , smoked and fresh fish, onion, and plenty of hot pepper, cooking it all into a thick, russet-green sauce full of savor. Ladled generously over white rice, it makes a satisfying, everyday lunch. Like much of Guinea's food, it is rooted in the produce of the coast and the forest, unpretentious but full of character.
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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
3 cups , sliced
1/2 lb smoked fish, flaked
1/4 cup red
1 onion, chopped
2 tomato, chopped
1 hot pepper, minced
4 cups cooked rice, to serve
Instructions
1
Warm the palm oil and soften the onion, tomato, and hot pepper into a base.
2
Add the okra and a cup of water and simmer until the okra is tender and the sauce turns glossy, about 15 minutes.
3
Stir in the smoked fish and cook a few minutes more to meld.
✎ Chef’s note
Do not over-stir once the okra breaks down; a little texture keeps the sauce from turning to slime.
4
Season with salt and serve ladled over rice.
Guinean coastal cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Conakry. Konkoe sauce is the coastal speciality, built on smoked catfish, and it shows how the pantry works here: fish is preserved by smoking before it goes into anything, so the sauces carry that smoke rather than any fresh flavour. Palm oil, groundnut and chilli do the rest of the work.
🗺️
Guinea. Fonio from the Fouta Djallon highlands is Guinea's distinctive grain, and latchiri is the Fulani millet couscous eaten with kossan, curdled milk, at ceremonies. Konkoe sauce, made with smoked catfish, is a specifically coastal Guinean speciality, and cassava-leaf sauce with smoked fish and palm oil turns up in every region.
🌍
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
Latchiri e KossamHand-rolled maize couscous steamed fine and served with cool, tangy curdled milk, the Fula celebration dish of Guinea.
LafidiA Guinean morning plate: okra and garden-egg eggplant mashed with chili and fermented locust bean, spooned over rice with a slick of red palm oil.
Bouillie de FonioA creamy Guinean breakfast porridge of tiny fonio grains simmered in water and milk, sweetened and warmed with gentle spice.
Browse all Guinea 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.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Sauce Gombo?
Okra stewed with red palm oil and smoked fish into a glossy, savory sauce, spooned over rice in the Guinean style.
Where does Sauce Gombo come from?
Sauce Gombo is a Guinean dish from Conakry, Guinea.
Can Sauce Gombo be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Sauce Gombo 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 Sauce Gombo 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 Sauce Gombo take to make?
About 50 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 35 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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