🍢 SNACK
Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions)
Lamb seasoned and grilled over hot coals until charred, chopped into pieces and served on paper with soft mustard onions and bread, the way the dibiteries of Dakar do it.
Senegalese · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 30 min · plus 1 h hands-off time
~676 cal · 46g protein · 28g carbs · 41g fat · 2g fiber · 5g sugars · 14g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Dibi is grilled lamb, and in Senegal it has its own kind of restaurant, the dibiterie, a small grill house or street-side stall where lamb is cooked over wood or charcoal and sold by weight. The word comes from Soninke, where it means grilled meat, and the dish is shared with Mali and the Gambia. Many of the dibiteries of Dakar are run by Hausa families, but the meal itself, lamb with onions, mustard and bread, is thoroughly Senegalese.
The meat is kept simple: lamb chops or pieces rubbed with salt, pepper and a little oil or mustard, grilled until browned and smoky, then chopped on the board and served on paper to catch the juices. Beside it comes a heap of onions cooked soft with mustard, or plain raw onion, and more mustard and hot pepper on the side, with a baguette to pull it all together.
It is evening food, eaten with the fingers with friends late into the night. In the Gambia and Guinea the same plate is called afra.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally nut-, egg-, dairy- 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
- 1 kg (2 lb) lamb chops or boneless lamb shoulder, cut into large pieces
- 4 tbsp yellow mustard, divided
- 3 cloves garlic, grated
- 1 cube, crushed
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 5 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
- 3 medium onions, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar
- 3 to 4 tbsp water
- a little chili powder or dried chili flakes, to serve
- 1 baguette, to serve
Instructions
- 1Rub the lamb with 1 tbsp of the mustard, the garlic, the crushed stock cube, the pepper, the salt and 1 tbsp of the oil. Cover and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight.✎ Chef’s noteDakar grill men often season with nothing more than salt, pepper and a little oil, so if you are short of time a quick salting just before grilling is honest too.
- 2For the onions, warm the remaining 4 tbsp oil in a heavy saucepan, add the onions and the remaining 3 tbsp mustard and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, for 10 to 15 minutes until soft and lightly browned. Stir in the lemon juice or vinegar and enough water to make a loose, spoonable sauce, season with salt and keep warm.
- 3Light a charcoal or wood fire and let it burn down to hot, glowing coals, or heat a grill pan until smoking. Grill the lamb for 6 to 8 minutes a side, turning a few times, until well browned and charred at the edges and cooked to your liking.✎ Chef’s noteChops cook fastest. Larger shoulder pieces take longer; if they colour before they are done, move them to the cooler side of the grill to finish.
- 4Rest the meat for a few minutes, then chop it into bite-sized pieces on a board, bones and all, and pile it onto paper or a platter.
- 5Spoon the mustard onions beside the meat, sprinkle with a little chili and serve at once with torn baguette, eating with your fingers.
Dakar dibiterie tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Dakar. The dish reigns here but did not begin here. Ceebu jen is traced to Saint-Louis up the coast and popularly credited to a nineteenth-century cook, Penda Mbaye, who is said to have switched to broken rice during a shortage; that broken rice was imported from French Indochina, which makes the national dish a colonial-trade product. UNESCO inscribed it in December 2021.
🗺️
Senegal. Senegal's Atlantic coast gave the world thieboudienne, the national dish of fish, broken rice, and vegetables in a rich tomato base. Rooted in the value of teranga (hospitality), Senegalese cooking leans on yassa's onion-and-lime tang, groundnut stews, and hibiscus and baobab drinks.
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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 Senegal
Thieboudienne (Senegalese Fish & Rice)Senegal’s national dish: herb-stuffed fish braised with vegetables over deeply tomato-stained broken rice.
Poulet YassaChicken smothered in a mountain of lemon-and-mustard onions, grilled then braised, Casamance’s gift to West Africa.
FondéA comforting Senegalese millet porridge cooked with milk, sugar, and a hint of orange-flower or nutmeg.
Browse all Senegal recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Grill or barbecue.
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 Senegal meal
BissapDrink
Ngalakh (Baobab & Peanut Millet Cream)Dessert
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions)?
Lamb seasoned and grilled over hot coals until charred, chopped into pieces and served on paper with soft mustard onions and bread, the way the dibiteries of Dakar do it.
Where does Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) come from?
Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) is a Senegalese dish from Dakar, Senegal.
Can Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) 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 Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) 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 Dibi (Senegalese Grilled Lamb with Mustard Onions) take to make?
About 1 h 50 min in all: 20 minutes prep and 30 minutes cooking, plus 1 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.
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