Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables)
Sweet potato, greens, corn, and coconut milk steamed in banana leaves, an oven-friendly take on the mumu feast.
Papua New Guinean · easy · serves 5
prep 25 min · cook 75 min
~839 cal · 39g protein · 105g carbs · 32g fat · 21g fiber · 26g sugars · 21g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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In the highlands of Papua New Guinea, the mumu is not just a dish but an event: hot stones layered in a pit with banana leaves, then a whole community's worth of kaukau, greens, pork, and coconut steaming together for hours. It marks feasts, funerals, and celebrations across the country.
This home version keeps the spirit and the layering while trading the earth pit for an oven. Sweet potato, onion, corn, and leafy greens are stacked in banana leaves, doused with , sealed tight, and baked so the trapped steam does the cooking, just as the hot stones once did.
The result is soft, sweet, and fragrant with coconut, food built for sharing rather than plating. The mumu is bound up with reciprocity and belonging in Melanesian life, and even a scaled-down oven version carries an echo of that communal table.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy- and egg-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 5
2 lbs kaukau (sweet potatoes), thick slices
1 lb pork belly, sliced
1 lb , thick slices
2 green or cooking bananas
4 cups hearty greens (aibika, pumpkin tips, spinach, or chard)
14 oz can
1 onion, sliced
2-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced
enough to line the pit banana leaves (or parchment and foil)
1.5 tsp salt
Instructions
1
Line a deep roasting pan with softened banana leaves, letting them overhang the sides.
2
Layer the fillings in the traditional order: the root crops first (sweet potato, taro, plantain), then the pork (or tofu), then onion and ginger, and the greens last on top.
✎ Chef’s note
The order is not arbitrary. Roots and starches go at the bottom where the heat is fiercest, the meat above them, and the delicate greens on top where they only steam.
3
Season each layer with salt as you go, then pour the coconut milk over everything.
4
Fold the overhanging leaves over the top and cover the pan tightly with foil to trap the steam.
✎ Chef’s note
A tight seal is everything here. This oven method mimics the earth oven (mumu), where trapped steam from hot stones cooks everything slowly and evenly.
5
Bake at 350F (175C) for 75 minutes, until the sweet potato is tender and the pork cooked through.
6
Open the leaf parcel at the table and serve straight from the leaves.
PNG Highlands feast cooking, oven-adapted.
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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
Roasted Kaukau with CoconutKaukau (sweet potato) roasted in the embers and eaten with fresh grated coconut, an everyday Papua New Guinean breakfast.
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, Steamer.
Storing it: Keeps 2 to 3 days refrigerated. Resteam or warm through gently to serve.
Make it a Papua New Guinea meal
Papua New Guinea Highland CoffeeDrink
Dia (Sago and Banana in Coconut Cream)Dessert
Aibika with Tinned FishLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables)?
Sweet potato, greens, corn, and coconut milk steamed in banana leaves, an oven-friendly take on the mumu feast.
Where does Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) come from?
Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) is a Papua New Guinean dish from Highlands, Papua New Guinea.
Can Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) 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 Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) 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 Highlands Mumu (Earth-Oven Vegetables) take to make?
About 100 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 75 minutes cooking), serving 5.
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