Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Roasted Kaukau with Coconut
Kaukau (sweet potato) roasted in the embers and eaten with fresh grated coconut, an everyday Papua New Guinean breakfast.
Papua New Guinean · easy · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 35 min
~341 cal · 5g protein · 39g carbs · 20g fat · 10g fiber · 10g sugars · 18g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Kaukau, the highland word for sweet potato, is the daily staple of much of Papua New Guinea, especially in the mountainous interior where it has been the foundation of life and diet for centuries. This breakfast is about as everyday as PNG food gets.
The sweet potato is roasted whole in the embers of a fire until the skin blackens and the flesh turns soft and sweet, then peeled and eaten with a shower of freshly grated coconut. Nothing more is needed; the smoke, the sweetness, and the coconut carry it.
Filling, wholesome, and cheap, it is the kind of breakfast that starts a working day in the gardens. It reflects a food culture built on root crops and the coconut palm, and on getting the most from a simple fire.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, 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 4
4 kaukau (sweet potato)
1 cup fresh coconut, grated
1 pinch pinch of salt
Instructions
1
Wash the kaukau and roast whole in embers, a fire, or a hot oven until soft all the way through, 30-40 minutes.
2
Meanwhile crack a fresh coconut and scrape out the white flesh, or use unsweetened grated coconut.
✎ Chef’s note
A coconut is opened by striking it round its middle with the back of a heavy bush knife, turning it as you go, until it pops; the meat is then scraped out against a toothed stool called a sikrap.
3
Split the hot kaukau open and sprinkle lightly with salt.
4
Top with plenty of grated coconut so it warms and softens against the sweet potato, and serve.
✎ Chef’s note
Kaukau is not native. It was brought in during the colonial period and went on to become the staple crop, to the point that very few Papua New Guinean dishes leave it out. Coconut, though, is a coastal ingredient: lowland cooking runs on coconut cream, seafood and sago, while the highlands lean on root crops, greens and livestock, and rarely reach for coconut at all.
PNG highlands home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Highlands. Papua New Guinea's Highlands cook the mumu earth oven, piling sweet potato (kaukau), greens, and pork over hot stones. In one of the world's most culturally diverse places, the garden and the pig are central.
🗺️
Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea's cuisine is as diverse as its 800 languages, built on sweet potato (kaukau), taro, sago, and the mumu earth oven. Fresh fish, pork, and highland greens reflect one of the world's most varied food cultures.
🌍
Oceania. The staple crops here were carried on purpose. Lapita voyagers moving east from roughly three thousand years ago brought taro, yam, banana, breadfruit and coconut with them along with pigs and chickens, because most of the islands they settled had almost nothing edible growing on them. The earth oven travelled too, as umu, imu, hangi, lovo, mumu, motu and um.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Papua New Guinea
Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables)Sweet potato, greens, corn, and coconut milk steamed in banana leaves, an oven-friendly take on the mumu feast.
Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings)Pearls of sago and sweet banana set in coconut cream, the pudding that turns up at feasts across Papua New Guinea.
Aibika with Tinned FishTender aibika greens simmered in coconut with tinned mackerel over rice, the honest everyday lunch of Papua New Guinea.
Browse all Papua New Guinea recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
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 Papua New Guinea meal
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Frequently asked questions
What is Roasted Kaukau with Coconut?
Kaukau (sweet potato) roasted in the embers and eaten with fresh grated coconut, an everyday Papua New Guinean breakfast.
Where does Roasted Kaukau with Coconut come from?
Roasted Kaukau with Coconut is a Papua New Guinean dish from Highlands, Papua New Guinea.
Can Roasted Kaukau with Coconut be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Roasted Kaukau with Coconut 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 Roasted Kaukau with Coconut 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 Roasted Kaukau with Coconut take to make?
About 40 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 35 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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