Oceania → Papua New Guinea → Highlands
🍰 DESSERT
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.
Papua New Guinean · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 20 min
~688 cal · 3g protein · 114g carbs · 27g fat · 4g fiber · 18g sugars · 24g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Saksak is Papua New Guinea's everyday pudding, built on , the starch pounded and washed from the pith of the palm; it is a staple across the country's lowlands and river deltas. Dried into pearls or flour, it becomes the base for one of the islands' few sweet dishes.
The method is simple and forgiving: is soaked and cooked until it turns clear and jelly-like, then folded with ripe banana and plenty of . Some cooks add a knob of the local sugar; the ripe banana usually carries most of the sweetness on its own.
It appears at gatherings and family Sunday meals, set in a dish and cut into wobbly slices, or served warm and loose in a bowl. Like much island cooking, it is really a celebration of two ingredients that grow everywhere: and the coconut.
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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 6
- 3 cups ground (or tapioca/ flour)
- 4 ripe bananas, mashed
- to wrap banana leaves, softened over a flameHard to find? baking parchment inside a layer of foil - it will hold the parcel together and steam it just as well; what you lose is the faint grassy scent the leaf gives the food, which is not nothing but is not the structure either. Frozen banana leaves keep for months and are stocked by most Asian and Caribbean grocers
- 2 cups
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
- 1Mix the ground sago thoroughly with the mashed ripe banana into a stiff, sticky dough.
- 2Pass the banana leaves briefly over a flame to soften them, cut them into rectangles, and wrap portions of the sago mixture into neat parcels.✎ Chef’s noteIf you cannot get banana leaves, foil will do, though you lose the faint grassy scent the leaf gives. Stir the whole time. Sago sinks and clumps on the bottom of the pot the moment you leave it alone.
- 3Boil the wrapped parcels for about 20 minutes, then lift them out and unwrap them.
- 4Bring the coconut cream to a boil with the sugar and salt, slip the cooked sago into it, and simmer another 20 minutes so it drinks the cream in.
- 5Serve warm in the coconut cream, or let it cool and firm up and cut into slices.
Papua New Guinean village cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Highlands. Coffee is the highland cash crop and it is grown at household scale: arabica planted in garden plots under shade, picked by hand, and processed at communal wet mills, with smallholders accounting for the overwhelming majority of the national crop. Sweet potato does the daily feeding, and it is a relatively recent arrival that made settlement at these altitudes possible.
🗺️
Papua New Guinea. The lowlands and the highlands eat differently. Along the Sepik and the Fly delta the staple is sago, starch washed out of the pith of a felled palm, a job split by gender with men cutting and crushing and women extracting, then cooked into a stiff jelly eaten almost daily. The highlands, higher and cooler, live on sweet potato.
🌍
Oceania. The twentieth century changed the Pacific plate faster than anything before it. White rice, tinned corned beef, mutton flaps, flour and sugar arrived by ship and are now entirely everyday, and the public health consequences are among the most closely studied anywhere. Alongside that, Australian and New Zealand kitchens have taken up Asian technique and Maori and Pasifika cooking in a way they had not before.
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.
Roasted Kaukau with CoconutKaukau (sweet potato) roasted in the embers and eaten with fresh grated coconut, an everyday Papua New Guinean breakfast.
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
Storing it: Uncooked parcels freeze well and cook from frozen. Cooked ones keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and steam or pan-warm to serve.
Make it a Papua New Guinea meal
Aigir (Tolai Coconut Chicken)Dinner
Papua New Guinea Highland CoffeeDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is 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.
Where does Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) come from?
Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) is a Papua New Guinean dish from Highlands, Papua New Guinea.
Can Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) 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 Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) 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 Saksak (Sago and Banana Dumplings) take to make?
About 35 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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