Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Thiakry
Sweetened steamed millet couscous folded through vanilla yogurt and cream with raisins, a cool West African pudding.
Senegalese · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 20 min
~545 cal · 14g protein · 101g carbs · 11g fat · 3g fiber · 59g sugars · 6g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Thiakry (also degue) is a sweet pudding across Senegal and West Africa, a cool, creamy dessert built on the region's staple grain, . Refreshing and easy to love, it is served at celebrations, family meals, and as an everyday treat.
Fine is steamed until tender, then folded through a sweetened mixture of yogurt and sour cream or evaporated milk, perfumed with vanilla and nutmeg and studded with raisins. Served well chilled, its combination of tender grain and cool, tangy cream is deeply refreshing in the West African heat, at once a dessert and a snack.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, 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 6
2 cups fine
2 cups plain yogurt
1 cup sour cream or evaporated milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp each vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon
1/2 tsp
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup raisins
Instructions
1
Steam the millet couscous until tender, fluff it with a fork to keep the grains separate, stir in the raisins and a knob of butter, and let it cool completely.
✎ Chef’s note
Stir it now and then as it cools. Millet clumps as it sits, and lumps that go into the cream will not break up afterwards.
2
Whisk the yogurt and sour cream with the condensed milk, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and orange blossom water until smooth and creamy.
3
Fold the cooled couscous through the sweet cream, breaking up any clumps so the grains are evenly distributed.
✎ Chef’s note
Cool the couscous fully before it meets the cream, or the warmth splits the yogurt. Leave the mixture looser than you want to eat it: the millet keeps drinking liquid in the fridge and it will thicken noticeably. If it goes too far, let it down with more milk.
4
Chill at least 2 hours and serve cold, topped with fruit or chopped nuts.
✎ Chef’s note
The same dish travels under many names across West Africa: degue, cabissé, thiakiri, chakri.
Senegalese and West African 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.
🌍
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: Steamer, Whisk.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Senegal meal
Thieboudienne (Senegalese Fish & Rice)Dinner
BissapDrink
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Vegetarian Desserts from Around the World
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Frequently asked questions
What is Thiakry?
Sweetened steamed millet couscous folded through vanilla yogurt and cream with raisins, a cool West African pudding.
Where does Thiakry come from?
Thiakry is a Senegalese dish from Dakar, Senegal.
Can Thiakry be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Thiakry 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 Thiakry 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 Thiakry take to make?
About 40 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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